I've run items on elections here for a long time, and made my views on various candidates more or less known, but this year is really a critical year.
So, we aren't telling you who to vote for, but for the first time ever, we're publishing something on whom we think you should vote against, although it frankly takes a lot of hubris to even assume anyone at all cares what I think on this topic.
#very election season people say something about the election being the most critical one ever but 2026 really is. 2026 may be the last gasp of American democracy, or the beginning of the restoration of it. Right now, the American electorate basically stabbed democracy accidentally in the back by electing a mentally declining spoiled rich boy caudillo, and the whole world is paying the price.
The US is being run on a near dictatorial basis by the madman. The Republican Party, save for a few of its notable members, has become nothing but a collection of worshippers, many of whom are steeped in ignorance. The childlike ignoramus who is running the country is going to try to steal the 2026 elections. About this there can be no doubt.
Part of the duty of the voters is to be informed. It's pretty clear a lot of American voters, no matter what their party affiliation, aren't. Indeed, I dare say the most informed voters are Independents who have informed themselves on both parties and marched out of the parties absolutely disgusted.
In Wyoming you almost have to be a member of the Republican Party or you have no vote at all. But in Wyoming a collection of Dixiecrats who think they are Republicans and think they are for "freedom" is now the most powerful voice in the legislature and due to Cynthia Lummis retiring the entire mix of candidates is in flux.
This trailing thread is a list of people to vote against. That's a terrible way to vote, but given the times and the slate of candidates, its something people need to consider.
This list, we'll note, is limited to current candidates. Not every Wyoming politician. If experience is any guide we would note that not getting voted for tends to refocus a politicians attention like nothing else. If there's a big shift in 2026 and some traction on that in Wyoming, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if Chuck Gray wrote daily proposals of marriage to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
There are plenty of candidates running for office in Wyoming who'd end the public's right to do this, or anything, on public land.
Enemies of Public Lands, Hunters and Fishermen
Wyoming public lands users were shocked in 2025 with Deseret Mike Lee lead a full blown charge at public lands and Wyoming's Lummis, Barrasso, and Hageman joined right in. Given their histories respectively of 1) being a Cheshire Cat, 2) Being a sycophantic toady and 3) being a member of a family that very distinctly doesn't care much for anyone who isn't an agricultural landowner, we shouldn't have been surprised, and yet we were.
Our guards still need to be up in a major way. This issue hasn't gone away and if 2025/26s Trump babbling about Greenland, Gaza and Venezuela has shown anything, its that Donald Trump's GOP doesn't give a rats ass about anything that can't be reduced to a sale and the future just doesn't matter. He's a shallow golf course developer and see the entire world that way, to his everlasting discredit.
And the GOP is right behind him.
People public lands users, and that includes ranchers who will get completely screwed if Deseret Mike Lee and his ilk have his way, follow.1
These people have no Land Ethic.
Bill Allemand: Allemand is from a large ranching family in the state but has claimed not to be part of the ranching operations himself. Nonetheless he showed his hand by sponsoring a really punitive hunting trespass bill that failed last session.
That should preclude him from being reelected. He's an enemy of sportsmen.
He's also a Dixiecrat.
And he's extremely rude. His first run for office was characterized by outrageous comments about his opponent and he's shown a real temper since being elected. Most recently, he stated outrageous things against a Deputy Sheriff who arrested him for drunk driving in Johnson County.2 A cutting editorial by Susan Stubson on his drunk driving escapade is well worth reading.
Harriet Hageman: Hageman is from a large ranching/farming family in southeast Wyoming. Her father was the sponsor of an effort to privatize wildlife when he was in the legislature. Hageman aggressively backed an effort to transfer Wyoming's Federal lands to the state and responded to criticism of those who opposed her by basically calling them dumb.
This past term her family homestead burned to the ground in a year that's been extremely warm and devoid of moisture. There were poignant comments about it, including from her, which tend to demonstrate the agricultural community's absolute refusal to read what is really in front of their face, climate wise. It's ironic, in that even university educated agriculturalist like Hageman, who depend on animal science daily, refuse to believe that any other science is valid.
