The Geopolitics of Denver

When they start welding the manhole covers in place to deny sewer access, you know that some kind of extravagant dog-and-pony show is coming to town. For Denver, the big attraction will be the Democratic National Convention in August, and this seems like a good time to explain why, politically, Denver is like a pinball caught between the machine’s two bottom flippers. It all has to do with the location, and the pinball flippers are the two neighboring towns.

Twenty miles west of Denver sits a town that is often referred to with tongue in cheek as The People’s Republic of Boulder. To say it is “liberal” is like saying that Washington D.C. is political or Vatican City is religious. The description, while true, is insufficient. Like utopian residents living inside the hole of a donut, surrounded by a growth-inhibiting greenbelt of protected wildlife sanctuary, the left-leaning citizens of Boulder go about their daily lives, listening to NPR, and motoring about in their low-carbon-footprint compact Volvos while avoiding all use of forbidden tobacco products. The Federal Government always keeps a close eye on the citizens lest they betray their insufficient level of patriotism by advocating for peace. And everybody in town knows that the NRA would have fewer members if guns were used to perform abortions.

Democrats, even those with a middle-of-the-road, it-doesn’t-make-any-difference view, will probably feel right at home in Boulder. There’s a semi-socialist comfort to be found in the normal Boulder leftist way of looking at things, and certainly life in this town, for liberals, is vastly superior to what it’s like down the road.

Down the road means Colorado Springs, 70 miles to the south. It’s a place where the citizens really know now to put the “Right” in righteous, and where seldom is heard the discouraging words, “gay marriage.“ Here is to be found an incestuous colony of world headquarters for outfits like The New Life Church, and The Navigators, and Global Harvest, and Focus On The Family, and numerous other para-church think-tanks devoted to the overthrow of evolution and homosexuality and stem-cell research and any other facets of biology which they find offensive. I never get it, that hang up with biology, since nowhere in the Gospels, as far as I can tell, is there anything to say from Jesus on the subject of biology. Nevertheless, the self-righteous biology police are famous for periodically calling a national news conference to announce that they’ve found homosexual traits in yet another animated cartoon character from the make-believe world of kiddie’s television. For me, watching this is more entertaining than Saturday Night Live, but the local citizens tend to keep their TVs glued to the Fox News Channel.

As home to the United States Air Force Academy, NORAD, the missile defense center, and the huge Ft. Carson army base, Colorado Springs is, arguably, the most militaristic city in America. Only a couple-dozen or so sovereign nations on earth have more firepower and military infrastructure than this single Colorado town, so the citizens of Colorado Springs tend to think of themselves as the last great bastion of patriotism and 2nd amendment protection. But deep down, if they’re forced to admit it, they also know that the NRA would have fewer members if guns were used to perform abortions.

Convention Democrats in August, intending to sneak down to Colorado Springs and, perhaps, revel in some pro-war happy-talk, are urged to go incognito. Don’t openly display your convention credentials and remember to dress conservatively (no pun intended).