As you may know, if you are of a certain age and musical temperament, my old friend John Denver had a song called “I Guess He’d Rather Be In Colorado.” It’s a sad song, about a guy who lives in New York City and longs for the open spaces, mountains and vistas of our state.

Today, I embrace that lyric for all the reasons in the song plus the fact our nation took what to me is an inexplicable turn to the hard right. The good people of Colorado, for the most part, happily rejected hate, greed and pettiness.

As noted in Ernest Luning’s excellent story in Colorado Politics, there are important takeaways in the results of 2024, and for the most part, those results suggest Colorado voters remain moderate and thoughtful.

There are exceptions of course, such as how a deeply embarrassing member of our congressional delegation could run from her home district, where she would likely lose, and carpetbag to another GOP-heavy district, where an honorable Republican was retiring in disgust. U.S. Rep. Ken Buck’s departure in CD-4 was as principled as current CD-3 U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert’s moving to the district was not. I’m a tad surprised the heavily GOP district did not select an actual CD-4 person as their candidate, rather than the carpetbagger.

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I remember after my own congressional loss back in 2008, I got a call from then-Gov. Bill Ritter, who thanked me for running and stated his belief I would have won had I run in any other district in the state. But, of course, I lived in Colorado Springs, and it never occurred to me to flee to an easier district, but I digress.

Though nationally I remained, well, stunned, President-elect Donald Trump was able to convince so many Americans his many, many criminal issues, business failures, acts of adultery, scam businesses, sexual assault charges, classified document mishandling or other criminal acts just don’t matter. When a candidate is not bound by telling the truth, he can craft a story that doesn’t reflect reality, and when he has an entire news organization (and countless podcasts) set to do his bidding, apparently a new reality can be created. The fact inflation is actually way down, wages are up and the economy is currently performing at a wonderful pace means nothing, when Trump can simply declare those things are not, in fact, happening. Truth matters little.

I have a friend of a Facebook friend whose roommate voted for Trump because, as a waiter, he likes the promise to make tips non-taxable. That young man is in for a surprise when the restaurant owner likely cuts his base wage due to the “new income.” And when that young man wants to buy, say, a new pair of shoes, pants, or other imports, he will learn the effect of tariffs, an economic tool so dull and dangerous that outside of highly specific situations, world governments have long rejected them. Even conservative economists are worried, predicting larger budget deficits, weaker growth and higher inflation once the Trump economic policy kicks in.

And should the young waiter’s name not sound “American” enough, he might want to make sure he carries proof of citizenship with him. That’s not ever required in our nation, we are free to come and go as we please and we can’t be stopped by the police without probable cause. But given Trump’s multi-billion-dollar promise to round up 20 million undocumented people, and Trump’s desire for more aggressive policing — to include a return to stop-and-frisk — it might be wise for people with unusual names or whose appearance is more “ethnic” than others might to brace themselves for more “attention” from authorities.

Given the U.S. Senate is now firmly in Republican hands, you should expect U.S. Supreme Court justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to retire, allowing Trump to appoint two additional radical-right and partisan justices, giving him a stunning five of the nine members of the Roberts Court, to say nothing of lower court judges who will now be rubber stamped by the U.S. Senate, often regardless of qualification. Remember the oft reversed and largely incompetent Judge Aileen Cannon did her best to kick the judicial can of Trump’s stolen classified documents down the calendar, and she has now successfully thwarted actual justice in the case. Prepare to see her elevated to the Court of Appeals during the coming Trump term.

As I said, I’m glad to live in Colorado. Not every single state and local issue came out the way I wanted, but most did. Though I personally have never smoked marijuana, nor have I ever been drunk, I did support the sale of retail pot in Colorado Springs. The voters, perhaps confused by wording on the ballot, approved an ordinance to allow recreational sales, but also approved an amendment to the city charter that bans such sales, and the latter would appear to take precedence. I figure if alcohol is sold, taxed and consumed legally, the far-less-dangerous weed and weed products should get the same treatment.

Jan. 20, 2025 will bring a new, if only for four years, time in America. It’s a time with a man who admires dictators (to include Hitler, if his former 4-star chief of staff is to be believed) and who thinks his Supreme Court has given him absolute power to rule as a dictator, unchecked by a GOP legislature and a GOP court system. I can only hope his incompetence and, frankly, his lack of interest in the actual work of governance may mitigate the damage. He loves to watch TV all day, and perhaps he’ll be distracted from rounding up people who, though “illegal,” have been working and paying taxes for years. And when they are all gone, no doubt he’ll figure out who now will perform the jobs the migrants did, from picking our fruit to the many other jobs they toiled at with as much dignity and diligence as possible.

Trump has vowed to go after the broadcast licenses of those news organizations that displease him, and to try to have reporters jailed. My tiny little columns are likely to fall far below the attention he might bring to larger publications, but we’ll see.

In any case, I’m glad to be in Colorado.

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.