The 2026 Election, 2nd Edition: The early season.

July 6, 2025

I started drafting this, barely, as the Big Ugly started its final set of debates in the Senate.  As I did that, this came out Musk broke, for the second time, with Trump, and claimed he'd form a new party if the Big Ugly passed.

And now Musk has announced he's doing just that.

Well, good for him.

I'm not posting this a a cheerleader for Musk.  Musk is very much part of what's wrong with the United States.  He's a poster child for what occurs in a country where has unrestrained capitalism.  His caring about people claim can be doubted.  The largest donor to the 2022 election, and the former Gauleiter of DOGE, there's no reason to trust that his view of what the nation's politics ought to look like comport with an actual decent set of political beliefs.

But this does symbolize something I'd noted at the time.

The 2026 election has begun.It'll interesting to see how this pays out.

Lummis is up for reelection, assuming she runs, and she will.  She'll blame the Democrats for anything that goes wrong, and talk about being the Cyberqueen.

If she faces a solid challenger, after the Public Lands vote, she'll be in trouble.

The House seat is also up.  Hageman won't run for that however, she's going to run for Governor.  She's going to lose that.

Chuck Gray is going to run for the House, and he'll lose that.

Times are changing. Whether or not The Big Ugly passes, Trump has shot his bolt.  True acolytes can wear "Trump was right about everything" truckers caps, but the opposite is proving to be true.

And this is about to get a lot worse for the GOP.

cont:

And now Nebraska's Don Bacon.  The Congressman is in a district that's becoming increasingly Democratic, and my guess is it likely now will be a Democratic seat.  The Republicans only hold a seven seat majority right now, which will be reduced to a five seat majority once the Democrats fill two vacant seats.  Even assuming the Republicans hold every seat they currently have with out Bacon, that would reduce them to a four seat majority.

But they won't hold every seat. The House will flip.

cont:

Even Elon suddenly woke up.

At the time I posted that, I noted the departure of Don Bacon from the candidate rolls for the next election.  Now, Tennessee's Mark Green has outright left.  The GOP held 220 seats and the Democrats 213, but two of the unfilled seats will go to Democrats once vacant seats are replaced, reducing the pre Big Ugly margin to 220 to 215.  With Green actually now gone, that's 219 to 215.

The House will return to the Democrats in the 2026 election.

By that time, it's my guess that the utility of Donald Trump will be gone, and the utility of being shocked that he has dementia will set in.

J.D. Vance will be President by then, with the NatCons hoping that he isn't tainted by anything that went wrong under Trump.  Without Vance, nothing that's happened so far will last very long.

What will occur in the Wyoming midterm, which will address in another post on a somewhat separate theme will be really interesting. There's a good chance that Hageman and Lummis won't survive the midterms and that Gray will be defeated in his effort to climb the next rung of the latter, a sign that he'll he'll soon leave the state entirely, it no longer serving any purpose for him.

July 10, 2025

Interesting article pointing out that Musk's third party effort is a long shot, but still has a shot.

Jonah Goldberg: Elon Musk’s America Party is a long shot

Already, I'd note, the one thing the Democrats and the GOP are agreeing on right now is that you must not vote for any new Musk party.

Not that I would.  The values that the South African Mass Sperm Donor Billionaire hold are very far from mine.  DOGE was stupid beyond belief.  And frankly, I don't think that the Federal Government needed to be smaller in the first place, and that the common belief that it does is simply a "common sense" bromide that people believe because they believe it.  But he is right about the looming budget crisis.  I'd fix that much differently than Musk would.

But I don't think his party, should he form it, can necessarily be discounted.  By next election the declining Trump, will sound more and more like mush.  Trump already often sounds like this:

Or this:

 

The room to take Trump on is increasing, and the question is how much the NatCons really want to invest in a bowl of oatmeal as a figurehead.  That could prove to be a bad strategy.

One thing I'll note is that I have a thread I haven't posted yet pondering a sort of Wyoming Party.  I should have finished it as I could sort have been to this topic first.