Jacob Wasserburger: Wasserburger came up with this bad idea, but it sounds a lot like he's been sitting around with Mike Lee, the Senator from Deseret
He's signed on to the no prescription for Ivermectin act as well, these two things indicating that he's hanging out with, in not in, the Freedom Caucus. A little digging reveals that Wasserburger is from a Niobrara County ranch and has been practicing law since 2008, at which he's bounced around a lot, including having once worked for a major Democratic politician and a really good Republican one. He did a stint in government work as well.
Original post: January 20, 2026.
Updates: January 24, 2026, January 27, 2026.
Allies of Ignorance. Trump Fellow Travelers and Dixiecrats.
I suspect that some of these people probably really love Trump, while others are just opportunistic and pitching to ignorant Wyoming voters, telling them what they know they want to hear. Either way, they shouldn't be voted for, either because they believe the nonsense they're spouting, or because they're willing to lie to obtain office.
Some of these folks are members of the largely carpetbagging Wyoming Freedom Caucus as well, which definitely should disqualify them. They're not running for office in 2026 Wyoming but 1966 Alabama. It's estimated that 42 members of the House, which has only 62 seats, in the Wyoming legislature are occupied by Freedom Caucus members, but it is an estimate as some of them will not openly declare their membership showing that they have some reservations about it.
Something Wyoming voters should know is that unlike other caucuses, once a legislator joins the WFC he or she can sit on his legislative rear and do nothing, as the WFC does all the work, including drafting bills it wants and telling the potted WFC plant what to say and think. The money, and at least some of the bill drafting, comes from outside of the state. The Freedom Caucus is effectively an alien, that is carpetbagging, force in the state, in the true original sense of the meaning of the word carpetbagger.
Megen Degenfelder: Degenfelder is the current Superintendent of Public Instruction who has announced for Governor.. She's clearly very far right wing, but she doesn't appear to be a full blown MAGA adherent. Still, she received King Donny's endorsement and wrapped herself in it, and for that reason alone should be rejected.
I do have a question, however, based on her time in office, as to how much of the MAGA nonsense she really believes. As one of the Board of State Land Commissioners she hasn't been a fellow traveler with Gray, and the evidence suggests that absolutely nobody on that Board can stand Gray. The Governor clearly does not, but it doesn't really look like anyone else does either. And Degenfelder hasn't come out with any of the really extreme crap that Gray has, or even that Cindy Hill had. Given that, she might be on the Trump Train in a boxcar ready to jump off when and if things begin to derail. So I'll cut her a little slack, albeit very, very, little.
In this race, so far, it looks to me that Barlow is the best candidate.
Chuck Gray: Gray's a carpetbagging opportunist who took advantage of lies to obtain the position of Secretary of State where he's been a general pain in the ass. He's not from here, he's not of here, and he should be sent packing as a disagreeable asshole. He literally obtained his office mounted on a steed of lies.
Gray, I'll note, was one of the founders of the Freedom Caucus and perhaps because of that hasn't been asked the questions or subject to sideways glances that some in his situation might have been, which is interesting.
Ken Pendergraft: A member of the Freedom Caucus who voted to slash U.W.'s budget.
The Freedom Caucus is pretty much the Freakishly Dumb Caucus and basically opposes education. Educated people, it turns out, tend to be moderate and don't believe that global warming is a fib, or that the Earth is 4,000 years old, or that Christianity somehow started in the US with an Evangelical Free Church. So education is bad, in their view.
Jeremy Haroldson: A member of the Freedom Caucus who voted to slash U.W. budget.
Jacob Wasserburger: As we suspected, Wasserburger is part of the WFC.
The Freedom Caucus thinks that they are Republicans, but they are not. They're Jeffersonian Democrats, i.e., Dixiecrats.
Original post: January 20, 2026. Updates: January 28, 2028.
Carpetbaggers
This may seem like an odd thing to post in this category, but this film, which I hate, really frames the Wyoming mindset in some ways, even though the novel from which its taken was set in Appalachia. Clayboy's father and eight uncles may have fallen in love here, but Clayboy is going to abandon one of the most beautiful spots on earth and the two hot chicks pursuing him so he can go to university, learn to write, and sit in an office smoking cigarettes behind a typewriter because he's convinced that must be superior to what he already has.
Wyoming has always had a transient population and, additionally, a pretty pronounced history of self doubt and even self loathing. For that reason, we're pretty willing as a rule to elect imports who claim to be like us, even though we know that they aren't. We really think they're better than us.
