It is very, very tempting to write column after column trying to help people understand what a true clear and present danger Donald Trump is to the United States. And given the respect the United States military has had with the American people, the recent attacks by the very 4-star generals that Trump picked back in 2016, as the very best out there, should shatter the former president’s support.

Retired Marine Corps 4-star General John Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, has gone on record, and on tape, stating Trump is profoundly dangerous and is a fascist who will turn (or will try to turn) the U.S. military against the American people. The statements about Trump’s fondness for Adolf Hitler (I can’t believe I need to type these words) and Hitler’s generals are appalling and horrifying.

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Former Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley said Trump is “fascist to the core.” And it goes on. Heck, as a mere retired lieutenant colonel, I look back on my first military tour as a “finger-on-the-button” guy in the ICBM world. I stood nuclear alert under President Ronald Reagan, a man I disagreed with on many things, bu I never worried he’d order a nuclear launch because some other world leader made fun of him.

Under Trump, were I sitting alert, I would honestly wonder if the order came to “turn keys” if the nuclear missiles I was launching were aimed at actual enemies or at world leaders who mocked our increasingly feeble and cognitively declining GOP nominee. And the list of military officers horrified at the thought of a second Trump term is massive. Those honorable flag officers (generals and admirals) are tossed to the side and convicted felons (and true Trump fanatical acolytes) like convicted felon General Michael Flynn will start to run the retribution machine at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (and remember, under U.S. law, the accepting of a pardon is an admission of guilt).

And yet, with all this going on, and even at the state level (I really do think the “Vote yes on 131” crowd has been quite dishonest in their advertising), the good news is the actual machinery of government continues to function in the shadow of the ongoing campaigns. For example, a recent news release from our lieutenant governor’s office. You remember we have a lieutenant governor, right? She is Dianne Primavera, and she is quite busy. Recently she attended an event at the Boulder Mod Factory Ribbon Cutting ceremony.

Primavera talked about the need for entry-level housing in Colorado and drew attention to how the Polis-Primavera administration was helping that process along, much as Vice President Kamala Harris has a plan to build 3 million new entry-level homes, while Trump will be, I guess, freeing up homes by having the military seize people who live there?

The Boulder Mod people will produce roughly 50 homes per year once they reach full capacity, and this is possible because back in 2022 Polis signed a bill that created an innovative housing incentive program.

One of the age-old criticisms of the press is it is far easier to cover a horse race than a policy issue. And horse races matter, as is obviously true based on my comments on Trump above. But those horse races are not the only thing going on, and the job of a good media consumer (that’s you, my dear readers) is to read often and widely. I’ve quoted the 1930 journalist Walter Winchell before, who said “the job of a free press is to inform, not that it will do so perfectly at any one time or from any one source.”

You need to read Colorado Politics and the New York Times. If you find yourself only watching Fox News, you are being profoundly misinformed by an organization, you will recall, that had to pay more than three-fourths of a billion dollars to Dominion Voting Services for telling known lies about supposed (and nonexistent) “flaws” in how those machines counted votes.

Frankly, I’m left with two conclusions. First, I honestly cannot understand how any American can support Trump. His supporters must either believe every single woman lied about his sexual assaults, and that every single business he never paid (to include towns he just campaigned in for their additional police costs) is lying. Heck, I’ve mentioned before I was fortunate enough to be a friend of John Denver. And years back, long before a Trump presidency, one of John’s business people told me JD had given a private concert (as many musicians do) for a private Trump group. Of all such gigs JD did, the only person who never paid a penny of the tens of thousands he owed John was Trump.

That’s the kind of guy he is. Plus, he liked Hitler, and his own generals think he is dangerous.

How can Kamala not be 50 points ahead? There are lots of reasons but know that as all that bluster and outgassing is happening at the national level, our state government keeps plugging along. Trump will keep bellowing, but quite a few Colorado families will find their first homes in the near future, and that’s a good thing. It’s a strange political world out there.

Only two more weeks folks!

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.