And Musk certainly has the cash to get his views out. As he does that, the GOP will spend a lot of cashing yelling "don't listen to the right wing nut!"

Of course, the Democrats will agree with the Republicans on that, as not voting for a third party is the one thing they agree on. . . which is ironically one of the things that an American Party could point to as a reason to vote for it.

I'd also note that if an American Party was intelligent, which there's big reason to doubt that it would be, and carved off some of the real conservative topics from the GOP, and was actually fiscally conservative, it might appeal more broadly than the GOP suspects.

In more local news, former primary candidate Reid Rasner, who ran to the right of John Barrasso, and who forced Barrasso to run to the right of himself, has filed a lawsuit in the 2nd Judicial District against far right former state senator Anthony Bouchard for defamation.

July 10, 2025, cont.

So, the news on Ranser and Bouchard seems more clear.  Rasner claims that Bouchard ruined a major economic deal he was working on to buy TikTok by emphasizing that Rasner is a homosexual, which Rasner does not deny. Bouchard had a sexual scandal of his own that came to light earlier on, which, the way I typed it out, would seem to suggest that Rasner's being a homosexual is a scandal, which he doesn't deny (his orientation) in his lawsuit. 

Bouchard dropped out of the legislature after his own rather gross sexual scandal came to light, so the fact that he'd make any kind of a big deal out of Rasner's homosexuality is really petty.  Apparently screwing and impregnating 14 or 15 year olds, albeit when he was 19, is not as bad as Rasner having same sex attraction.  At least, the argument seems to be, you are screwing the opposite gender, so that's better.  I'll leave that to others to judge. But why would one far right figure go after the other?

Proper sexual orientation seems to be the only reason. So, really, in the MAGA world screwing a 14 or 15 year old when you are 19 is, well, one of those "Romeo and Juliet" type of deals, to use Bouchard's words, but being a homosexual is just wrong.

Of course, from an Apostolic Christian point of view, sexual relations are only licit between a man and a woman inside a valid marriage, which can occur only once, while both of the couple are living.  Inclination doesn't matter, and is not sinful inside itself.  But that's not the modern United States, where a serial polygamist is the alleged President and who was a friend of a procurer (which perhaps he was unaware of), but he's okay as he has the right attraction.  Most Populist Americans seem to believe that there's nothing really wrong with 1960s sexual libertine behavior, as long as its directed towards the opposite sex.

Rasner must figure his bolt is shot politically, as publishing himself as a homosexual will kill any chance he has of office in contemporary Wyoming.  He's not the first Wyoming homosexual to have sought office, and three Wyomingites who were homosexuals have served in elective office, with two of them being open about it.  I'd be stunned if there aren't any now, other than the one legislator who admits to being homosexual.  Indeed, it'd be interesting if the sexual conduct of every Wyoming political figure came to light so that the MAGA adherents could be exposed to the full sunlight.   Maybe they're all pure in their carnal desires, and properly oriented, but I'd be surprised.

An interesting thing here, I'd note, is that Rasner ran to the right of Barrasso, which puts him in full NatCon territory.  The NatCons feel that homosexuality is a total abomination.  This points out a really curious aspect of it, however, as individuals who can carry the Populist banner don't seem to see a conflict with those who would basically burn them at the stake.  No matter what a person thinks of it, homosexuality wasn't something that traditional conservative Republicans cared about at all.  Hardcore NatCons sure do.

July 11, 2025

The Secretary of State, whose job in Wyoming is to be a Secretary, is once again criticizing the Governor, whose job is to govern.

Gordon Defends Energy Platform; Gray Says Wind, Solar A ‘Woke Clown Show’

Gray clearly can't stay in his own lane, and is clearly running for something else.  Wyomingites are pretty sharply divided on him, with the far right seeing him as some sort of brilliant crusader, and many others seeing him as a self serving buffoon looking for the spotlight to shine on himself.

July 22, 2025

In what was very clearly the first political campaign rally of Chuck Gray's 2026 campaign for Governor, Chuck spoke at The Hanger in Bar Nunn. 