Right now, for example, we have Dr. John Barrasso who isn't a Wyomingite but sort of pretends to be one, or at least was up until becoming the Senate Majority Whip. He's a Pennsylvanian. He's a Boomer so chances are that this is his last hurrah before he retires and gets the heck out of here.
We've added a note above about the funding of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which pretty much qualifies the caucus itself, if not every single members, as the Wyoming Foreign Carpetbaggers.
Chuck Gray: Gray is a Californian who shares nothing in common with anyone whatsoever in the state. He should be sent back to California.
Indeed, one of the most pathetic things about Gray campaigns is when they dress the diminutive little guy up and try to film him in Wyoming. There he is, looking at an oil rig, and looking mighty uncomfortable, and so on.
Joseph Kibler: Kibler is a recent import from California, and should just go home. He's running for Governor.
Original post: January 20, 2026.
Updates: January 24, 2026,
Bottle Babies and Stahlhelm
In recent years Wyoming has seen people run for office touting their experience as a veteran. They basically fall into two groups.
One group were career servicemen who sucked on the government tit their entire working lives and now have moved into Wyoming or have come back to Wyoming after decades of being gone and, uniformly, declare they hate the government and know how to fix it. Their hatred didn't keep them from competing in the free job economy with the rest of us, however.
They didn't run their military careers like they claim they'll run the state. I.e, they didn't come in and say "I hate the military with the red hot passion of a thousand burning suns and I'm going to destroy it!".
The other group are men who run simply on having been a veteran. Eh? Lee Harvey Oswald was a veteran. This group has nothing much more to say other than "I'm a veteran". So what? Lots of people are veterans. This is the Stahlhelm group.
Brent Bien is a bottle baby. He was a career Marin Corps officer and had a really distinguished career. Now he's back in the state and seeks to apply that experience, which is wholly irrelevant to running the state, to wrecking government.
Original post: January 20, 2026.
Democrats in delusion
On this category, let me be clear. I want more Democrats to run, but I want solid Democrats to run. While its a long shot, I think a centrist Democratic Party in the state, which we used to have, and which gave us multiple Governors, could gain seats, including some important seats. Indeed, I'm surprised that some names that used to appear haven't re-appeared so far.
The first thing I'm going to note is that the Democrats need to avoid wrapping themselves in bloody surgical towels and rainbow flags, but they just can't seem to avoid doing it. They should take a lesson from one of their own recent events:
But instead of that, they'll end up talking about "reproductive rights" and "gender determination" and completely ax themselves.
What the Democratic Party should do in Wyoming is flat out instruct its candidates not to take hardcore positions on these issues. Ideally, they ought to run a moderate prolife Democrat, which would be something the GOP wouldn't know how to handle. If a Democratic candidate went to a house seat debate and took a position to the right of the Republican on the typical social issues, they'd be caught flat footed and resort to name calling. Better yet, if asked about abortion, and a Democratic candidate said "I'm flat out against it, and why has Donald Trump come out being sort of for it?" the Republicans wouldn't know what to do.
But, nope, that won't happen.
Anyhow, while we want Democrats to run, and want third party candidates to run, some will end up on this list as they're actually sucking air out of the room which shouldn't be.
Stewart McAdoo fits this category. McAdoo is a Democrat who is running against Art Washut in House District 36. Washut is a real conservative (and very conservative at that), and not a populist Freedom Caucus member. Losing him would be a disaster for Wyoming. I've never heard of him, but he appears to be an import to the state, which might place him in another category as well.
Original post: January 22, 2026.
Footnotes
1. While I know that it will happen no time soon, it really needs to become the case that lands that went into private hands through a Homestead Act can't go into corporate or absentee hands.
2. According to news reports Allemand admitted to the sheriff's deputy that he drank and drive, in order to address "stress". In the papers he came out just like he did in the campaign, which is to say as a boisterous asshole. That alone should put an end to his political career.
Most of his business career, we'd note, was spent in Kansas. He ought to just go back to Kansas.
H.E. Buechner’s proposed Wyoming state seal. The next two prosed ones featured topless women. One was briefly adopted by a Governor, who liked the topless figure, but a lot of people weren't too keen on it.
This is the main university that educates our kids in Wyoming. They don’t have three other choices like they do somewhere else. This is what we have. This body is sending the message to the people of Wyoming, our own people, ‘Don’t stay here. Don’t come here.’”
