Casper is the biggest city in central Wyoming. Given that, it's the focus for a lot of stuff. In the summer, it can be crowded with events.
It's also possible to forget how many events there are, and ones that come and go are soon forgotten. Only a couple of weeks ago, of course, there was the big Trump rally, oops Hageman rally. . . no Trump rally, which saw something like 9,000 Trump loyalist show up in, as the press likes to call it, Deep Red Wyoming.
What about this weekend?
Well this weekend, downtown, there was a big "Pride" event at the city's own David Street Station which apparently was really well attended locally. Not very "deep red", as of course by "pride" it refers to LBGTQ "pride".
The College National Finals Rodeo, a car show, and the annual art show, are also up and running this week. And it's craft beer week statewide.
I still think the use of the word pride in regard to an inclination is grammatically weird. That's a different topic from the LBGTQ subject in and of itself, which I'm not going to address here at all. Anyhow, it seems to have turned out a lot of people.
I read that in one of the online journals, which is prominently featuring it as its local news. Makes sense, it's local news.
In the same journal Chuck Gray's hand-picked intended successor, who does have primary opposition, is running an article about herself. I.e, it's an add disguised as an article, an old advertising trick.
In that, the candidate informs the readers that she's a "refugee from "fascist Illinois".
Eh?
The candidate needs to get her hyperbole fixed, if nothing else. She's complaining about "fascist Illinois" because she's an extreme right wing candidate and is upset that Illinois is left of center. If she wants to slander Illinois, she should accuse it of being communist or socialist. Those claims wouldn't be true either, but get the right left thing right for goodness’ sake.
The candidate informs us that the line in the sand for Illinois was as follows:
The straw that broke the camel’s back for our family was when one of our high-school daughters was threatened with out-of-school suspension for not wearing a mask. We were DONE with Illinois.
Well, we had those here and that would have been a possibility here as well. Chances are the daughter would have been suspended here.
I guess you can't get after somebody who arrives late to the party for not knowing that the main course was served, but you probably ought not to slam people for serving salmon before you know what the meal was.
Ward has a list of her various platforms, or I guess principal beliefs.
- Pro Freedom: Taxation is theft.
- Pro-Wyoming FIRST: Wyoming’s land and energy below (sic) to Wyoming
- Pro-Medical Freedom. Mask and vaccine mandates were NEVER lawful.
- Unabashedly Pro-Life. Life begins at conception
- Pro-Family. Marriage is between a man and a woman.
- Pro-2nd Amendment. WY has constitutional carry. Let’s keep it that way.
I'm going to deal with some of these first, and then the others.
- Pro Freedom: Taxation is theft.
No, it isn't. The government can't work without taxes, and we've always had taxes. Since the dawn of government, it's had the taxing authority. This statement is extreme, and frankly unthinking. Like your paved road? How do you think it got there?
"Freedom" isn't free, people like to say, usually referring to military sacrifice. Well, it isn't fiscally free either.
- Pro-Wyoming FIRST: Wyoming’s land and energy below (sic) to Wyoming
This is a policy that would turn Wyoming into Texas in about 3.5 seconds. Wyomingites like their public lands and the right wing extremist running right now never saw any public land that they didn't want to sell to the richest out of stater they could find.
It's also completely contrary to the valid legal bargain we made when we became a state.
This, by the way, is a real red flag to locals. By and large, this position is detested by people who are actually from here.
- Pro-Medical Freedom. Mask and vaccine mandates were NEVER lawful.
Like it or not, they were always lawful. That doesn't mean you have to like them, but to suggest they were unlawful is simply wrong.
They too actually have a legal history in Wyoming, FWIW, and you can find similar things having occurred during the 1919 Flu Pandemic herein the state.
- Pro-2nd Amendment. WY has constitutional carry. Let’s keep it that way.
Wyoming does not have "constitutional carry". This topic isn't in our state constitution at all. You have a right to keep and bear arms, but the state constitution doesn't address carry. You probably have a right to carry, should that ever get to the Supreme Court, but whether you'd have the right to conceal. . . probably not.
We have statutory authorization for restricted general carry. You can carry, but not everywhere. And you can carry concealed by statutory authorization, but not everywhere.
This, also, is under no sort of threat. Everybody who is running for anything is going to say that they're "pro Second Amendment". Indeed, without commenting on the obviously highly right wing candidate in question, I've often thought that imported politicians from cities who claim to be "pro gun", had they stayed in their bergs, probably would have been all about gun control had they run there.
All of the above topics would suggest that the candidate needs a basic course on the law. It'd do no good, however, I'm sure, as there seem to be a lot of people now who believe in a sort of secret constitution that doesn't reflect the printed one. That leaves two topics.
- Unabashedly Pro-Life. Life begins at conception
- Pro-Family. Marriage is between a man and a woman.
I agree with those, but here's something the current extreme right seems to be missing. By linking in their extremist views, like taking away public lands and the like, with long held social conservatism, they're dooming both. I.e, if you have to be in the "the election was stolen" crowed, which I'd guess this candidate likely is (although I don't know), in order to oppose abortion, at the end of the day a lot of social conservatives are going to go into the voting booth and choose democracy over other issues.
This kind of thing puts them there.
My guess is, in other words, if Harriet Hageman is this year's candidate for House. . . Lynette Gray Bull is going to get a surprising number of GOP votes.
Back to the Pride event.
That's actually more traditionally Wyoming than the probably horrified imported Illinois candidate may imagine. Wyoming's traditional political culture was "I don't care what the crap you do as long as you leave me alone".
Heck, for that matter, serve beer at something pretty left wing and chances are you'd get a lot of really right wing people showing up.
And that view definitely doesn't square with what the imported heavily right wing candidates think, or what the current leadership of the state's GOP think.
Again, I'm not commenting on the Pride event itself, or the even topic that surrounds it. What I'm talking about instead is people who truly don't seem to know where they are.
Indeed, I wonder what the candidate thinks in learning that the city she's relocated in is having a Pride event, at the city's big gathering spot, and people don't seem up in arms about it, unlike in neighboring Idaho. Indeed, as she's a recent arrival, she likely doesn't know that such contrasts with Idaho are long-standing here. Idaho has been a lot more receptive to the extreme right than Wyoming, at least up until now, and that probably says something about where Wyoming is at right now.
Trump one weekend, with car shows, Pride events a couple of weeks later, with car shows. Probably doesn't surprise anyone whose from here.
Probably a little confusing for those who thought they were moving into a prior century.
And it's craft beer week.
This weekend also features the College National Finals Rodeo, something that celebrates education and a major part of the regional culture, and the industry that created it.
I really wish we could go back.
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