Spewing his usual stew of nonsense decrying "the radical left", he then turned against Radiant Energy, which has reportedly received opposition in Bar Nunn.  Chuck has learned how to sound like a diehard full Trump right winger except on things unpopular, at which point he becomes nearly a Green Peace activist.  You really can't thread his positions together in a straight line.

He also predictably railed against Governor Gordon.  Gordon is theoretically barred from a third term, but only theoretically.  Gray clearly feels that Gordon may be running, and the fact that Gordon hasn't been a far right drone has made him the target of Gray's ire. 

An interesting thing here is that this the opening of his attempt at the Governor's office. Very reliable inside information had Gray going for Harriet Hageman's seat, but this would suggest that might have changed, or that Gray just doesn't have anything real to discuss.  If Hageman decides to run for a second term, which as an opponent of public lands she might regret doing, Gray won't challenge her.  Hageman may know, however, that her chances for the Governor's office are now dead in the water. For that matter, her chances of reelection to Congress may be as well, but there she can try to deflect attention by clinging tightly to her support of the still popular, in Wyoming, for right now, Trump.

You also can't really explain why a Secretary of State would need a "town hall".  The job is about as interesting as wall paper paste if it's actual role is discussed.

July 29, 2025

From the Cowboy State Daily:

Hageman's Popularity Has Many Uncertain If They’ll Run For Governor

Worth noting, Hageman might not be as popular as she once was following her support of Mike Lee's land grab effort.

July 30, 2025

Gordon among nation’s most popular governors despite criticism from right flank, poll finds

: National survey of Wyoming voters shows Gordon’s popularity has remained steady throughout his tenure.

July 31, 2025

Tom Lubnau:  Which Gubernatorial Candidates Can Raise the Funds Necessary to Run

August 2, 2025

Gray weighs his odds in race for Wyoming governor or U.S. representative

Anonymous Rifle-Themed Site Targets Hageman For Defending Public Lands Sale

The site:

Project Winchester

Hageman has condemned the site as promoting violence due to its use of a rifle theme, which is pretty ironic for the GOP in Trump's era.

August 11, 2025

I suspect people are beginning to get a bit nervous about what their support of the land disposal move will mean at the ballot box.

They should.

One reason I suspect this is that billboards thanking the politicians are showing up.  Two billboards featuring all three are thanks from "the energy industry', and ironically show the background of the Tetons.

That presumably means petroleum and coal, but it's really hard to say. The energy industry wasn't under attack to start with, so its not even clear what the thanks is for.  Why do they need to be thanked?

Somebody wants everyone to remember, I guess, that all three stand with the "energy industry".  We knew that. They stand with us on public lands. That's the point.

Another one around here thanks John Barrasso from the health industry.  That's laughable.  It's supposed to be for cutting waste from Medicaid.  His support of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. says all you really need to know about where Dr. John's heart really lies.

Both Barrasso and Gov. Gordon were at some  health related event last week.  I've lost track of what it was.  Barrasso isn't up for reelection for years, so all of this image redirection is really interesting.

Last edition:

The 2026 Election, 1st Edition: Spring Training Edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2024, 2026, 2026 Election, Carpetbaggers, Catholic, Conservatism, homosexuality, Politics, Populism, Predictions, religion, Republican Party, The Big Ugly, The relationship between men and women, trends, Wyoming

Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 10. The killing the messenger edition.

August 2, 2025.

Eight months into the year, and our 10th edition for 2025.

Uff.

Mad King Donald fired Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as he was upset by the Bureau's negative job report, which he stated was rigged.

It was rigged, of course, because facts in Trumpland are rigged if they aren't universally pro Trump.

This is likely to get a lot worse as the fact is that a lot of things Trump has set in motion are going to start having pretty negative consequences.  Likewise, some firmly held GOP beliefs on economics and science aren't going to hold up to reality.

Speaking of reality and the news, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is closing its doors due to the budget rescission.  The CPB, NPR and PBS are separate entities, but this is not a good development.

