No surprise, had I been at the Olympics, I'd have booed Vance, and I'm an American. Trump has brought the U.S. into universal contempt, so that a symbol of it gets jeered is no surprise.
Vance must go home and cry seeing his chances of being President decline below 0 every day. His only hope in the first place was the application of the 25th Amendment and so far, in spite of my expectations, no luck there.
Trump was asked about the event.
REPORTER: “The vice president got booed during the opening ceremony. What do you make of that frosty reception?”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “That's surprising because people like him. Well, I mean, he is in a foreign country, you know, in all fairness. He doesn't get booed in this country.”
Truly, Trump is clueless.
Ignoramus at National Prayer Breakfast
I don't see the point of this anymore.
Truth be known, I probably never did. I appreciate prayer, obviously, but this, at least in my memory, has been sort of a lukewarm American Civil Religion event in which the sitting President makes a nod towards religion The same guy could have been chasing skirts all week and then sound like he was really sincere at the breakfast.
Here's JFK's 1963 speech there.
February 07, 1963
Senator Carlson, Mr. Vice President, Reverend Billy Graham, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, gentlemen:
I am honored to be with you here again this morning. These breakfasts are dedicated to prayer and all of us believe in and need prayer. Of all the thousands of letters that are received in the office of the President of the United States, letters of good will and wishes, none, I am sure, have moved any of the incumbents half so much as those that write that those of us who work here in behalf of the country are remembered in their prayers.
You and I are charged with obligations to serve the Great Republic in years of great crisis. The problems we face are complex; the pressures are immense, and both the perils and the opportunities are greater than any nation ever faced. In such a time, the limits of mere human endeavor become more apparent than ever. We cannot depend solely on our material wealth, on our military might, or on our intellectual skill or physical courage to see us safely through the seas that we must sail in the months and years to come.
Along with all of these we need faith. We need the faith with which our first settlers crossed the sea to carve out a state in the wilderness, a mission they said in the Pilgrims' Compact, the Mayflower Compact, undertaken for the glory of God. We need the faith with which our Founding Fathers proudly proclaimed the independence of this country to what seemed at that time an almost hopeless struggle, pledging their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence. We need the faith which has sustained and guided this Nation for 175 long and short years. We are all builders of the future, and whether we build as public servants or private citizens, whether we build at the national or the local level, whether we build in foreign or domestic affairs, we know the truth of the ancient Psalm, "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it."
This morning we pray together; this evening apart. But each morning and each evening, let us remember the advice of my fellow Bostonian, the Reverend Phillips Brooks: "Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks."
[The President spoke first to the gentlemen in the hotel's main ballroom and then to the ladies in the east room.]
Ladies:
I'm glad to be with you again this morning with the Vice President, Reverend Billy Graham, Dr. Vereide, Senator Carlson, the same quartet that was here last year and the year before.
I think these breakfasts serve a most useful cause in uniting us all on an occasion when we look not to ourselves but to above for assistance. On our way from the last meeting to this, we met two members of Parliament who carried with them a message from Lord Home to this breakfast, in which Lord Home quoted the Bible and said that perhaps the wisest thing that was said in the Bible was the words, "Peace, be still."
I think it's appropriate that we should on occasion be still and consider where we are, where we've been, what we believe in, what we are trying to work for, what we want for our country, what we want our country to be, what our individual responsibilities are, and what our national responsibilities are. This country has carried great responsibilities, particularly in the years since the end of the Second War, and I think that willingness to assume those responsibilities has come in part from the strong religious conviction which must carry with it a sense of responsibility to others if it is genuine, which has marked our country from its earliest beginnings, when the recognition of our obligation to God was stated in nearly every public document, down to the present day.
This is not an occasion for feeling pleased with ourselves, but, rather, it is an occasion for asking for help to continue our work and to do more. This is a country which has this feeling strongly. I mentioned in the other room the letters which I receive, which the Members of Congress receive, which the Governors receive, which carry with them by the hundreds the strong commitment to the good life and also the strong feeling of communication which so many of our citizens have with God, and the feeling that we are under His protection. This is, I think, a source of strength to us all.
I want to commend all that you do, not merely for gathering together this morning, but for all the work and works that make up part of your Christian commitment. I am very proud to be with you.
Kennedy, who was a (bad) Catholic, was only able to get elected by promising not to be really Catholic, an act of betrayal to his faith that has hurt Catholics ever since. At least with Trump we don't have that, as he's some sort of undeclared Protestant, he says. Crediting that claim, which I don't think deserves much credit, he's a really bad Christian.
None of which stops people like Franklin Graham and Paula White-Cain from praising him.
White Cain was pretty restrained in her opening remarks there. She isn't always so restrained. Trump wasn't restrained in his babbling remarks, which departed greatly from Christianity.
I'm pretty skeptical about any real attachment, or perhaps understanding, of Trump to religion. Indeed, I'm firmly convinced the damage he's doing to Evangelical Christianity is deep.
Trump announced a May 17, 2026 national prayer gathering on the National Mall as part of the White House's 'America Prays' initiative, which encourages one million people to dedicate weekly prayer time. Such prayer would be beneficial no doubt, but a big gathering on the National Mall is a mistake. It's going to gather a counter prayer demonstration for sure by Christians who see through Trump, and it'll likely generate a mass protest. It'll be difficult to keep it from getting out of hand.
That's a Sunday. Maybe J.D. can note that he has to go to Mass and skip out.
