This is why we can't have nice things.

And this is absolutely appalling.

The State of Wyoming and Natrona County will actually make more money by way of this purchase than it does keeping the property in private hands.  So what is this really about?

Well, that requires reading the wind, but if you do, it's plain that the Republican Party of the state abhors the concept of public land to at least some degree. All of Wyoming's current Congressional delegation supported the concept of turning the Federal lands over to the state during the 2016 race, and likely still think that way, even though average Wyomingites are overwhelmingly opposed to it.  Governor Gordon's knee-jerk reaction to the Marton transfer seems to express that view as well.

Underlying it all is the concept, generally, that only immediate generations seem to count, and everything is better privatized.  Listen to Republican politicians in the state generally, and you'll commonly hear that view.  While few will openly state it, the general concept is that it's best to transfer all the land to the State, and for the state to sell all of it to private parties. That will generate "wealth".

It'll also convert the state basically into Ohio, but as it seems that monied interests are the only ones that count, much of the current GOP is deaf on this issue.

Now, we can't say that this is 100% true. The GOP itself is split between the Trumpite populist wings and the old party.  Many in the old party are not of this mind, and others remember the era when Governor Geringer and legislators who supported him, like Jim Hageman, Harriet Hageman's father, attempted to privatize the state's wildlife.  But many more do not recall anything of this sort.

Indeed, the state has become amazingly blind, at least politically, to think long term, a disturbing symptom of a society that's in deep existential distress.  Like late stage Weimar Germany, people are reaching out for simple solutions to long term systemic problems, and only the most extreme views seem to be really having an influence.  

Wyoming at one time had an actual two party system.  Today is an anniversary of various events which demonstrate that, as noted here regarding past Democrats elected to state office.

1896  Democratic Governor John E. Osborne elected to Congress from Wyoming.  He would serve a single term.

1933 John B. Kendrick, U.S. Senator from Wyoming, and sponsor of the Kendrick Irrigation Project in Natrona County, died.  Prior to being elected Senator, he had served as Governor.

1936  Henry H. Schwartz, Democrat from Casper, elected to the U.S. Senate.  Schwartz served one term and was defeated in his reelection bid.  The Ohio born lawyer practiced law in Casper.

Henry H. Schwartz

1942.  Lester Hunt, DDS, the sitting Wyoming Secretary of State and a Democrat, narrowly defeated Governor Nels H. Smith.

Lester C. Hunt.

Hunt would serve as Governor for two terms before going on to becoming Wyoming's Senator.  He killed himself in 1954 after Washington, D. C. policy picked up his son in 1953 for soliciting a male prostitute.  The scandal was kept quiet for a while, but political opponents threatened to use it against him as a threat to keep him from engaging in a 1954 bid for office.

I

1958  Gale McGee was elected to the U.S. Senate.  He was the first, and so far the only, University of Wyoming instructor to be elected to the U.S. Senate.   He was a Democrat.

McGee fit into another era in Wyoming's politics in that he was able to be elected as a Democrat and, perhaps even more surprisingly, the Class 2 Senator position was occupied by a Democrat at the time that McGee was elected, making both of Wyoming's Senators Democrats.  He served from 1959 until 1977.  That he was elected in the late 1950s is surprising to recall, because his somewhat flashy sartorial style really fit in with the early 1970s.  Nonetheless, his service stretched all the way back to 1959 and he was sworn in as  Senator by Vice President Richard Nixon.  After being defeated for a reelection bid in 1976, a campaign which he was largely absent in, he was appointed by President Carter as the Ambassador to the Organization of American States.

Politically, McGee was slightly liberal, but remained a popular Wyoming politician.  His defeat in 1976 was attributed by the national media to his opposition to the Vietnam War which was almost certainly incorrect.  McGee did oppose the war, but his seat remained safe throughout it.  There has been some speculation that by 1976 he no longer wanted to remain in the Senate, but for one reason or another ran anyhow.  That would be more consistent with his campaign that year against Malcolm Wallop in which Wallop was allowed to run a nearly unopposed campaign.  McGee was the last Senator from Wyoming to be a member of the Democratic Party.