Republicans, who don't actually seem to realize the three entities are separate from each other, are rejoicing that public funding is ending for "left wing" media, by which they largely mean media that reports reality and the truth, as opposed to propaganda.

August 3, 2025

Three Kentucky distilleries, all small ones, have filed for bankruptcy within the past eight months, with the lastest coming last week.

While I haven't seen any analysis on it, distilleries were particularly worried about the Trump tariffs and, surprise surprise, booze can be made anywhere.  Canadians have pretty much sworn off of US alcohol and were actually a major market.  They make their own anyway.  Seems like Europeans might be doing so also.

And part of this is probably the impact of an artisanal whiskey boom of the last decade fading.

August 5, 2025

Proposal to address ‘nation’s worst workforce exodus’ fails to get support from Wyoming lawmakers: The Wyoming Business Council says it has more policy ideas forthcoming to address "vicious" shrinking workforce conundrum.

August 10, 2025

Some really interesting things are going on that are definitely Wyoming centric that we haven't noted, or haven't noted much, and should.

The first might be that a proposal to put in a nuclear generator construction facility in Natrona County north of the town of Bar Nunn has really turned out to be controversial.  This comes on the heels of a nuclear power plant in Kemmerer that is also controversial.

The ins and outs of the controversy are a little difficult to really discern, but at some level, quite a few people just don't like the idea of something nuclear.  It's not coal, and its not oil.  Chuck Gray, for example, has come out against this and wind energy.  Chuck hasn't worked a day in his life in a blue collar job and he's just tapping into the "no sir, we don't like it" sort of thought here.

What's going to happen?  We'll have to see.

Another local controversy is the approval of a 30 lot subdivision on Casper Mountain.  This has drawn the ire of a lot people who live on Casper Mountain, and most of it is posed in conservation or even environmental terms.

The irony there, of course, is that people who have already built a house on the mountain are somewhat compromised in these arguments.  I get it, however, as I really don't think we need more rural subdivisions in the county, at all.

On the mountain, I'd note that one of the really aggravating things that has happened recently is that last year a joint Federal/State project paved the dirt road on the backside of the mountain to the top of Muddy Mountain.  It didn't need to be done and it just encourages land rapist to built houses on the backside of Casper Mountain.

Natrona County Bans Big Trucks On 26 Roads Amid Gravel Mine Controversy

I understand the opposition here, but in context, things seem to lack consistency.

Which gets back to this, I suppose.  If a person just doesn't want development, they can say that.

What you can't do, however, is pretend that some major pillars of the state's economy are going to be here forever.  The extractive industries are basically on their way out right now.

One of the amusing things about all of this is that the MAGA hat wearers locally who are opposed to nuclear energy are facing it in part due to the current administration.

Uranium Operation Is Wyoming’s First Fast-Tracked By Trump’s New Energy Rules

Last edition:

Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 9. Waist Deep in the Big Muddy. It's Donald Trump's economy now.

Labels: Coal, Distributism, Economics, Errare humanum est perseverare diabolicum, Hypocrisy, Japan, Localism, Pronatalism, Subsidiarity, Taxes, The Big Ugly, The Second Trump Administration, Wyoming's boom and bust economy European Union, inflation, Taxes, The Second Trump Administration, Wyoming's boom and bust economy

Wyoming newspaper owners, staffers race to rescue community news

Wyoming newspaper owners, staffers race to rescue community news

The Agrarian's Lament: Going Feral: Boycott

The natives, it appears, are restless. 

The Agrarian's Lament: Going Feral: Boycott: An interesting, and frankly shocking to a degree, post by a co-blogger.  First the post, then some comments here. The Post.  Going Feral: Bo...

Going Feral: Boycott

An interesting, and frankly shocking to a degree, post by a co-blogger.  First the post, then some comments here.

