May 21, 2020 09:31 AM UTC

Delta County Commish Hopes There's No Violence, But...

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• by: Colorado Pols

Here’s a video we were forwarded of Delta County Commissioner Don Suppes, who readers east of the Divide probably remember better a fierce Republican opponent to now-Sen. Kerry Donovan from her tough SD-5 election in 2014. Suppes, speaking at a “Reopen Colorado” rally Saturday along with Rep. Matt Soper and other local GOP luminaries, railed against Gov. Jared Polis and called on supporters to “put pressure” on the state government–saying he “prays to God” that “we can get this resolved without getting violent.”

The implied threat in these words is of course very clear. Affecting disdain for violence and then immediately offering sympathetic justifications for that violence is tantamount to threatening violence. Suppes knows this, and his open-carrying audience last weekend knew it too. When the press comes calling, this tacit understanding is strenuously denied even though all parties know what’s going on. It’s a game as old as closeted racism itself.

Apropos on the subject of racism, in 2014 now-Commissioner Suppes was hit with revelations of racist social media activity–for which he concocted an elaborate “rogue staffer” defense that was a bit too convoluted to believe. The incident contributed with other scandals to Suppes’ narrow loss to Donovan that year. Suppes’ political brand is all about this kind of shock-jock conservatism, so it can’t be considered out of character.

Gov. Polis has got a nice state here, and we too hope nothing bad happens to it.