Over the past few months, I’ve often written about the bizarre and convoluted goings on in Colorado Republican Party. Overall, the state GOP has had a hard time of it lately (huzzah!) and hasn’t had any real electoral success in statewide offices for some time. It’s not surprising then, the huddled masses of the Colorado MAGA world were disquieted.

But, of course, that’s not what’s going on. Dave Williams was duly elected to be the state chair some time ago, and his term in that office has not gone smoothly. As reported in Colorado Politics, Williams’ leadership style and decision making were not entirely well received, and he managed to rack up quite a few Republicans who want him out for a variety of reasons. Among other things, Williams is accused of mismanaging Republican state party funds to support his own failed congressional run here in CD-5.

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It’s been a mess, with county chairs objecting to or supporting Williams, who seems to be about as MAGA as MAGA gets. As a result, the outsiders in the state GOP (though they would likely claim they are the true insiders) held a meeting of a chunk of the party’s central committee, and a vote was held to expel Williams. A “new” state party chair was selected, in the form of Eli Bremer. Both sides argued over the legitimacy of the vote, and not surprisingly, it all ended up in the courts.

And as CoPo reported, the judge, in a 21-page opinion, stated the faction that tried to expel Williams didn’t follow the rules, and Williams is the legitimate state chair, and thus ended the soap opera that is today’s Colorado GOP. Happily, at least from my point of view as a former Democratic party county chair, that leaves the state’s Republicans in quite the mess, right before the election, or more correctly, during the election, as lots of mail-in ballots have already been cast, including mine. I assumed the moment I voted, YouTube and all the other social media out there would stop with the political ads, but no such luck, sigh…

But I’m not going to talk about any of that…

Instead, I want someone to explain something about our national race to me. It seems to me to support a certain orange-hued convicted felon, you must have one of two possible mindsets. First, you must (as a consumer of Fox News and worse) simply think every single charge against the man is a lie, that he never actually had any bankruptcies (back in a debate with Hillary Clinton in 2016, she stated he had six, and he said no, he only had four. She is correct, but wow, isn’t even four bankruptcies enough to question a person’s business acumen?), and that dozens of women are putting their names out publicly with false accusations of sexual misconduct, and that easily checked statistics about the economy during his term are all false. Oh, and if this is your point of view, remember Fox agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems more than three-quarter-of-a billion dollars for lying about that company’s voting machines.

So you must believe in the greatest conspiracy in world history (and one in which no one spilled the beans), or…

Second, you just don’t care about Trump’s fundamental and horrid flaws, crimes and love of Putin, because his being president might be better for you personally. Who cares what happens in Ukraine, right?

So, which is it?

The term cognitive dissidence means the ability to hold two or more views simultaneously that disagree with each other. Trump appears to be the master at getting people comfortable with cognitive dissidence. It’s a very dangerous skill indeed.

One area of MAGA cognitive dissidence is in regard to the military. Most Americans, and certainly the MAGA crowd, support military folks. I am regularly thanked for my service by people I believe to be sincere in their respect and appreciation.

And as a proud career officer myself, I have great respect for military leaders such as former Chairman of the JCS, General Mark Milley, who recently called Trump a fascist. And those words just echoed around in social media briefly, changing, it appears, no MAGA minds.

Most stunningly, Trump’s longest-lasting chief of staff (the most senior and important position in the West Wing) Marine Corps General (4-star) John F. Kelly recently went on the record (and that’s very significant) stating Trump would be a very dangerous president, and also called him a fascist. Remember Trump famously declared he would only hire the very best people to work with him. Well, 13 former very senior Trump staffers have gone on record in support of General Kelly and supporting his claim Trump regularly praised Hitler and wished for the kind of generals Hitler had.

So, if you are a Trumper, you have to believe the very most senior military leaders — each handpicked by Trump — to be dishonest and un-American. To be a Trumper, you have to turn your back on men like Mullen and Kelly, with decades of military service and as many stars on their now-retired uniforms as you can get.

To support Trump, you have to be OK with all of that. For me, as a lowly retired Lt Colonel, I cannot be OK with any of it. Next Tuesday, we’ll see how many Americans are OK with fascist leadership. I worry it will be a surprisingly high number.

Stay tuned…

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.