The Post.  Going Feral: Boycott:    

Boycott

  

Cpt. Charles Boycott was an agent for remote land owners in Ireland who was regarded as particularly severe.  During the Irish Land War the Land League  introduced the boycott, directing it first at Cpt. Boycott. They refused him everything, even conversations.  The concept was introduced by Irish politician Charles Parnell, noting:

When a man takes a farm from which another has been evicted, you must shun him on the roadside when you meet him, you must shun him in the streets of the town, you must shun him at the shop-counter, you must shun him in the fair and at the marketplace, and even in the house of worship... you must shun him your detestation of the crime he has committed... if the population of a county in Ireland carry out this doctrine, that there will be no man ... [who would dare] to transgress your unwritten code of laws.

Charles Stewart Parnell, at Ennis meeting, 19 September 1880.

Maybe it's time to take a page from the Land League.

This comes up in the context of a Reddit post on Fred Eshelman's Iron Bar Ranch, his toy ranch in Carbon County about which he's zealously pursuing litigation in trying to keep people form corner crossing.  So far, he's losing, having had the local Federal District Court first, and then the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals endorse corner crossing as legal.  As we've noted here:

Eshelman is a pharmacist by training who has done very well, economically, in that field. So well that North Carolina's school of pharmacy, which he donates to, has named that school after him.  His bio appears on their site:

Fred Eshelman, PharmD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fred Eshelman is the founder of Eshelman Ventures LLC, an investment company primarily interested in private health-care companies. Previously he founded and served as CEO and executive chairman of Pharmaceutical Product Development (PPDI, NASDAQ) prior to the sale of the company to private equity interests.

After PPD he served as the founding chairman and largest shareholder of Furiex Pharmaceuticals (FURX, NASDAQ), a company which licensed and rapidly developed new medicines. Furiex was sold to Forest Labs/Actavis in July, 2014.

His career has also included positions as senior vice president (development) and board member of the former Glaxo, Inc., as well as various management positions with Beecham Laboratories and Boehringer Mannheim Pharmaceuticals.

Eshelman has served on the executive committee of the Medical Foundation of North Carolina, was on the board of trustees for UNC-W and in 2011 was appointed by the NC General Assembly to serve on the Board of Governors for the state’s multicampus university system as well as the NC Biotechnology Center. In addition, he chairs the board of visitors for the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one of the top pharmacy programs in the United States. In May 2008 the School was named for Eshelman in recognition of his many contributions to the school and the profession.

Eshelman has received many awards including the Davie and Distinguished Service Awards from UNC and Outstanding Alumnus from both the UNC and University of Cincinnati schools of pharmacy, as well as the N.C. Entrepreneur Hall of Fame Award. He earned a B.S. in pharmacy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,  received his Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Cincinnati, and completed a residency at Cincinnati General Hospital. He is a graduate of the Owner/President Management Program at Harvard Business School.

Indeed, the fact that Eshelman is very wealthy apparently was referenced by one of his employees in the initial confrontation with the Missouri hunters, which isn't a very wise thing to do as it looks bad.  Indeed, it looks bad right away, and then again in court.

So, Iron Bar Holdings is Fred Eshelman, very wealthy pharmaceutical personality.

The Reddit post, which was linked into an out of state news article, provoked a series of responses on how locals shouldn't accommodate Iron Bar economically, the posters apparently being unaware that he's a wealthy out of state landowner that doesn't, for example, hit the feed store in Rawlins.

But I wonder if they were on to something?

Iron Bar is employing locals, and those locals are serving to oppress Wyomingites.  There's no real reason to accommodate them. They probably do go to the feed store in Rawlins, probably stop by Bi-Rite in that city, and probably go into town there, or maybe Saratoga, from time to time.

Why accommodate them?

They're serving the interest of a carpetbagger and have chosen their lot. There's no reason to sell them fishing tackle or gasoline, or take their order at the restaurant.  

Beyond that, as I've noted before, in his lawsuit Eshelman is making use of local lawyers.  His big guns are, of course, out of staters, but he still needs some local ones.  Originally that person was Greg Weisz, who now works for the AG's office in the state. Megan Overmann Goetz took over when Weisz left.  Maybe she had to, as when a lawyer goes into the state's service, he leaves the work behind.  Both of them are of the firm Pence and MacMillan in Laramie.

