Some years ago, I ran across a tongue-in-cheek rating of historic human achievements. Listed as the most successful “committee report” of all time was the King James translation of the Bible — sufficiently eloquent for Shakespeare to periodically purloin its phrasings. If those borrowings were good enough for the Bard, I feel safe in relying on First Corinthians for, “Socialism, where is thy sting?”

During recent election cycles, Colorado Republicans have mounted a Greek chorus bemoaning Democratic allegiance to the policy ambitions of Antifa, the far left and, brace yourself, scurvy socialists! Perhaps their most paranoid prediction is that Democrats plan to escort Joe Biden directly to a memory care facility following his inauguration in favor of a President Kamala Harris and her sidekick, AOC.

When U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner isn’t actively accusing former Gov. John Hickenlooper of corruptly snatching $2,800 from his state expense account, he urges voters to believe Hick will serve as a zombie foot soldier backing Chuck Schumer’s plan to Sovietize American life. The Republican premise seems to be that Democratic candidates have all been reeled away from the political center and confined in a Xi Jinping re-education program which converts them to socialist robots.

With nearly 50 years’ experience working in the Democratic trenches, I can assure you all the committed Marxists could be stuffed into a VW bug — a caper once popular on college campuses. One of them was Jim Judd, a precinct committeeman in my north Denver House District. Jim had volunteered with the Lincoln Brigade that fought during the Spanish Civil War, purportedly meeting Ernest Hemingway somewhere in Andalusia.

Jim and his comrades failed to dislodge the fascist dictator, Francisco Franco. He was lucky enough to return to Philadelphia where he recuperated from the experience. Jim spent the Second World War building landing craft at the City of Brotherly Love’s Naval Shipyard. Then he moved to Denver, where he designed and installed the Christmas displays each year in the Denver Dry Goods windows facing 16th and California Streets. By 1980 his Marxism had been sufficiently diluted with Scotch to resemble a Bernie Sanders like “democratic socialism.”

Colorado Democrats have not drifted or marched significantly leftward over the past half century. Rather, it’s been Colorado Republicans who have lurched first from center right to far right while kidding themselves they still represented the political center. Some have recently lost their way in the putrid vapors of Q-Anon conspiracy theories. Yes, Democrats defensively rechristened themselves as progressive once Republicans redefined the term liberal as a pejorative. They may now appear farther away — but not from the midpoint of public opinion.

During the ‘60s and ‘70s the Colorado legislature was controlled by majorities of fiscally conservative but socially moderate, even liberal, Republicans. These Rotary Club, Planned Parenthood supporting Presbyterians joined with Denver Democratic state Rep. Dick Lamm to make Colorado among the first states to legislatively guarantee unfettered access to abortions. They also created the Regional Transportation District (RTD), funded open space acquisition programs and approved generous welfare services. None of these Republicans could win a GOP primary today.

There were always reactionary voices on the right. It was the sainted Ronald Reagan, after all, who warned that if Medicare were approved, “You and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.” Running for President in 1980 he failed to raise any further alarm. George W. Bush expanded Medicare to offer prescription coverage — Donald Trump promises to safeguard it.

Campaigning for re-election last week, Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler claimed Democrats would replace Medicare with a government run insurance plan. This echoed TEA Party crowds that flocked to town halls in 2010 opposing Obamacare and demanding that Washington keep its thieving hands off their Medicare. (We certainly wouldn’t want Congress replacing socialized health insurance for seniors with socialized, single-payer coverage for everyone.)

Republicans have lost this argument. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic it is apparent that abandoning a large pool of citizens, denied access to health care, creates a reservoir of disease threatening to each of us. Polling finds 68% of Americans, even a slim 53% majority of Republicans, in support of “Medicare for All.” As Jonathan Chait notes in New York magazine, Republicans “…lack the analytic tools to acknowledge what acceptable social programs look like.”

Closer to home, Colorado voters seem ready to approve the family eave initiative on November’s ballot. This measure may prove an overly bureaucratized and cumbersome creature but better options, including a private marketplace, stalled because of Republican refusal to join in the debate. Once again, COVID-19 has instructed Colorado families it is far safer to require family leave and not need it, than to need it and not have it.