The Post Office in Laramie is named after Senator McGee.

1964  Teno Roncolio, a Democratic lawyer originally from Rock Springs, but living in Cheyenne at the time, elected to Congress.

Roncolio would only serve one term from his 1964 election, and then attempt a run for the Senate.  His Senatorial run was unsuccessful, and he would regain his position in the House in 1970.

Roncolio's 1964 election meant that two out of the three members of Congress (House and Senate) from Wyoming were Democrats, an event which would be almost inconceivable today.

Roncolio received the Silver Star while serving in the U.S. Army during World War Two for heroism in the invasion of Normandy, and he was one of the sources interviewed by Cornelius Ryan for his Book "The Longest Day."  Roncolio was the last member of the Democratic Party to be elected to Congress from Wyoming.

And this is just from this day in history.  It omits such figures as Governors Ed Herschlar and Mike Sullivan.

It's frankly almost impossible to imagine Wyomingites voting for any of these figures now.  Osborne was elected because of something, while over a century ago, that directly relates to what we see now with Gordon, an effort by large landed interest to drive out small ones.  They were engaged, quite frankly, in an attempted Republican Party supported public lands, land grab.  The effort has never really stopped.

Roncolio was a war hero and McGee a University of Wyoming professor.  McGee would be reviled for merely occupying that profession today.  Roncolio would be harder to lambaste, as you really couldn't do that with somebody who had landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944.  That's instructive, however, in that much of the death of the Democratic Party in the state is due to the Democratic Party itself.

Roncalio was a lawyer who was a Catholic Italian American.  Sullivan was a Catholic Irish American.  Herschlar had been a World War Two Marine Corps raider.  Kendrick was a Texas born rancher.  Al these men essentially had "the bark on" in some fashion, and you knew that they held views that were close to those of common Wyomingites, including rank and file Republicans.  That day has really passed.  While some very solid Democrats remain, its nearly impossible to find one that holds middle of the road views on major social issues.  Statewide races are sometimes the exception, but often the state's Democrats can be predicted to be impossibly left wing to elect.

Up until now, this has been stemmed a bit by the fact that the majority of the Republican Party has been grounded in the traditional middle, but during this election that has already massively slipped.  It could be seen to be slipping when Barack Obama was elected, an event to which many Wyomingites had a strange knee-jerk reaction to that's hard to explain.  Following that, it became increasingly clear that major existential changes are occurring to industries that the state has long depended upon. While massive amounts of coal are still being mined, it's clear to anyone with eyes to see that this is a temporary situation, and one which the state hasn't begun to adjust to.  The same is now true of oil and gas.  Instead of addressing the economic crisis head on, the popular reaction has to been to blame the Democratic Party.  And the Democratic Party, in turn, by nationally embracing increasingly left wing causes, has made itself easy to blame.

This election really demonstrates this.  Absent a real surprise, Wyoming will be sending Harriet Hageman to Congress.  Neither Cheney nor Hageman can be regarded as "greens" (and while it's hardly been noted, Sen. Barasso has been quietly backing electric charging stations for oncoming electric automobiles in the state), but hardly a day has gone by this week where some Hageman campaign flyer hasn't arrived here, some of which just have silly theses.  To read Hageman's propaganda, the Federal government is at war with the state and keeping it from doing whatever it wants due to over regulation and by refusing to allow the production of oil and coal.  In reality, Federal oil and gas leases are going unused.

There's always an extreme danger in listening to people who tell you that nothing is your fault, and that everything is somebody else's, that person being somebody that you probably don't actually know.  One day in the early 30s somebody is telling you that the Deutsches Heer didn't really lose the war, and was somehow "stabbed in the back" by the Jews, and the next day you are freezing in a muddy trench in Stalingrad.  Well, that's your fault for listening to such complete nonsense.

Around here, right now, there seems to be very little push back on the concept that the voice of the public can be ignored, everything ought to be privatized, and everyone will benefit from never being able to go on the land again as we'll all have jobs for Big Out Of  State Entity.  That's nonsense.  But until there's a way to cause politicians to suffer at the polls for such positions, this will keep on keeping on.