I don't know anything about Weisz, but a state website disturbingly places him in the Water and Natural Resources branch of the AG's office, noting:

Gregory Weisz

Greg joined the Water and Natural Resources Division in January 2024 after almost thirty years in private practice. While in private practice, he focused on real estate transactions and litigation, easement law, water law, general civil litigation, agricultural law, and natural resources. At the Attorney General's office, he represents many Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality agencies including the Land Quality Division, Industrial Siting Division, Solid and Hazardous Waste Division, Storage Tank department, Abandoned Mine Lands Division, and DEQ itself with general legal issues. He graduated with an undergraduate degree in Natural Resources Management and a law degree from the University of Wyoming. His prior work experience included private forestry consulting, oil & gas exploration, water treatment, ranch labor, and forest products manufacturing.

Lawyers very strongly believe that the justice system is great, and that by serving client's, they're serving truth, justice, apple pie, and motherhood.  That allows them to stand themselves.  And to some extent, it's true, particularly in the criminal justice system.  The entire system depends on the accused getting representation, which is in everyone's best interest.

But that's not true of Plaintiff's cases.  Plaintiff's lawyers make a big deal of how they serve the little man, but much of it is a crock.  And in something like this, Weisz was serving the interest of a wealthy carpetbagger.  Maybe he believes in the cause, but that doesn't mean that people have to accommodate him, then or now.  Now there are questions that Wyomingites in particular and public lands users in general have a right to demand of Weisz, most particularly does he believe in  Eshelman's cause.  If he does, do we want him in the state's law firm, the AG's office?

Beyond that, for the Wyoming lawyers actively representing Eshelman, why accommodate them. They can be comforted by chocking down their service to a bad cause by liberal doses of cash.  Locals don't have to accommodate them, however.  Laramie and Cheyenne are not far from Colorado, they can buy their groceries there.

I know that if I was shopping for somebody to provide legal services, I'd shop elsewhere if I found my law firm was representing somebody trying to screw public land access for locals.

But it doesn't stop there.  All three of Wyoming's "representatives" in Congress voted against what Wyomingites overwhelmingly believe. That ought to be enough to vote them out of office.  But people don't need to wait until then.  All three are still showing up, I bet, at Boy Scout, sportsmen's and other events.  Quit inviting them. And if they do show up, do what Hageman did at the State Bar Convention last year, walk out on her if she speaks as she did to a speaker.

Is this extreme?  It is.  But these efforts never cease.

When being an employee of Fred Eshelman means you have to drive to Ft. Collins in order to buy a loaf of bread, it won't be worth it.  When Escheman can't get a plumber or electrician to come to his house, or anyone to doctor his cattle, or give him a ride from the airport, it won't be worth it for him. When lawyers have decide if that one case is worth not getting anymore, I know what decision they'll make. When John Barrasso quits getting invitations to speak, he'll know what to do.

There are limits, of course, to all of this.  You can't hurt people or property. If somebody needs medical service, they should get it.  If somebody is stuck in a blizzard and you come upon the, they should get the ride.  But you don't have to serve them at the restaurant or agree to fix their pickup truck.

Or, so it seems to me.  It would at least seem worth debating.

Boycott.

The comment.

Hobby ownership of substantial amounts of property like this ought to be banned.  If you own agricultural land, your primary income should be derived from it.

This could very easily come to be the case if states, including my home state of Wyoming, adopted agricultural corporation laws providing that only bonafide agriculturalist could own agricultural property, which I'd set at any amount of real property not used for industrial use which exceeded five acres in size.  That'd help preserve farm and ranch land from being busted up, and it would mean that the people who owned agricultural land were actual agriculturalist.  In order, let's way, to hold stock in such a corporation, no less than 65% of your income would have to be derived from agricultural pursuits.

Are we Wyomingites ready to throw off our colonial yoke?

We should, but I doubt we'll do it. Still, I've been surprised in the past.

Anyow, as these posts suggest, there's really no good reason to serve those in our midst whose masters have interests contrary to our own. Let those servants go live amongst their masters or abandon them. And as for the masters, there's utterly no reason to serve their interests through serving them.