Ogden Driskill.
Driskill is exactly correct. This is what he was discussing:
I want to first note that I've really struggled with this entry, as I didn't want to sound condescending. I've probably failed, but I don't mean to be, if I have.
Thing is, I think the WFC, which is responsible for this looming disaster, is a bit condescending.
I was in attendance of a gathering of legislators this past week, most of whom were experienced legislators outside of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, one new member who was outside of it, from a teaching background, and horrified by what they were doing, and one new member who was clearly way out to sea and three was a demeanor perhaps best characterized by ultra befuddlement. One of the long time members of the salons, in referencing this story, let slip the truth in full, before retreating on it. He noted the members of the Joint Appropriations Committee are largely new, now that the WFC has seized control of the legislature, which is against the norm, and that they aren't from here.1 Some, he noted "haven't even been to university", before he went on to qualify that as being fine, "but".
Not all of these people are members of the Freedom Caucus, but a majority are. Driskill isn't and Sherwood definitely isn't. Bear, Allemand, and Pendergraft are.
What does the Freedom Caucus have against UW?
They favor ignorance.
That no doubt sounds harsh, and it is, but it's very much the case.
Spend any time around Wyoming Freedom Caucus members at all, and you'll find that they are generally poorly educated themselves, or they have very narrow educations. That doesn't mean they are dumb, although at least one of these guys is about as sharp as a spoon. Those who are educated, were not educated here, although quixotically, John Bear, who is a major figure in this movement, was educated at CSU and has a degree in economics.2
You can generally figure out how these by looking up their legislative biographies and doing a slight bit of digging. Take, for example, the well respected conservative, but not Freedom Caucus, Driskill:
Campbell, Crook, Weston Counties Republican
Senate District 01: Senator Ogden Driskill
Leadership:
2023-2024 President of the Senate
2021-2022 Senate Majority Floor Leader
2019-2020 Senate Vice President
Years of Service:
Senate: District 01, 2011-Present
Spouse:
Rosanne
Children:
3
Grandchildren:
3
Education:
Hulett High School-Diploma, 1977
Casper College-AA, 1980
University of Wyoming-,
Occupation:
Rancher and Tourism
Civic Organizations:
Wyoming Stockgrowers Assn
Partnership of Rangeland Trusts
Land Trust Alliance
Bear called Driskill a "doofus" the other day, which is particularly unwarranted. Driskill is pretty far from a "doofus".
Driskill went to Casper College and obtained an associates degree, and apparently attended, but did not graduate from, the University of Wyoming. He didn't list a religion, but a little digging reveals he's an Episcopalian.
Let's look at another 1977 high school graduate, Bill Allemand, who is in the WFC.
Natrona County Republican
House District 58: Representative Bill Allemand
Years of Service:
House: District 58, 2023-Present
Birthplace:
Casper, Wy
Children:
4
Grandchildren:
6
Religion:
Christian
We have a "don't vote for list" coming out, and Allemand is on it. He's anti access to public lands. Based on a recent news story, he has an odd relationship with alcohol, as he was picked up for drunk driving and indicated, according to the news, that he says he drinks while driving to address stress, or so the newspaper stated he stated.
Anyhow, no education is listed at all.
His campaign site notes he graduated from high school in 1977 and moved to Kansas to run a trucking company. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a pretty narrow weltanschauung that might give you. No spouse is listed, which probably represents a divorce, although he could be widowed. He lists his religion as "Christian".
Allemand was one of the legislators who revealed to have been given a script for a hearing this past week, with that being excused on the basis that he's green in the legislature.
He's on his second term. . .
Let's look at the Democrat.
Albany County Democrat
House District 14: Representative Trey Sherwood
Minority Caucus Chairman
Leadership:
2025-2026 House Minority Caucus Chairman
2023-2024 House Minority Caucus Chairman
Years of Service:
House: District 14, 2021-Present
Religion:
Lutheran
Education:
Leadership Wyoming-, 2009
University of West Georgia-Public History/Museum Studies, 2004
Piedmont College-History/English, 2001
Occupation:
Director, Laramie Main Street
Civic Organizations:
Laramie Public Art Coalition
Trinity Lutheran Church
Hmmm, she has two degrees focusing on history, and she lists her religion as Lutheran.
Okay, what's up?
