Letter to the Editor: Stinging defeat is just what the GOP needs

This letter is being composed on Election Day. The ballot boxes are still open; no ballots have yet been counted.

However, this life-long Republican has committed the ultimate act of rebellion. My votes have typically been on the GOP side of the ballot since my first experience at the polls back in the 1960s. I confess that I missed the 1968 election for Richard Nixon; the absentee ballot did not make it to me in the Mekong Delta.

But this year I’m looking closely at both sides of the ballot. I’ve even voted for a few independent candidates, such as Greg Lopez, who I believe is the best candidate for the office of governor of the state of Colorado. Most of my votes this season have been for constitutional Republicans — not a MAGA among them. 

And I even voted for a Democrat or two.

I believe that Donald Trump’s second-term chaos and big-government authoritarianism makes him “a greater threat to my conservative values and policy preferences than any Democrat.” But the MAGA-fied Republican Party is not going to fix itself until it is severely punished by voters. 

I still do not agree with my Democrat friends on most issues, but what terrible un-conservative things could Democrats do?

• Start another forever war in the Middle East?

• Murder over 150 Iranian girls in their sleep, just because we handicapped our intel system so it did not realize that building was a school dormitory, rather than a military target?

• Begin to socialize our industries with government ownership? 

• Raise the national debt to over $40 trillion? 

• Destroy our international markets for corn and soybeans?

• Increase the cost of groceries, gasoline and diesel fuel? 

• Start building monuments to themselves all across the capital? 

• Buddy up to communists like Chinese President Xi Jinping?

• Throw all our best allies in North America, Europe and Asia under the bus, while befriending Russia?

Will not today’s elections demonstrate that American farmers and ranchers would prefer a fair tariff-free international market for their livestock as well as their corn and soybeans, rather than checks from the federal government?

Yes, it will take more than this one election to restore the GOP as “the party of Lincoln and Reagan.” But I predict that a stinging defeat today in an honest election will be a great start.

Rich Crawford, Arvada, Colo., former resident of BV County