The ladies’ bridge club looks at the Colorado decision booting Trump from the ballot

The ladies’ faces became ashen as they turned to stare at Lilly. “What did you say?” asked Wanda.

“I said I am feeling really anxious today,” replied Lilly.

“Yes, but why did you say you are feeling anxious?” pressed Wanda.

“Because,” answered Lilly, “it is too quiet.”

The Spencer’s Mountain Ladies Bridge Club had gathered for their bi-weekly late Sunday afternoon coffee at the local Grange Hall. Silence reigned as they all glanced wide-eyed from face to face, until Julia softly exclaimed, “She’s right, girls, there’s no gunfire!”

Harriet added, “Right! The neighborhood always explodes in gunfire every Sunday right after church! The dogs start howling and the cats want in the house!”

“But why is there no gunfire?” asked Lilly. Everyone turned to Wanda, the accepted sage of the group. “Well, girls,” said Wanda, “it must be because of that Colorado Supreme Court decision bouncing Trump off the ballot.”

“Really?” gasped everyone in unison.

Lilly was perplexed. “But Wanda, why? I don’t see the connection.”

“The connection is fear,” answered Wanda. “The weekend shooting is recreational, sport shooting. They set up tin cans in front of dirt piles or in the old quarry and test their skill or have competitions. It’s like video games for adults. But the men harbor a fear that the Feds will lie to cook up some ruse to take away their firearms. That Colorado case signals another step in that direction.”

Image by AI.

“How so?” pressed Lilly, “I don’t get it.”

Wanda took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “OK, look. Everyone knows that J6 was not an insurrection. It wasn’t even a riot, much less an insurrection. Even old Alan Dershowitz says that J6 was just a public demonstration that got out of hand.”

“And probably deliberately led out of hand by FBI agents planted in the crowd,” interjected Harriet.

“Right,” replied Wanda. “Our men are a wary bunch. They’re cautious. And that Colorado court decision was really premised on an outrageous federal lie. That court ruled that J6 was an insurrection and that Trump engaged in it. But we all know that’s absolutely untrue.”

“Well,” piped in Julia, “maybe the lie underlying the decision explains something I experienced yesterday that I really didn’t get at the time. My husband called home late afternoon to say he’d be late for supper because he was meeting some lawyer friends of his to go over that Colorado decision together to see whether it was ‘giggle proof,’ whatever that is.

“Then, a couple of hours later, he sent me a text to come pick him up at the Red Dragon. When I got there, I found him and his big-shot lawyer pals drunk as skunks, sequestered in a remote, cozy booth in the back of the Dragon. Each of them had a laptop and a shot glass with something brown, and they were falling all over themselves, giggling like schoolgirls.

“I asked them what was so funny, and they all pointed at their laptops and guffawed, ‘This case decision is so hilarious, so ridiculous, whoever wrote it could not possibly have kept a straight face!’”

One of them snorted,  “Even the Denver Gazette editorial board says the ruling is silly.” 

“So anyway, I got him home,” Julia continued.

Everyone now leaned forward and listened carefully, sporting broad smiles and toothy grins, determined not to miss a word of what was coming.

“What happened when you got him home?” eagerly inquired Lilly, with a gleam in her eye.

Julia took a deep breath and answered. “Well, I had fully intended to scold him within an inch of his life, but I had never seen him so drunk before and he was just so cute all I could do was hug him!”

Everyone guffawed, and Wanda shouted, “You’re turning into a tradwife!”

Julia grinned and raised her arms with open hands and cried, “But, but, but, I asked him what exactly was so giggly about that Colorado decision, and between burps and belches, he told me, ‘There are three things obviously ridiculous.’ Here’s what he explained to me:

“(1) Trump was denied procedural due process.

“(2) Insurrection is a crime, and Trump has never been convicted of it, nor even charged with it.

“(3) The Colorado District Court cheated in using that congressional committee report as evidence, as it was hearsay, utterly biased and wholly political.”

That said, the room fell silent, every woman looking straight ahead, some with folded hands, some sipping their coffee.

Wanda finally ended the silence, observing, “If the Swamp is so determined to lie to destroy him, he must be the one we need.”

This essay has been updated since its initial publication.