This year may be the most contentious election year I have ever been through. Now, that’s not saying much, I guess. The Presidential election four years ago was certainly contentious. This year it seems more so both on a National level and a local level. Like people are seriously getting angry and even mean, locally. I don’t recall experiencing that in my 18 years at the paper or my 34 years of listening to local and national election news.
I have always felt exceptionally thankful to be able to have kind, considerate conversations with my neighbors. Somehow this election is different. My neighbors, normally open to civil discussions, are not willing to talk about politics within the county. You like this person but did you know this person did this? Like 25 years ago, I heard … this random rumor. Instead of talking to each other, social media is allowing people to share blatantly false information online. Then others grab onto it and share it. It takes a while to refute the accuracy, but social media does eventually put a flag on the information saying “some of it may be false.”
On Friday, September 20, 2024, at 6 p.m., The Mountain-Ear will be hosting a Gilpin County Commissioner Candidate Forum. The forum is an opportunity to meet your candidates, listen to them answer questions and participate in a public Q&A at the end of the forum.
We are trying very hard to ensure that the nastiness generated by national politics does not make an appearance at the Forum. We’ve already noted (and apologized for) letting one example of that unpleasantness appear in the paper. We count on you to attend the Forum and assure that all candidates are listened to, politely. We are all neighbors, and we’d like to keep our politics neighborly in the Peak to Peak.
