Former Coloradan Becomes a Former Trump Supporter With a Brutal Letter

Colorado Republicans may not have been able to pick a presidential candidate at their caucus on March 1, but a former Coloradan just weighed in with the major vote against Donald Trump. Stephanie Cegielski, a graduate of the University of Colorado Denver who got a law degree from the University of...

By Patricia Calhoun

March 29, 2016

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Colorado Republicans may not have been able to pick a presidential candidate at their caucus on March 1, but a former Coloradan just weighed in with the major vote against Donald Trump. Stephanie Cegielski, a graduate of the University of Colorado Denver who got a law degree from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law in 2006, worked for a governor, an attorney general and three Secretaries of State while living in this state. In 2012 she left her job as head of the Colorado Government Accountability Project to join the PR Society of America as associate director, rising to the top spot last year — when she left to become communications director of the Make America Great Again Super PAC. Yep, the PAC pushing Donald Trump for President of the United States of America."In 2015, I fell in love with the idea of the protest candidate who was not bought by corporations. A man who sat in a Manhattan high-rise he had built, making waves as a straight talker with a business background, full of successes and failures, who wanted America to return to greatness," she writes in An Open Letter to Trump Voters From His Top Strategist-Turned-Defector, posted yesterday on xojane.com.

"I don't think even Trump thought he would get this far. And I don’t even know that he wanted to, which is perhaps the scariest prospect of all," Cegielski continues. "He certainly was never prepared or equipped to go all the way to the White House, but his ego has now taken over the driver's seat, and nothing else matters. The Donald does not fail. The Donald does not have any weakness. The Donald is his own biggest enemy."

Former Colorado legislator Shawn Mitchell calls Cegielski a "good friend and former Colorado activist." On Facebook, he says: "This is a punchjaw letter. She speaks to Trump's believers, because she was one."

And she punches hard with this: "You can give Trump the biggest gift possible if you are a Trump supporter: stop supporting him."

There's more, lots more, in a column that's become a must-read around the country. Find it here.

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Patricia Calhoun is editor-in-chief of Westword, the alt-weekly she co-founded in September 1977. She’s been inducted into the Colorado Press Association Hall of Fame, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia Hall of Fame and the Colorado Restaurant Association Hall of Fame. She’s also received dozens of local, state and national awards for writing, including first place for feature writing and first place for column writing with the Society of Professional Journalists. Patricia is a weekly commentator on Colorado Inside Out, PBS 12's public affairs roundtable, which has won two Emmys.

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