A year or so ago, I penned a column about the high-water mark of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.
The occasion for that rant was the result of the 2022 election, when the Freedom Caucus gained a modicum of strength in the Wyoming Legislature.
While that election saw some of the figureheads of the Freedom Caucus defeated in their elections, overall the hard-right faction of the GOP had a net gain in seats.
But it looks like those days are over. I remain convinced that the Freedom Caucus wave has crested and its murky, muddy waters are receding.
Back then, many of the Freedom Caucus gains were achieved in uncontested races. It doesn’t take much political strength to win an election if your name is the only one on the ballot.
Fast forward to today, when some stalwart Wyoming citizens with their heads screwed on straight are stepping up to challenge Freedom Caucus incumbents in important races throughout the Big Empty.
The days of the Freedom Caucus enjoying the luxury of uncontested races are over.
Good people are digging in their heels, flipping a political finger at the Freedom Caucus, and telling them, “No further. Not on my watch!”
These home-grown candidates – many of whom are entering the fray of electoral politics for the first time – have had a bellyful of Freedom Caucus snake oil and have decided to do something about it.
It's easy to predict that these primary races will be messy.
Freedom Caucus candidates will call their challengers every name in the book...RINOs, Redcoats, Establishment stooges, uniparty sheeple, commies, socialists, traitors, Bill Gates/George Soros lackeys, and a lot of other names unfit for a family newspaper.
Freedom Caucus incumbents will twist and cherry pick facts, invoke God’s name alongside Trump’s, sling mud and whine like chastised children when their legislative ineptitude during the recent budget session is brought up.
However, all their hissy fits won’t change the fact that good Wyoming folks are pushing back against their bullshit, and drawing a line in the soil of Wyoming.
This, friends and neighbors, will be a pivotal election in Wyoming. This is when we decide if the Cowboy State will proceed along the dismal Freedom Caucus path toward a dark authoritarian future, or we decide that enough’s enough.
As Thomas Jefferson said, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.” Here is where we decide what we deserve.
If Wyoming voters believe that they deserve a government that intrudes in their lives to tell them what they can do with their bodies, which books they can read, what their children should learn, what deity they should worship, whom they can love or marry, who can enjoy the fruits of citizenship and who cannot, and whether the community they live in should live or die, then the Wyoming Freedom Caucus is the clear choice.
But that’s not the Wyoming I grew up in, and the Wyoming people that I know believe that they deserve better.
Here’s where they prove it.
This election is where Real Wyoming stands up to the carpetbagging, out-of-state, gnarly orthodoxy of cowboy-cosplaying Freedom Caucus interlopers and affirms its roots.
This election is where we prove that our colors are Brown & Gold instead of MAGA red or any other rainbow color.
This election is where we pay homage to the Hansens, Hathaways, Simpsons and Herschlers who have faithfully carried those colors by getting behind candidates that scare the bejeezus out of the Freedom Caucus.
This election will be where the Freedom Caucus wave crashes against our Wyoming hearts and runs away. This is when the voters of Wyoming say, “Not on my watch!”
Rod Miller can be reached at: rodsmillerwyo@yahoo.com