Well, with the Freedom Caucus people we tend to find that they're not well educated, or that they have very narrow educations, although there are exceptions, such as Bear. And they tend to list their religion as "Christian".
So am I "anti Christian"?
Not at all. I am a Christian. But what I find interesting about these listings is that what they tend to mean by Christian doesn't mean being a member of the Church founded by Christ or one of the original dissenting churches that recognized the Catholic Church as the original Church, as the Lutheran Church, Presbyterian Church, Episcopal Church and Methodist Church all did, but sought a reformation of it, by their claims, but rather being a member of a Church that claims a Christian view and was founded by an identifiable human being, who was probably an American or where the church was highly developed inside the U.S.3
Take John Bear, for instance, one of the exceptions, as he's well educated. A while back I read a story on him, which included a terrible tragedy his family endured (and it was terrible). It noted he's a member of the Evangelical Free Church. The The EFCA was formed in 1950 from the merger of the Swedish Evangelical Free Church and the Norwegian-Danish Evangelical Free Church Association, so it has its roots in Scandinavian Protestantism outside of the Lutheran Church, the latter of which was the official state religion up until after World War Two, and which was imposed upon the Scandinavians by force against their will (they wanted to remain Catholic). Indeed, the Swedish Evangelical Free Church is a Baptist Church and all Evangelical Free Churches adhere to Radical Pietism It's what adherents of its sort of views call a "Bible Believing Church" which means that they reject the first 1500 years of Christianity largely because they are unaware of it and therefore, ironically, they do not believe in all of the Bible.
Let's look at another WFC member:
Campbell County Republican
House District 03: Representative Abby Angelos
Years of Service:
House: District 03, 2023-Present
Birthplace:
Buffalo, WY
Children:
3
Religion:
Christian
Education:
Wright Jr Sr High School -, 1998
Occupation:
Women’s Ministry Director
Again, no education listed save for high school, and religion is listed as "Christian".
The charmingly named Angelos would suggest that somebody in her husband's family was Greek, but apparently lost their faith in the Apostolic faith somewhere along the way, which is a danger in the Orthodox community as it does not seem to share the Catholic canon of mandatory attendance. It's also a marked feature of the agricultural community, quite frankly, as it was difficult for isolated ranchers to attend Mass or Divine Liturgy, and so they lost their original faith or became very loose in adherence to it.4 In its place a sort of loosely organized Christianity sprang up, with many Christian tenants ignored not really grasped.
John Ford gave a really nice portrayal of Western frontier Protestantism in The Searchers, even though Ford was Catholic. Indeed, he gives a nice and very sympathetic portrayal of it in several films, with this one being the best perhaps for the simple reason that the Ethan character in the film is irreligious. Another really good one is given in Sam Peckinpah's Major Dundee, in which the Protestant minister is one of the combatants. Peckinpah was raised in a very strict Presbyterian household. Wayne, who became a very late in life Catholic convert, was in another frontier minister film that does a good job with the topic, The Shepherd of the Hills. In any event, Ford's observations are very keen i the way that only somebody who is religious themselves can be about another religion.
Digging in a little shows Angelos to be a member of Gillette's "Family Life Church", which claims to be "non denominational" even though there's utterly no such thing. So, no doubt, it's a "Bible believing" do it yourself church that likely has a very poor understanding of Christian history, theology, and perhaps even Christianity. Indeed, it's website claims its "Christ centered" which any Christian church would have to be without claiming to be.
Here's another example:
Laramie, Platte Counties Republican
House District 04: Representative Jeremy Haroldson
Speaker Pro Tempore
Leadership:
2025-2026 House Speaker Pro Tempore
Years of Service:
House: District 04, 2021-Present
Birthplace:
Wheatland
Spouse:
Lori Haroldson
Children:
2
Religion:
Christian
Education:
Bismark State College-Power Plant Technology, 2006
Global University -Biblical Theology , 2016
Occupation:
Pastor
Civic Organizations:
Platte County Chamber of Commerce Chairman of Board
Rural Advancement Board Member
Platte County Ministerial Association former President
Haroldson is a WFC member. He has an education, but it's basically a technical school type education, which is definitely an education, but not a liberal arts education. He's an Assemblies of God pastor, which is a Pentecostalist "Bible believing" Protestant Church that's popular, for some reason, with rural communities.
Um, okay, so what?