More thoughts on this to be added later.

Gordon to deploy Wyoming National Guard to support ICE in Trump’s mass deportation effort

Gordon to deploy Wyoming National Guard to support ICE in Trump’s mass deportation effort: Gov. Mark Gordon is among a reported 20 Republican governors who agreed to the president’s request to use guard members for immigration enforcement duties — maybe paperwork.

As a former Guardsman, I'd absolutely hate this if I was still one. 

Forecasters: Big Beautiful Bill will cost Wyoming $50M in coal royalties

Forecasters: Big Beautiful Bill will cost Wyoming $50M in coal royalties: Higher severance and ad valorem payments are not expected to offset federal mineral royalty reductions, according to state financial forecasters.

Wyoming Highway Patrol chief describes limited rollout of ICE agreement. Advocate warns it could undermine public safety.

Wyoming Highway Patrol chief describes limited rollout of ICE agreement. Advocate warns it could undermine public safety.: State troopers will tighten the net for undocumented immigrants in five counties, though chief says the number of participating officers will start out small.

Pioneer Myths, Imported Politicos. Public land sales, part 2. The historo-religious motivation for some (but certainly not all) of the backers.

Indians attacking a wagon train, Frederic Remington.

Recently we posted this, arguing that Mike Lee's background and religion informs his views on grabbing Federal lands in the West:

Lex Anteinternet: Pioneer Day. Pie & Beer Day. Public land sales, ...: Flag of the putative State of Deseret. Church and state should be separate, not only in form, but fact - religion and politics should not be...

In that, we noted this:

One of the Salt Lake newspapers has started a series on this, noting basically what I just did (I actually started this tread prior to the paper).  This doesn't cover it all, however.  It'd explain none of what we see in Wyoming backers like Harriet Hageman.  We'll look at that next.

Now we're taking that look.  More specifically, we're looking at the question of how Harriet Hageman, John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis can look at the people who voted them in, and say, basically, "screw you and the horse you rode in on".

We'll note first that we don't think the answer is the same for all three of them.

Let's start with Hageman.

Hageman, unlike Mike Lee, is not a Mormon. For that matter, neither are Barrasso or Lummis (although we'll note that Barrasso's religious history should inform our views on him.  Indeed, it's difficult to learn much about Hageman's religious background at all.  Sometimes she's listed as a "Protestant", which she no doubt is, but that doesn't mean much in this context, as that category includes such things as Anglo Catholics and Missouri Synod Lutherans, to liberal Episcopalians.  It also includes the vast numbers of various small Protestant churches that often ignore vast tracts of American Christianity while being either very conservative or very liberal on things they pay attention to.  Hageman never really says what her Protestantism is allied to, or where she attends church, or if she even does.  One biography says she's a "non denominational" Christian, which fits in well with the far right she's part of.  A slight clue of her views is that she's married to a Cheyenne lawyer who is much older than she is with nearly twenty years on her age and who had a prior marriage.  They have no children.  Those last two items pretty much take her out of the Apostolic Christianity category, and out of those Protestant churches that are close to Apostolic Christianity.

If Hageman has no children, what she has is the weak tea of a career, the thing feminist sold on women as the fulfillment of their testimony and which, just as with men, turned out to be a fraud foisted upon them, and which continues to be each year at high school graduation.  I'm not saying having a career is bad, but the focus on it as life defining is pretty much living a lie.

What Hageman also has is a history.

Harriet Maxine Hageman was born on a ranch outside of Fort Laramie, Wyoming, in the Wyobraska region of Wyoming, a farming dominated portion of the state that lacks public lands and which is unique in many ways.  Her father was  James Hageman, who served as a longtime Republican member of the Wyoming House of Representatives until his death in 2006.  She is a fourth generation Wyomingite, descending from James Clay Shaw, who moved to Wyoming Territory from Texas in 1878.  Harriet is one of six siblings.  Her brothers are Jim Hageman, Dewey Hageman, and Hugh Hageman,   Her sisters are Rachel Hageman Rubino and Julie Hageman.  Rachel Rubio passed away in 2024, shortly after Harriet was elected to Congress.  One of her kids is a lawyer. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle was read at her funeral.¹

When Harriet ran for Governor, all three of her brothers, but not her sisters, were included in a video talking about how much she loved people, and how family was central to her.  Maybe all that is true, but here's where the story, from our prospective, gets a bit interesting.  

