Alexis de Toqueville, a French observer during the formative years of our republic, called us “The great experiment in democracy.”
He saw that our Founders didn’t create a stagnant system, but rather a dynamic nation that is always growing and changing as we try new ideas.
Picking up on de Toqueville’s metaphor, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called America a “great laboratory” in which different experiments in self-government are tested, to see what succeeds and what doesn’t.
Seen in that light, we are a nation of experimenters driven by a curiosity to find out what works best for us, and our history is record of the results of those experiments.
And I think it was Sigmund Freud, I’ll paraphrase, who offered the sage political advice that the definition of insanity is repeating the same experiment over and over, expecting a different result.
While we’re on the subject of political experiments, imagine that we’re back in chemistry class and a mad scientist, dressed in a red blazer instead of a lab coat, is lecturing the class.
He says, “Class, today we’re gonna do the Freedom Caucus experiment.”
He looks at his phone for instructions, then grabs a Wyoming-shaped test tube and starts tossing in ingredients from weird little vials and bottles.
The mad scientist in the red coat tells us, “For this experiment, we’ll need a mixture of caustic populism, fake grassroots, some tincture of fear-mongering and a big dose of centralized control mixed with faux religious zeal.
Then we’ll add some forced patriotism, political opportunism, and stir in some scorn for small communities and a whole bottle of distilled self-righteousness.
To give it bite, we’ll add some acidic divisiveness, concentrated hubris and a dash of tribalism.
The rest of the ingredients are secret and available only from national Freedom Caucus bigwigs in Washington, D.C., and I’m sworn never to reveal what they are. Now, let’s see what happens when we heat if up!”
The redcoated mad scientist reads his texted instructions, stirs the mixture and cooks it over a bunsen burner.
The concoction begins to bubble and fizz.
Finally it blows up with a loud plop, like an exploding skunk, and the lab is filled with a miasma of sulfurous yellow smoke that burns the eyes and smells like brimstone and buzzard puke.
The lab walls are dripping with a toxic goo that will take years to clean up.
The mad scientist stands in front of the class, all his hair singed off and a look of shocked surprise coupled with glee on his bald face.
Evidence of the failed experiment litters the lab floor, still fizzing and bubbling – a scorched campaign check from the Checkgate scandal here, a pool of chemtrail paranoia there.
Under the desk is a smoldering pile of UFO panic, still wearing a crumpled tinfoil Stetson.
Smoke rises from a proposal to sell state land for a dollar an acre.
The ashes of of the hopes of schools, small towns and counties coat the windowsills.
Books are blasted off the library shelves.
Shards of shattered civil liberties are scattered hither and yon.
The carcass of a dead legislative agenda twitches in a dark corner of the lab.
Election certificates of Freedom Caucus legislators are smeared with hilarious DUI bodycam videos, concealed felony convictions in Colorado and political flip-flops worthy of a contortionist in a snake oil show.
The right-wing "media outlets" that serve as the pep squads for the Freedom Caucus carry the stench of the failed experiment, and their microscopic audience shrinks with every new scandal.
Windows and doors are thrown open to air out the lab. Just then the bell rings, announcing a new election, and we want nothing more than to go home and shower off the residue of this experiment gone hideously awry.
But before we can step carefully across the slippery floor toward the door, the mad scientist in the red blazer whines, “Hey, the people voted for this! Who wants to try this same experiment again on 8/18/26? Maybe we’ll get a different result.”
Rod Miller can be reached at: RodsMillerWyo@yahoo.com
