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Pushing back against the Trump administration was on the minds of attendees to a town hall in Durango on Tuesday featuring U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.).
The town hall was hosted in the Fort Lewis College Mainstage Theatre, where attendees presented email confirmations of their RSVPs at the entrance. On the audience’s flanks, police officers stood at exits on either side of the stage. Another group of officers waited in the shade outside the theater.
Bennet began with a short, introductory address in which he said there is much at stake for democracy, the economy and the country, and younger generations are not yet being left with a legacy Americans can be proud of.
He visited and revisited the idea of turning Colorado into an example for all 50 states of how a Democratic Republic succeeds. He said one cannot “drive a stake through Trumpism” without addressing economic disparity.
Questions from the audience were selected at random via a ticket raffle. Residents asked for support for tariffs exemptions, about cuts to Medicaid and Bennet’s recent health care bill, and how to protect public lands – all subjects tied to the Trump administration.
Durango resident Rob Coulter asked Bennet what can be done to get the country back on track.
“We’re going to be in this battle for the rest of our lives,” Bennet said.
He said the economy has become more unfair with every day gone by: Young adults earn less money in real dollars than they would have in 1976; a young adult’s chance of earning more than their parents someday is a coin flip; and health care and education are failing people.
President Donald Trump was presented as a solution to the country’s economic mess, he said, and now democracy and public institutions are “corroding.”
Bennet is angry at Trump and his supporters, he said, but he’s also angry at the national Democratic Party for losing to Trump a second time.
‘It is catastrophic,” he said. “You tell me what the Democrats’ education policy was in the last election. You tell me what the Democrats’ health care policy was. You tell me if Democrats had an immigration policy that made any sense.”
He said the country needs disciplined leaders and strategic people who are willing to double down and protect public institutions.
When one woman asked Bennet, who announced his campaign for governor in Colorado, why he isn’t doubling down in the U.S. Senate, Bennet said he wants to put his skills and experience to use somewhere they will count.
“We need you there,” the woman said, receiving a light applause. “I’m sure you’re tired of the B.S. and the headaches, but that really distresses me.”
Bennet replied his decision was a moral one.
“There’s not a county in our state where people feel confident that their children are going to be able to live in that county,” he said. “There’s not a neighborhood where people feel like their kids are going to be able to afford to buy a house in that neighborhood.”
The problem of people feeling the American dream is out of reach no matter how hard they work is present across the country, he said.
“I want to make sure that wherever I am, I can actually make as much of a difference as I think I can make,” he said.
His background as a U.S. senator, as superintendent of the Denver public school system and in the private sector make for an “unusual set of experiences,” but Colorado is long overdue for conversations about the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, housing, health care, energy and education.
“It’s about being in the fight that you want to be in and making sure we can win that together,” he said.
Responding to a man who asked why not Bennet for the Senate and current Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser for governor, Bennet said the governor’s race isn’t about who best knows Gov. Jared Polis’ appointees, but who best knows Colorado and who will make Colorado a leader.
Bennet said in an interview with The Durango Herald that Polis has been a good governor, but there are many issues he hasn’t fully addressed.
He said the state continues to have a substantial lack of workforce housing that will require collaboration between the public and private sectors, and Bennet’s relationships with county commissioners, mayors and community leaders across the state put him in a position to build coalitions to address housing needs.
Children are graduating from an education system that hasn’t prepared them to earn living wages, and Bennet’s experience as a superintendent and his professional relationships are an asset there too, he said.
cburney@durangoherald.com
