In the 2022 election, Colorado Republicans and Democrats should do their best to replace Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Rifle. The woman is an embarrassment – to her district and her party.
She is an ineffective representative, offensive to everything Democrats value and a political threat to the GOP. (When the voters tire of her act, which they will, it could cost the Republicans a seat in the narrowly divided House.) Those facts should encourage all involved to be done with her.
Since winning the office in 2020, Boebert has ostensibly represented Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, which includes Durango and much of Western Colorado. But rather than directing her energy toward working on behalf of her district she has focused on what amounts to her extended middle finger. That does not get anything done.
She is best known for her flamboyant embrace of gun rights. Her restaurant, Shooters Grill, features a waitstaff armed with handguns. But gun rights are not threatened, and images of young women with handguns strapped to their hips smacks more of marketing than a defense of the Second Amendment.
Her tenure has also been marked by a nonstop series of offensive statements and acts that are too frequent and too gleefully conducted to be dismissed as gaffes. One of the latest examples is a four-way tiff initiated when Boebert made an anti-Muslim remark about another congresswoman, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. Two other Republicans jumped in, one to criticize and one to defend Boebert.
Omar is at the left end of American politics, one of a group of four women in the House colloquially known as the Squad. As such, she is a legitimate target – if the argument is about her policies or positions. Boebert, however, has taken issue with Omar’s ethnicity and Muslim faith, calling her group the Jihad Squad. She went as far as to “joke” that Omar is a terrorist.
But terrorism is no joking matter. And religion and ethnicity are not valid reasons to criticize, let alone mock, anyone.
More to the point, what is going on here is not governing. Boebert is supposed to be representing the interests of her district. Instead, she has played to a portion of the electorate that seems to see democracy as some sort of circus act.
Boebert won her seat by defeating the incumbent, five-term Congressman Scott Tipton, in the 2020 Republican primary and then besting the Democrats’ candidate in the general election.
Her fall victory can be explained by the fact that the Democrats ran a woman who had been rejected before by the same voters. Her primary win, however, was inexplicable. As a congressman, Tipton was a dependable Republican. He lacked Boebert’s pie-in-the-face entertainment value, but consistently voted with his party and did not make a fool of himself.
Boebert seems to think acting the fool is her job description. And, unless representative government is seen as akin to one of those talk-show screaming matches, Boebert is not representing Western Colorado. Nor does she seem interested in doing so. Enough is enough.
