A Jan. 15 headline in The Colorado Sun reads: “Colorado Springs leaders may try recreational pot measure again, claiming voters who approved it were ‘confused.’” Apparently, some city council members are concerned that Ballot Question 300 was “poorly worded and may have misled voters,” and that “confusing language had muddied the issue.”
OK, I’ll bite … as long as we can apply the same standards to other recent contests. Perhaps the Nov. 5 presidential election?
It is beyond dispute that Donald Trump and his surrogates worked tirelessly to muddy the issues and mislead voters. Witness the postelection polls of Trump voters where eye-popping majorities claimed to not know about GOP plans to deport tens of millions of immigrants, or to implement tariffs (i.e., consumer taxes) on all imported goods, or to extend tax cuts and giveaways for the rich and powerful. Or just this week, the fact that Google searches for “oligarchy meaning” spiked dramatically as people struggled to understand what just happened.
After much consideration, the only conclusion I can reach is that American voters were thoroughly and systematically misled and straight-up lied to. Shame on us for not making the effort to find the truth before voting; shame on the mainstream media for normalizing the lies; and most of all, shame on Trump and his allies for deceiving us.
So I say let’s schedule a do-over as soon as possible. And this time we voters promise to work much harder to see through the mud, the deception and the lies.
Tim Schaldach
Durango