Drip
For the 2026 US Olympic drip, the teams has white duffle coats and a sort of winter themed sweater with the flag on it. It looks nice, but Norway has accused the US of stealing the star motif on the sweater.
I have a duffle coat I wear as a winter overcoat. I really like it. I've had it for years and year, but oddly suddenly I'm getting compliments while wearing it. It always catches me off guard as it is getting long in the tooth, but still I get a fair number of them.
The same is true with a Hanna Hats panel cap I've been wearing for about 25 years or so. I've always received some compliments on it, but I"m getting a lot all of a sudden. A guy actually interrupted a conversation he was having with a woman at a store just to ask me "what's that sort of cap called"?
In other somewhat surreal conversations, I picked up pizza on my way home from an unsuccessful goose hunt the other day and went into the joint in a heavy surplus European camouflaged coat. I'm too cheap to buy the designer camo that other people do. Anyhow, I parked my Jeep right in front of the place and when I went in the girl waiting the counter said "What kind of a car is that?"
It was a Jeep.
That was a surprising question as Jeeps look like Jeeps and they have since the very first Jeep.
Probably because of my coat she then asked, after getting my pizza, "where you in the military"? I affirmed and she thanked me for my service.
I note this as this sort of somewhat awkward but ready engagement seems common for people in Generation Alpha. Indeed, back to the hat, I've had some young women, probably 20 years old or less, just look at me and say "I like your hat" in passing. It's a little awkward and surprising.
When I was 20 myself, young women never told me that, darn it.
Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in an apartment in Tampico, Illinois to Nelle Clyde Reagan (nee Wilson) and Jack Reagan.
Reagan family, Ronald Reagan is the youngest.
His mother was a devout member of the Disciples of Christ while his father was a Catholic and they were married in the Catholic Church. The couple's older son, Neil, was baptized as a Catholic, but raised as a youth in the Disciples of Christ before switching over to being a practicing Catholic. Ronald was baptized in he Disciples of Christ Church. This sort of compromise wasn't uncommon in American families of mixed religious background, but it would have been problematic for Jack. I note all of this as Reagan himself made some life and political compromises that perhaps somewhat reflect having grown up in a household of problematic compromise, although that is speculating a lot.
His entry into media came initially as being a sports broadcaster. By 1937 he was acting. He was an Army Reserve cavalryman starting in 1937, and would serve in the Army during the Second World War in the branch that made films and did pubic relations work.
Like his father, Reagan was initially a Democrat and switched to the GOP in the 1950s. By the time he ran for office in California he was solidly a Buckleyite conservative and has the status of the last real conservative to hold the Oval Office. While a hero to conservatives, it was his Southern Strategy that would ultimately destroy the GOP.
At the time of his first election to the Presidency, there were real questions on whether Americans would vote for a divorced man, showing how much higher standards were at the time.
Reagan was leagues superior to the current illegitimate occupant of the White House, and as a real conservative he had real merit from the perspective of conservatives, including myself . The hero worship of Reagan is, however, unwarranted. By his second term the signs of Alzheimer's was appearing, although nothing to the degree which dementia has best the current putative chief executive.
So, a big one that we didn't include yesterday, as it deserves its own post. This may be the most significant post of this thread.
Don't lie and don's support liars.
Everyone has heard the old joke, “How do you know a politician is lying?” The answer. Because their mouth is moving." That stretches the point, but there's some truth behind the joke, as there is with any good joke.
Indeed, we've become so used to politicians lying that we basically expect it. The current era, however has brought lying, as well as truth telling, into a new weird surreal era.
Lying is a sin. It's been debated since early times if it's always a sin, or if there are circumstances in which it may be allowed, limited though those be. If it's every allowable, it's in situations like war, where after all, killing is allowed. Most of us lie, but it's almost always sinful.
In Catholic theological thought, lying can be a mortal sin. It's generally accepted that most lies are not in that category. So, "yes, dear, I love gravy burgers" is not a mortal sin. But lies can definitely be mortally sinful. Lying over a grave matter is mortally sinful, if the other conditions for mortal sin are met.
Donald Trump, whom some deluded Christians refer to as a "Godly Man", lies routinely and brazenly, and this has brought lying into the forefront, even as he's shocked people, rightfully, by following through on some of his promises, but not all, that were assumed to be lies or at least exaggerations. He's advanced lies about who won the 2020 election, and many of his followers have advanced those lies as well. Some people, of course, believe the lies and advance what they assume to be the truth, but some of that is being wilfully ignorant that they are lies.
Of course here, as always, I'm coming at this from a Catholic prospective. I do not accept the thesis that some do that lies can be utilized to advanced something we regard as a greater good. Some hold the opposite view and I'm fairly convinced that some Christian Nationalist politicians hold the opposite view. I frankly wonder, for example, if Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, hold the opposite view. Johnson claims to be a devout Christian and if he doesn't hold the opposite view, based on the lies he spouts, he must despair of his own salvation quite frequently, unless he hold the completely erroneous "once saved always saved" view some Evangelical Christians hold, or if he's a Calvinist that figures that double predestination has the fate of everyone all determined anyhow, which is also a theologically anemic position.
A very tiny minority of Christians hold such views, however. For the rest of us, it's incumbent not to reward lying, and not to advance lies. It's dangerous and destructive to everyone. It should not be tolerated by anyone. And in this era, and for the proceeding several, it's destroying everything.
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.