The first real attacks I heard on the University of Wyoming were by the fellow who caused this event to come about:
I guess that's not entirely true, as the movement that caused Kirk to show up was active before that. Frankly, it was mostly amusing at first, as it was a collection of young (men) people who organized to complain about how liberal the University of Wyoming was while attending it. The prime mover of that organization is somebody I heard holding forth in a casual setting once, addressing a group of people he assumed to be uneducated, and he really held forth on how liberal professors were poisoning the minds of young people, a common theme of people in the Kirk orbit.5
Now, there's a lot to dig into this group of folks and their overall world outlook.6 We'll do that elsewhere, and that doesn't relate to this at all.
So, what's the point?
Just this, while individual members of the Freedom Caucus are educated, or are not members of a do it yourself sort of poorly catechized Christianity, that theme runs through the entire group, and it runs through the entire Charlie Kirk branch of Protestantism. And as they are poorly educated in general, to include religion, they don't trust education, as its adverse to what they want to believe.
Educated people generally have open minds, which does not preclude them from being conservative. William F. Buckley, for example, or George F. Will, are certainly well educated and conservative. Generally, however, educated people are more likely to embrace some ideas that are "progressive" or "liberal", or which are neither but which people very entrenched on the right regard that way, or they are at least likely to have nuances or exhibit tolerance.
A good example of that with well formed Catholics is is that climate change is caused by humans and we need to do something to arrest, and reverse it. You can definitely find well educated people who dispute this, although it's a declining number.
It gets confusing when you get to social issues, which is why I think we've seen Catholic fellow travelers with some of these groups, who are not part of these groups.7Abortion is a good example. Catholics have been opposed to abortion since day one, but how have been joined by right wing protestants. A lot of well formed Catholics are also opposed to the death penalty, and have been for a long time, but you won't find this to the case with right wing Protestants as a rule.
And we could go on and on. Lots of "conservative" Catholics are also pretty concerned about the environment, which puts them on the left in that area. Plenty of Catholics have real formed opinions against starting wars, any war, which also puts them on the left, although that's not universally true. You won't, however, hear Protestants debating on whether a particular action comports with the Just War Theory.
And finally, as a rule, Catholics are huge on education. The Big Bang Theory, after all, is our idea, as is the roots of the theory of evolution. Quite a few people in the far Evangelical right would insist that those are fibs.8
In short, some of the things taught in universities, but certainly not all, run contrary to what the far right of the Evangelical movement holds, particularly, but not exclusively, in regard to science. Indeed, this very topic comes up frequently for Catholics as somebody will ask us if we believe in science or religion, and we look baffled, and say, well, both, which is true. The far right in Evangelicalism however, can't. And because the evidence in science is frequently irrefutable, it does in fact cause a crisis for those who are deep into it when they start to study it.
That's not all of it however.
In the debate on hacking money away from the UW block grant, it was clear that, in spite of what was said, that the feeling was that UW has some liberals lurking in the woodpile that need to be smoked out. Indeed, this is so much the topic of far conservative angst that the very conservative Claremont Institute has published an entire article on it. There are specific courses that they detest, often having to do with things they regard as Woke, and they don't like Wyoming Public Radio, which is housed at UW. One of the legislators, Haroldson, compared it to Pravda, which is absurd, but which reflects a long held conservative distaste for media and general and public media in particular, as they regard it as biased. It's regarded that way as its reporting is straightforward and it'll cover unpopular topics.9]
You won't find too many Freedom Caucus members listening to NPR's Science Friday.
In contrast, you will find some, I'd guess, that listen to an Evangelical radio station in Casper which unironically runs a really long item by a guy who is adamant that the world is only 5,000 or so years old and who likes to go to National Parks and confront the science lectures of Park Rangers with that. He conceives of them being overawed, when in fact it's clear that they think he's an anti scientific nut.
And that gets to the heart of it in general. Folks in the Freedom Caucus are afraid of education, as people learn that the world isn't 5,000 years old, that evolution is real, and that climate change isn't a fib. They can't stand that as it deeply upsets their world view. Evolution, the age of the Earth, and climate science aren't a threat to Catholics, the Orthodox, or mainline Protestants as they accept that faith can be informed by science. It is a a deep threat to "Bible believing" Christians as they can't reconcile any of those things with the literal text of the Bible, even though they're perfectly content to flat out ignore big chunks of the Bible that Apostolic Christians in fact take literally.
