I’ve mentioned before that from time to time I’m asked why I identify as a Democrat rather than as a Republican or independent. I’m a fairly moderate fellow, which often makes me the most conservative person in the room full of my fellow Dems. That’s not to say that I don’t have progressive ideas in many areas (cough…health care…cough) but I also hold views that my more lefty friends find troubling (cough…guns…cough). I’m pragmatic, which I personally think is a good way to approach issues, rather than with a set secular orthodoxy that is impervious to new facts or other ideas.

When I’ve finished being clever (at least I think so), I responded to the question by saying that it takes less hypocrisy to be a Democrat than a Republican. Not zero, but less. Republican hypocrisy is often on display, but yesterday in The Colorado Springs Gazette, the mendaciousness was only a few pages apart.

The lead story on the paper’s front page featured the banner headline “Poll: State GOP voters Back Trump.” The Gazette reported that some 90 percent of Republicans approve of how Mr. Trump is doing his job. Ok, I’m sure he likes to hear that. But if you flip to the front page of the Gazette’s business section, you see another banner headline, which reported “$22 trillion national debt sparks jitters.” Which brings me back to hypocrisy, the character trait I find most offensive in a public servant (or most anyone, frankly).

You may recall, because he boasts of it constantly, that Mr. Trump’s singular legislative accomplishment (and I mean that both ways – his biggest, but also his only legislative success) is a massive tax cut. The GOP claims it is for the “regular folks” in the middle class, but the facts are clear – the largest savings were for the very richest Americans, and the gifts to major corporations included in the tax cut did not, in fact, spur them to hire more Americans and make more stuff, but were largely used in stock market share buybacks. Sigh…

And, we were told, that this tax cut would reduce both the annual deficit (the shortfall between money in and money out in a year) and the debt (the total of all the deficits put together.) On the day he took office, Mr. Trump saw a national debt of $19.95 trillion. Today, a couple years later (years in which the GOP controlled all three branches of government) the GOP proceeded to… wait for it…increase the deficit and the debt. Today, our national debt rings in at $22.01 trillion. The GOP claimed that tax income would rise, and it has, a tiny bit, roughly ½ of 1 percent, but that is likely the amount the government’s income would rise due to a growing economy, regardless of tax cuts.

Remember the old days, when the GOP opposed deficit spending? Remember when President Obama cut taxes on the middle class and raised them on rich people? And do you remember all the Republicans saying Mr. Obama was doing a good thing? Of course not, because when a Democrat was in the White House, deficit spending was bad. Today, it’s the core of Republican national governance – cut taxes and increase spending. Pretty conservative, eh?

So how does the GOP leadership sleep at night. They rely on the aforementioned three A’s of Republican fake news: Anger, Apathy and Amnesia. (I wish I could give proper credit to the original author of the three A’s, but forgive me, I don’t remember who first mentioned them to me. Just know I am not claiming them as an original thought.) First, the GOP leadership barks angry words at the minority Democrats, then they count on their voting base not caring enough about the actual facts to learn the truth, and lastly, they somehow manage to simply forget the policies and words they used under a Democratic president and say the opposite under Mr. Trump.

Colorado’s Cory Gardner is in a very difficult position here. He’s a very smart guy (he’s no Ted Cruz), and I bet he really wants to be re-elected next year. His problem is that while 90 percent of GOP voters love the president, a majority of likely voters in Colorado do not. So, he must tack closely to Mr. Trump to avoid a primary challenge from the hard right, but somehow has to also make the case to independents and other moderates that he doesn’t spend too much time in Mr. Trump’s alternate reality. Facts are, as they say, stubborn things. Overwhelming hypocrisy in the GOP may serve them well at rallies with red hats, but it is not at all clear that the three A’s will work in 2020. Stay tuned…

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.