Today is the last full day of the Trump presidency. For some that is a cause to rejoice (and it certainly gets a big huzzah from me). For others, it is a terrible thing fraught with perceived dangers to liberty. I, on the other hand, am looking forward to a return to hopefully quieter and calmer times. Simply put, I am looking forward to a boring Joe Biden presidency.

Trump’s presidency has always been built on a house of cards, perched on a foundation of sand, balanced on a teeter totter of overused metaphors. Recall please that Trump took the word of Putin over the unanimous verdict of his own intelligence agencies regarding Russian election interference. Recall as well that Trump has uttered over 30,000 documented lies, hitting an astounding 50 or more lies per day in the final weeks of the campaign.

And so, it is my sincere hope that with the departure of the most unfit occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, we can get back to, well, honesty with a touch of dignity tossed in. And there are at least some hopeful signs.

As you know, Trump continues to maintain that he actually won the 2020 election in a landslide (ironically, his lie might have been easier for some to take if he had only claimed to have won the swing states in a squeaker, but his ego would not allow for that). While over 60 courts have rejected his claims, often by judges he himself appointed, Trump continues to shout the lie of victory. But it is very interesting that, when actually in those courts and under oath, Trump’s lawyers do not, in fact, claim fraud. That great liberal news organization, the Wall Street Journal, documented several examples of Trump’s legal team, when facing actual consequences if they lied in court, backing away from the claims of a stolen election.

A couple of recent Colorado Politics stories help further explain the decrease in nonsensical noise we are seeing from Team Trump. You may recall that quite a few Trumpian folks were quite vocal about their claim that voting machines made by the Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems company had magically changed votes from Trump to Biden. Not surprisingly, given the complete absence of any real evidence to support that claim, the Dominion company lawyered up to protect their business. They sued Sidney Powell, the on-again/off-again Trump lawyer, and sent letters threatening lawsuits for defamation against several news outlets that spuriously “reported” on the alleged fraud as fact. Well, it turns out that lying, at least for some, has consequences, as a recent CP story pointed out. 

Dominion can now add American Thinker as the latest conservative “news outlet” that fully caved and retracted their claims of voter fraud via the Dominion machines. They have now posted an apology and full retraction on their website, stating, “It was wrong for us to publish these false statements. We apologize to Dominion for all of the harm this caused them and their employees. We also apologize to our readers for abandoning 9 journalistic principles and misrepresenting Dominion’s track record and its limited role in tabulating votes for the November 2020 election. We regret this grave error.” 

With this apology for fake news, American Thinker can be added to the list of “news organizations” that have been forced to withdraw false claims regarding Dominion. That list includes Fox News, One American News Network, and Newsmax, which have all walked back their bogus claims.

And that, of course, brings me to the lovely town of Parker, Colorado.

I have had the privilege of officiating quite a few football games in Parker. The people have been genuinely nice and the kids playing the games have usually been very respectful. And the mayor of that picturesque community is a gentleman named Jeff Toborg. Now Mayor Toborg and I likely disagree on a great many things, as he identifies himself as a strong conservative and has been a loyal Trumper. But as was reported in a CP story, Toborg recently demonstrated something all-too-often missing from Trump loyalist – a conscience. 

It seems the Mayor wants everyone to know he made a bunch of mistakes that he regrets, when he followed Trump down the rabbit hole of election fraud that has captured so many of that ilk. On social media, Toborg embraced Q-Anon and was an anti-vaxxer and a conspiracy theorist. He mocked the COVID vaccine and even asserted that those who attacked the Capitol were actually a bunch of left wingers on a false flag operation (I find it both amusing and ironic that so many of those Trumpers arrested there have declared their outrage at being labeled as Antifa. They proudly and insistently assert their MAGA pedigree).

But unlike so many, Mayor Toborg (admittedly after quite a bit of blowback) came to his senses and realized he had been misled. He then demonstrated a quite admirable personality trait – he accepted responsibility for his actions, and he apologized. He said, “You know, I made a mistake. I’m owning it. I’m owning it left and right.”

I passionately hope that Mayor Toborg’s example will be the model for Trumpers going forward. If that turns out to be the case, there is hope for more unity, even as we differ on policy choices. But I fear that Toborg may prove to be the exception to the norm for Team Trump. Even as their own leaders walk back their false claims, far too many still shout about stopping the “steal” and stockpile ammo. I call on Toborg and others with common sense to speak out loudly and forcefully. Then, perhaps, we can be a bit more hopeful about the future.