The Colorado Republican Party is at its lowest point in memory. As all statewide offices are held by Democrats, the General Assembly is solid blue, and only three Republicans represent Colorado in Congress, the GOP is down for the count – and at a crossroads.

With new state party leadership promising an “aggressive approach” putting “Democrats on defense,” the GOP must seriously consider its path forward. Pushing back against the Democrats’ far-left agenda is critical – from the assault on our constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms to trampling parents’ fundamental right to oversee their child’s education and mental health to the economic bludgeoning through fees and regulatory overreach.

Yet it seems likely this “aggressive approach” may entail ostracizing fellow Republicans who aren’t, shall we say, “pure enough.” In fact, “purity tests” and “factions” have enveloped the Colorado GOP for years. To segments of the party, if you don’t meet a very specific purity mold, you are a “Republican in Name Only” (RINO) – or worse.

Over the past decade, Colorado Republicans have fallen prey to what James Madison called “the violence of factions.” Last Thursday, March 16, was Liberty Day – the birthday of America’s fourth president, in 1751, who has long been dubbed the “Father of the Constitution.”

In Madison’s “Federalist No. 10,” he warned of the problem of factions – “a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”

Factions, Madison stressed, are inherent to free societies: “Liberty is to faction what air is to fire.” No government can remove the causes of factions, he contended – but it can, and must, at least control their effects.

“The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for (factions’) character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice,” Madison wrote, warning of “the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.”

Factions tug a society, a government or an organization apart at the seams, rendering them incapable of accomplishing their original, intended objectives – or, at worst, can lead to literal violence.

“So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts,” Madison explained.

Let’s be real: No institution in Colorado is more factionalized than the Colorado Republican Party – a problem that has metastasized, unabated. Truthfully, it’s no wonder how Republicans are so far behind Democrats in 2023.

In the 2010s, the Tea Party movement sought to advance a conservative ideological agenda rooted in principles of limited government and free markets. Like the Republican Party at its inception, the Tea Party was centered on specific issues but had broader, ideological appeal. It reflected a healthier push for a rebirth of admiration for the Constitution and the conservative principles the party has long been steeped in.

During the 2016 presidential cycle, the GOP’s purity test became centered on personalities and single-issue subjects. Opposition to Donald Trump was the first test: Colorado Republicans were largely, vehemently opposed to Trump, as embodied in shenanigans at the Republican National Convention (where I was an alternate delegate). Subsequent to Trump’s victory and inauguration, Colorado Republicans’ antipathy toward Trump subsided.

Later, the purity test shifted to pro-Trump/MAGA attitudes, then the false idea that the 2020 election was stolen (including in Colorado, where Joe Biden won by nearly 14% and Jared Polis won by 19%). Now, well – I’m not quite sure what the test is. In recent months, talk about RINOs has reached a fever pitch. Declarations of “traitor” aren’t uncommon.

Unlike the Tea Party, today’s litmus tests are whether someone is sufficiently MAGA, overly RINO or whatever the latest “grenade word” is. Such narrow criteria undermine Republicans’ ability to dig out of their predicament. This is about more than just Democratic candidates winning more votes: if Republicans cannot hang together, to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, they will hang separately – unable to bring requisite unaffiliated voters into the fold.

These are the political realities. If the Colorado GOP will not accept them  – choosing instead to insist victory was merely “stolen” from them and that the party’s “brand” is just fine – then they cannot take the necessary steps to make inroads. The party will become irrevocably immersed in the factional squabbles Madison warned about. An “aggressive approach” will be rendered futile – subsumed by subjective, my-way-or-the-highway purity tests.

Last Thursday, while I discussed this subject on 710KNUS radio, a listener observed, “Democrats take incremental wins. They inch closer and closer to their goals, no matter how many years it takes. Republicans have been all or nothing.”

This is spot-on: In 2004, Polis and a few other wealthy Democrats hatched “The Blueprint.” Now, nearly 20 years later, their Blueprint has reached critical mass. After playing the long game, Democrats have full control of Colorado.

Will Republicans accept that they must play the long game, not just short-run politics? Or will the GOP continue to succumb to short-term “mischiefs of faction?” What is the party that claims the mantle of the Constitution to do but heed the words and warnings of the Constitution’s framers?

Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and host of “The Jimmy Sengenberger Show” Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. on News/Talk 710 KNUS. Reach Jimmy online at JimmySengenberger.com or on Twitter @SengCenter.