Fear and Loathing in Colorado’s Third Congressional District

by Jacob Richards

I got there early. I knew the math wasn’t going to math.

Here in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, the unremarkable tenure of Jeff Hurd, has been defined largely by his inaccessibility and an unwillingness to meet with the people of his district. The few public appearances he has made were to invite only crowds, industry groups, or announced mere minutes before the ‘event.’ But on September 8, Hurd held a “Coffee with Your Congressman,” at the old county courthouse in downtown Grand Junction. I knew the room they had booked was never going to be big enough.

I followed the staffers into the room as the fluorescent lights flickered on. I needed coffee. I was promised coffee. A young blond staffer with smart but strangely vacant eyes smiled as I broke the seal and tapped the free coffee.

The room had ten tables with four seats each. Congressman “un-Hurd” planned on spending 8 to 10 minutes with each table talking one on one with the constituents. Soon the tables were full, and dozens of people queued in the lobby. The ninety minute event seemed destined to leave many people unheard by Hurd. The very format had artificial scarcity baked into it.

It was the kind of event that made me understand both how and why Hunter S. Thompson would drop acid and get drunk and cover the howling depravity of America’s soul, instead of some motorcycle race or the Kentucky Derby.

An open bar would certainly have improved morale, or at least mine. Thompson would agree, God rest his soul.

Then he entered the room – Jeff un-Hurd in the flesh, flanked by staffers. It was almost thrilling. There have been more Bigfoot sightings in his district than public appearances by Hurd, since he took office.

It made the event seem more special than it was.

I hate covering this kind of event– close quarters– wedged in between people– thrusting my audio recorder into conversations that have the veneer of being private. I also hate the he-said-she-said partisan politics focused on individuals and personalities and not systems nor their own outcomes.

Like Hurd reminded people at almost every table– he is just one of 535 lawmakers in D.C– ‘What could he possibly do?’

Hurd was impossibly clean. I kept staring at his pores at the first table. Was he wearing make-up? I couldn’t tell. I reminded myself not to stare.

Next table a woman was asking Hurd about Medicaid cuts. I resisted the urge to touch his hair. There was not a single one out of place. That took real effort.

Two sheriff’s deputies were eyeing me, hands hooked on their tactical vests looking like Proud Boys that actually get paychecks. I was sure they could read my intrusive thoughts. I tried not to look at them, which took most of my focus.

I didn’t recognize the deputies, they weren’t the deputies that got reassigned for putting a student in a headlock two years ago, after I broke the story. No, it was a different duo of ‘roided goons. No visible Nazi or 3%’er militia tattoos. That’s a good thing.

That is the type of journalism I like. Something with some ‘oommf,’ some danger, something with the smell of subpoenas and having to lawyer up. The kinda journalism that gives editors indigestion. The kind where you don’t know how it is going to end.

Events like this everyone knows how it’s going to end, and headlines about whatever debunked right-wing lie he is still simping for don’t appeal to me.

What the actual fuck am I doing here? I don’t even have an outlet to sell this story to if there was even a story here to sell.

Hurd’s attire leaned into ‘recess casual,’ sporting blue jeans that had never sat in a saddle or bucked a bale of hay, with a blue blazer and no tie. Casual was the tone they were cultivating, and he engaged voters with the most sincere pantomime of active listening I have ever seen– earnestly leaning in with his baby blue eyes.

His eyes were almost hypnotic, I stared into them. He was patiently listening to a long litany of Trump’s acts of self-enrichment since taking office, as part of a question about corruption.

Was he even blinking? I tried to time how often he blinked, glancing occasionally at the time code on my recorder as I squatted, thighs burning, trying to hear the people’s questions and his soft-spoken replies.

Now another woman was asking him about Flock cameras. It has got to be close to a minute now since he last blinked. I glanced down at my recorder. Fifty-one seconds.

His answers were unsatisfying, non-committal, and terminally vague. The kind of post-truth, vapid nothingness, people are tired of hearing from both parties.

From table to table he regurgitated the same answers; the same defenses. The same engaged yet vacant stare. Don’t look into his eyes, folks, that’s how he gets you.

I wondered what is harder on his soul, if politicians even have them, this charade or those fund raising calls to mega-donors and special interest groups where he has to get on his knees. Where they make him submit.

People tried to tack him down on things. “It’s a yes/no question, Congressman.” He dodged expertly with unblinking sincerity.

Reality is the people simply don’t have enough money or power to get him to commit to anything. They don’t even have enough sway to warrant donuts.

Table to table the same conversations. I started to see the sinister architecture of this “Coffee with your Congressman.” Instead of a public event where he would be on record, and accountable to the voters and media, he was in reality holding a series of private conversations.

Speed grifting. That’s what this was. A spectacle with the trappings of democracy. Civil engagement in a reality TV format.

To be fair, it was just as likely that Hurd didn’t want to be on record saying anything that big daddy Trump might dislike.

Hurd was spanked after he voted against the tariff regime. A point he made proudly at almost every table. A true independent, a freedom fighter, really, if one was to believe the words coming out of his mouth.

Hurd repeatedly highlighted the few times that dared vote against the MAGA regime in Washington. I looked it up after the event. Hurd voted 95% of the time along party lines.

A candidate running on 5% of his votes, is well aware of the political sand shifting beneath his feet.

I nudged my recorder forward a couple more inches. I’m going to get you on the record, ‘Blue Eyes.’

I glance to my right. Is that fucking deputy staring at me again? Why am I here? My stomach growled with hunger. No doughnuts, really?

The political sands do seem to be shifting. As ‘Blue Eyes’ and his staffer moved to the tenth table I followed. I realized that all of these tables had the same half-dozen questions with a few outliers.

Mesa County went +24 points for the so-called president in 2024. I had coded many of the participants as right-wing supporters as they walked in, but every table had the same questions.

Philip, a man in a cowboy hat and an arm in a sling, was now describing a violent Gestapo-esque ICE raid that he and his family witnessed. What is going on here?

Ultimately, background noise rendered my efforts at establishing a record useless. But all ten tables I kibbitzed upon had the same handful of questions.

Is it possible that the Indivisible crowd just wakes up earlier? Brews stronger coffee? Or were the American people low-key coming together on the issues?

Was this a sign, like the first branch of yellow leaves portends autumn?

Could the proof of this coming change be here amongst these retirees, drinking weak coffee, under fluorescent lights, listening to milquetoast answers to serious questions that all Americans seem to have?

Did Hurd’s unblinking blue eyes see the signs too?

I doubt it.

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