individualistic rural areas

Buying Colorado

March 3, 2026 — Pat Bertram

After Jeff died, I moved to California to help take care of my father. He didn’t actually need a lot of help, but he did need someone there to watch over him, so I was able to find a life for myself. During the first three years, I mostly walked. And walked. And walked. Then I discovered dancing, and that became a saving grace for me. (Well, maybe not “grace” since it didn’t make me all that graceful, but I still managed to hold my own, even during performances.)

After my father died, I became nomadic — housesitting, traveling, staying in motels. But always, I ended up back in that desert town because I didn’t know where else to go. Besides, I had friends there, and dancing.

Then came the opportunity to buy a house in a small town in Colorado. I was sad to leave my dance classes and my friends, but I was delighted to leave California. Although the high desert was livable, the politics of the state weren’t. Even if I could have afforded to live there, I would have left out of self-preservation.

I was glad to settle back into Colorado. That is, I was glad until I realized that the Colorado I left wasn’t the same one I returned to. The state had always been moderate, and yet somehow the state had become uber-liberal, as bad if not worse than California, with punitive policies and little representation of the rural areas. I live far from Denver, but that sanctuary city with its insane laws neutralizes the outlying areas even further. Not only do they try to take our water (which makes the building of the conduit from Pueblo out to the Kansas border a boondoggle because there won’t be any water for them to share with us) but they are also taking away the ability for counties to create their own zoning laws. Instead, small towns must adhere to the same unaffordable “affordability” zoning laws that are being put into place in the big cities. A state that once had a tax surplus is now in a sinking hole of debt because of liberal ideologies and the fraudulent misuse of tax dollars. Then there is the bought-and-paid-for governor who’s making his own deals with WHO and Zelensky and anyone else that can further his agenda of separating Colorado from the governance of federal agencies. (Though he still wants federal funds.) All this creates at times an uncomfortable dichotomy between the individualistic rural areas and the collectivistic urban areas.

So how did Colorado come to this when I wasn’t looking? Tons of money from east coast liberals, and maybe even west coast, came flooding in. Most of the money for democratic candidates comes from outside the state, while most of the money for conservative candidates comes from inside the state. Which says to me that the state would have preferred to remain conservative, or at least somewhere in the middle where it had always been. (Today, slightly less than a quarter of registered voters are democrat, another scant quarter is Republican, and slightly more than half are registered as independent or unaffiliated.) Many districts no longer even put forth a republican candidate for any office. They simply can’t match the funds the democrats have at their disposal.

Why the push to buy Colorado? I have no idea, though I guess it was easy in part because so many people from California had moved here. I never understood that, frankly. You move from a cesspool of high taxes and an overreaching government, and you immediately start creating a similar cesspool, but that’s what they did.

Although the politics of Colorado has changed drastically, the feel of the state hasn’t. The air feels like home. The weather, though not always to my liking, is what I was used to growing up.

And I’ve made good friends here, making this small town even homier.

Even though I grew up in Denver, it turns out I’m a small-town girl at heart, though I do wish — silly me — that politically things were different. Still, the machinations of politicians and their backers, and those who espouse extremist policies have always horrified me so I don’t imagine things will be that different. I hope not. And anyway, I’ve managed to survive seven years here, so with any luck, I’ll continue to do okay.