The other thing that these groups are flat out ignorant on is history.
This often comes through in economic debates or in campaigns. Listen to them, even though most of them aren't from here, Wyoming came about when hardy pioneers crossed the barren plains and carved out a civilization from the raw wilderness.
Which is bull.
Well, not completely bull, but at least partially bull.
In reality, Wyoming was a major benefactor of the American System in which the Federal Government heavily invested in the economy to give private enterprise a start. The US removed the original inhabitants of the land by armed force, subsidized the building of the railroads, guarded the trails with Federal troops, and gave away land with bare minimum proof of effort. In 2026 the US would never do any of that, but its legacy, including the completely absurd legacy that the owners of land that was given away solely for agricultural purposes now own the minerals, including the oil and gas, below where the grass grows.
Now, I'm a huge fan of history, including Wyoming history, and I'm an agriculturalist as well as a lawyer, and I wish I'd lived back when you could homestead. More than that, if I could have lived when free and company trappers were the only European Americans out here, I would have loved to have done that. But none of that should mean that we take a They Died With Their Boots On view of history let alone our own state. Frankly, the repeal of the Homestead Act after Franklin Roosevelt saved the state and made it was it is, and we ought to be grateful.
Finally, the other thing that's going on is a guerilla campaign in the Culture Wars. College campuses really are more liberal than any other American institution, followed probably only by the Bar.10 Even this, however, isn't very uniform.
As noted here before, I came up in the sciences. By and large, people in the sciences couldn't, at the time, be characterized as left or right. I've heard that certain Charlie Kirk acolyte rail against "liberal professors", but that's because he was a political science major. Who did you think you were going to find there? Other than sociology, that's no doubt the most likely to be left wing major that there is. It's also a major that only leads to teaching or the law, so in a way its a self refining pool of people. People with political science degrees will generally find that the professors are center to left of center. Lawyers as a rule are center to left of center, even if they didn't start out that way, as they have to work with real people. Far right lawyers, of which there are some, aren't going to probably do very well in a profession where your clients are basically in the category of desperately needing help.
Universities, it might be noted, have become more liberal since the Second World War, that being another impact of WWII that I failed to note in my large post on that topic. The reasons were several fold, the first being the massive government investment in universities, which were providing necessary technological knowledge, and manpower, as universities were training needed professions as well as directly training officers. An officer during the Second World War was much more likely to have come out of a university than a military academy. This relationship kept on right after the war and it still exists today.
But beyond that, the GI Bill sent thousands of men to universities who would never have otherwise gone.
All of this created a new condition in which universities started taking in government money, and then became dependent up on it to a degree. It shifted the center of gravity in various academic fields, but not all of them, away from liberal arts degrees that were fairly narrowly focused to much broader ones. This expanded existing degree programs as well. Having said all that entirely new fields were not created anywhere as much as people like to think. CU, for example offered political science classes all the way back to the 1910s, although the department was created in 1957.
So here's the one area that they have a point on. In some fields, not all, some professors, not all are fairly liberal, because that's where they can find a professional homes. Prior to World War Two, and even more, prior to World War One, that's where a certain type of tweedy right wing academic found a home, funded as it were by old money that funded the universities. Now it's sort of flipped.
But how many professors is that really?
My academic experience is quite a while back, but even at that time some of the things the populist right regards as "woke" were around. I don't think I had a single undergraduate professor that I'd regard as left wing, but then again, my major was in a hard science. In law school I can think of a single professor that I'd regard as slightly left of center, but there were quite a few students who were very left of center. Those students were in the political left when they got there.
Indeed, thinking again of my undergraduate years, just after the Siberian land bridge closed, there were a fair number of students in the hard sciences that were left of center. I'd guess that there was probably a single student I knew, a grad student, who was definitely in the political right. Most of the rest of us were not.
And that's some the Freedom Caucus needs to consider.
It wasn't our university education that made us geology students slightly left of center. Were were slightly left of center going in. That doesn't mean we were flaming radicals either, I'd note. But we weren't right wing populists. We were pretty cautious, as budding scientists, about right wing views on many things, and now that I'm approaching four decades out, my views have returned to the same as they were on politics for the most part. Indeed, they've evolved hardly at all there. They have evolved on social and religious views, where I've become more conservative over time, but at the same time, I've become more learned on the same topics, which has driven that.
