All politicians have their flaws, but President Donald Trump’s idea that failing to release Tina Peters to federal control — thus undermining Colorado’s prosecutors and judicial system — makes Colorado Gov. Jared Polis a “sleazebag” is laughable. In the exchange between Trump and Polis over Peters, Polis was the mature statesman, standing up for what is right.
And I love that Polis is independent-minded — of course, Colorado shouldn’t turn down potentially millions of dollars for Colorado kids who can afford private school. If Trump’s government wants to send millions in tax credits to the wealthiest families in the state, Polis shouldn’t prevent that money from flowing. It reminds me of when Republicans in conservative states rejected the medicaid expansion, keeping millions of poor families from accessing government-funded health insurance. I mean, one of the actions is certainly more harmful and ethical than the other … but no one should look a gift horse in the mouth, even if the gift is mostly for people who don’t really need it.
But, I would like to pause to point out that Polis did endorse two giant sleazebags on X this week, in a gross, clearly premeditated promotional move.
Polis could have highlighted any number of controversial conservatives who are actually very thoughtful Coloradans.
But Polis didn’t highlight the work of fiscal conservatives like Jake Fogelman and Nash Herman or even the Second Amendment advocacy of Dave Kopel. He scraped the bottom of the barrel to encourage Coloradans to read the work of two men who often say outlandish things to get attention and circle the drain of white supremacy, misogyny and even child pornography to be provocative.
Hannah Metzger from Westword did a deep dive on the two men’s work. And I casually perused both men’s X accounts. I found not a single recent post worth of Polis’ fawning endorsement — “recommend following public intellectuals @RichardHanania and @captgouda24 who are doing actual thinking which is rare these days.” Both men, of course, used Polis ‘ X post to quickly endorse themselves and to grovel before Polis’ equally superior intellect.
So no, Polis is not a sleazebag. He is actually a good man who has done good for this state. But he certainly has odd taste in social media hot-takes.
Consider Richard Hanania’s obsession with trying to make Nick Fuentes look mainstream. He quote-tweeted multiple clips of Fuentes — a morally bankrupt racist who preaches reliably that women are inferior to men and should live their lives in subordination — and tried to explain how Fuentes isn’t as bad as people make him out to be. Most recently, Hanania pulled a clip of Fuentes talking about 17-year-old girl dating one of his 19-year-old friends.
Both Fuentes and Hanania are deliberately muddying the very clear waters on statutory rape. The question of teens mutually dating has already been addressed in almost every state’s statutory rape laws, which include exceptions when the age gap is two or three years or less. Our laws recognize the difference between a 35-year-old raping a 15-year-old who cannot legally consent to sex and a consensual relationship between a recent 19-year-old graduate and a senior in high school. Fuentes and Hanania don’t really want to defend true love between two teens. These grown men want to normalize statutory rape.
“Nick Fuentes attacks another sacred cow of rightoids, which is ‘pedo hunting.’ He’s just got to like Jews and he’ll be the most moderate person in the GOP now.”
That is one strange hot-take for Polis, a Jewish man, to endorse.
Read more: This column was originally published in Sound Off, The Denver Post’s weekly opinion newsletter. Want to sound off on a topic? Tap here to submit a letter to the editor or email your letter to openforum@denverpost.com.