Way back in the early 1980s, I arrived at my first Air Force assignment as an ICBM launch officer – the “finger on the button” guys – at F.E. Warren Air Force Base up in Cheyenne. It is a lovely base with a remarkable history, starting off as a cavalry base to protect the transcontinental railroad and ultimately morphing into a modern missile facility. Happily, the old brick buildings were preserved, and the base is a lovely place to visit. Oh, and one of the missile control sites where I often sat nuclear alert has been turned into a state park, and you can visit what was once one of the more top-secret facilities of the U.S. military.

When my late first wife and I registered to vote in Wyoming, the clerk joked that we were raising the number of registered Democrats in the state by a third. I laughed, and it wasn’t quite that bad, but the Republican Party of Wyoming was then a traditional “small government” organization, as one might expect. When the Air Force moved me to Colorado, to teach political science at the Air Force Academy, I assumed I would find a similar GOP here, and I did, for a while. But recently, things got strange…

After my 2006 retirement from active duty, I dipped my toes into Democratic politics here in the Centennial State. By 2008, I was running for Congress in the Colorado Springs area, a solidly Republican bulwark. I ran against, and lost to, U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who like many in the GOP then, seemed to be a traditional, fiscally conservative and limited-government conservative. I can respect that, even as I disagree on policies and tactics. In fact, in my election night call to Lamborn to congratulate him on his win, I told him that while we had different ideas about how to reach our national goals, we agreed on what we wanted our nation to be – a free and secure nation in which a person’s abilities and hard work were the only limiting factors on success. Ideals, of course, and worthy ones.

Which brings me to the Colorado GOP of today. What the heck happened?  

Well, if there is one thing that I’m sure the Colorado Republicans want, it’s unsolicited advice from a lifelong Democrat, right?

Today our state’s Republican Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump, Inc. They fully embrace a man whose “university” settled no less than three different fraud lawsuits for millions, paid hush money to a porn star, and, well, you know there’s lots more. A traditional Colorado GOP would never have let such behaviors pass in a Democrat, and I’d hope that they would have indicated at least a bit of revulsion at Mr. Trump’s antics, but no.

We know that nationally the GOP has become the Party of Trump, but I held out hope that our own GOP here in Colorado would be more thoughtful. Look at the words of Ken Buck in his 2010 run against U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, or to what Cory Gardner said when he ran his successful campaign against Mark Udall in 2014. Both men mostly toed a traditional GOP line and while one might agree or disagree on politics, it was possible to respect both gents personally.

Now, however, we find ourselves with state GOP leadership (Ken Buck is the state chair) that sees both Buck and Gardner, and the GOP machine in Colorado, warmly embracing a man who called a free and open press an enemy of the people. Why?

Well, both men want to keep their jobs. Buck is likely quite safe in his mostly red district, so he could distance himself from the worst of Trump’s comments, though I see no evidence that he has. Gardner finds himself as the most endangered incumbent Republican senator in the upcoming election, and so his behavior seems far riskier politically. Trump’s base is known for its fierce loyalty to Trump, and its willingness to punish anyone who dares question Trump, even as he suggests that injecting bleach might be a good idea. Gardner is making the perilous choice to cleave onto that core of roughly 38-43% of voters who will never abandon Trump. 

But that political calculation may prove fatal in a state like Colorado, with roughly a third of the electorate claiming Democratic, Republican, and independent status. The farther Gardner goes to grab onto Trump’s coattails, the more he risks losing support from independents. And without support from those folks, Gardner will lose.

We can’t yet know whether Trumpism is a permanent shift in the GOP, or merely a blip in the history of a once-honorable political organization. Cory Gardner is the canary in the coal mine for the Republicans. If embracing a guy who once sold bad steaks and ties made in China works, we may be seeing a realignment in what the Republicans stand for. If not, the party may well abandon whatever “belief system” Trump espouses at the moment, and return to being the party of George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, and Bill Owens. If they want to win state-wide, the GOP would be wise to make that shift back as soon as possible.

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.