Which is why the Freedom Caucus needs to get a little education itself. It's grasp of the history of the state and its economics is abysmal. They need more of the opening of Red River and all of Little Big Man and less of the end of They Died With Their Boots On.
The University of Wyoming is the state's only four year college, in part because it fought tooth and nail to keep there from being any others. Hurting UW is an ignorant thing to do.11
You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.
Flannery O'Connor.
Footnotes
1. While I'll note in this that most of the members of the WFC are ignorant in one way or another, they're certainly not stupid, and they're doing what contestants for the English crown used to do in the early Medieval period. They've seized the treasury, and therefore are, they hope, in control.
2. Bear is a CSU graduate and Navy veteran. He's originally from Missouri.
3. They would no doubt not see this, this way, but that's because they tend to be unaware of the highly developed written history of the early Church and the vast number of writings from it.
4. This is very common in the West and I've known some Catholic ranching families that lost their association with the Church in just this fashion. After a time, they don't even know that a generation or two back, they were Catholic.
This sort of thing is described in Patrick McManus' memoir in which he notes that his family lived so far out in the sticks that he was actually relatively advanced in years, age 4 or 5, before he was ware that his family was Catholic. He did remain Catholic.
5. It turns out that he was pursuing a political science degree with the goal of going to law school. It's amusing in part because political science professors tend to be liberal and come by it naturally. If you have Francoist views, as this fellow turned out to have, you aren't going to be a poly sci professor. Lawyers are, moreover, almost uniformly left of center to center, so he's setting himself up for an unhappy life.
6. The real exception to all of this is Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, who is a well educated Californian and a Catholic.
But this in and of itself is interesting. I'd defer to Fr. Joseph Krupp on this, who has discussed how for many years the pro life movement was exclusively Catholic, and then all of a sudden protestant groups started showing up. It had an influence on Catholics in that movement, which ironically helped fuel the Trad movement, although its certainly not the sole reason for it.
Catholics who are fellow travelers with Evangelicals in politics are really naive on what that means as many of these "Bible Believing" Protestants have no clue whatsoever that the Bible is a Catholic book or that Catholics are the original Christians. Rooted in the Black Myths, many of them instinctively really hate Catholics, which will come back to haunt Catholics at some point.
7. See footnote 1.
8. The US is a Protestant country, however, and you can find plenty of Catholics who have adopted heavily Protestantized views on nearly anything, often unthinkingly.
9. The comparison to Pravda is not only absurd, but ironic given that the news organs of the Trump regime might be fairly compared to the Volkische Beobacher.
10. You'll find a lot of conservative lawyers out in the practicing lawyer world, but you won't find very many MAGA ones. There are some, but they're a minority.
Interestingly, when Liz Cheney got into trouble with the electorate here because of her views, the lawyers were really in her corner. I never heard a single lawyer criticize Cheney, and lots of them were very vocal in their support of her. I'd get rare comments from out of state lawyers, who were usually surprised by the stoney silence such comments made, assuming as they did that all Wyomingites hated Cheney.
Lawyers never did, and for that matter, most professionals didn't either. That's still the case, and frankly most of the professional community, including ardent conservatives, are not happy with any of the state's Congressional delegation.
11. For years I thought I saw this coming, I'd note, but not where it actually came. I thought it'd be the law school that would get attacked.
Law schools tend to regarded as liberal by default, and populists tend to hate the law as it restrains them from doing what they want to do, right up until the forces of nature whip around on them and they need protection from the law. Frankly, I fear we're getting there very quickly as Trump's unhinged nature is starting to provoke violent resistance to his programs, and the populist insurrection on January 6, 2020, has given Trump's most radical opponents a blueprint. If the cabinet or Congress doesn't force Trump into the nursing home soon, I suspect very soon that the administration may experience its own January 6 event.
Anyhow, I thought for years that the legislature would turn on the law school, but it hasn't. It might be because, up until very recently, there were quite a few lawyers in the legislature.
That's no longer true, and the lousy quality of some of the legislation that gets passed shows that. Lawyers belong in the legislature. Indeed, there's been a recent effort by some of the legal associations to recruit them back into it, without much success.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Anyhow, the law school probably averted this by doing a good job of making itself irrelevant. The UBE has really damaged it, and the practice of law in Wyoming in general.
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