Hageman went to Casper College on an ag scholarship.  Indeed, she was at CC at the same time I was.  From there, like me, she went on to US, and ultimately on to law school.

She didn't go on to the ranch, or a career in agriculture.

I guess I didn't either, but my story is the story of early death, which intervenes with our desires and which determines our path in life more than we care to admit.  I don't know what Harriet's story is, but I would note that as a rule, from her generation, daughters of ranchers weren't going back to the family ranch after high school graduation.  It wasn't that they would not, it was that they could not.  Those that retained a role in agriculture did so through the result of marriage, often knowing men who were farmers and ranchers.  Indeed, off hand, the few daughters of farmers or ranchers I know who ended up in agriculture ended up in it in just that fashion.

Hugh Hageman ended up in ranching.  Dewey Hageman seems to has well.  Jim Hageman seems to have as well, or at least he's still in the Ft. Laramie area.  In the video, all three really look like ranchers.

When I was growing up, as noted, women didn't end up in ranching except through marriage.  Usually no effort was made whatsoever to try to incorporate them into a ranching future.  Quite a few times, quite frankly, they were expected to marry into a ranching family, but even by the 1980s things had turned to where that was no longer the case, and many started to move into other careers.  Law has always been a really popular career for ranchers and farmers to send their children into, as basically farmers and ranchers don't believe that lawyers work.  Indeed, for the most part, they don't believe people in town actually work either.

Jim Hageman, the father of the family, himself came from a large ranching family in Converse County.  In the near hagiographies written about his daughter, it's noted how he built the ranch from nothing, but frankly, that's just not true.  He was born in an era in which the younger sons of ranchers could still secure ranch land, with help through loans and loan programs.  Now that's impossible.

But that puts Harriet straight into the Wyoming agricultural family myth.

I love ranching, as anyone here can tell.  But I'm a realist, and perhaps a cynic.  My own family has been in the region since at least 1879.  Hageman's, apparently, since 1873.  People who came out here didn't do so because, usually, they were wealthy, although some did, which is another story.  Rest assured the progenitor of the Hageman family in Wyoming, a Clay, wasn't.

What they were, however, were beneficiaries of one of the largest social welfare programs in American history, maybe the largest.  In 1873 the genocidal aspect of that program was still well under way.  Basically, the US used the Army to remove, at gunpoint, the native inhabitants and corral them into largescale concentration camps and then gave the land away to those willing to engage in agriculture.  Most of those who took up the opportunity were dirt poor.   The program was kept up and running until 1932, at which time the Taylor Grazing Act was thankfully passed and the land preserved.  

Homesteading was very hard and difficult work and the majority of homesteads failed.  But still, it wasn't as if homesteaders came into "virgin" lands and tamed it with their own two bare hands.  The government removed or killed the original inhabitants.  In many areas, the government built large-scale irrigation projects for the new ones, at government expensive.  Homesteaders were admirable in many ways, but they weren't without assistance.

James Hageman was born in 1930, which means when he was first starting his ranching life, land was still affordable, something that ceased to be the case in the 1980s but which would still have somewhat been the case when Harriet's brothers were entering their adult lives.  Most men from ranch families tried to stay in ranching, if they could.  Most still do.  When you meet somebody who talks about having grown up on a ranch, but isn't in ranching, it's because the "ranch" was a 20 acre plot outside of town (not a ranch) or because they were left with no alternative.

What those left with no alternative were given, so that their older brothers could carry on without trouble, was what English "Remission Men" were given in earlier eras. . . something else to do.  In a lot of cases, that something else was a career in law or medicine.

That's what Harriet got.

Well, what does that tell us?

Well, quite a lot.  A girl from a ranching family who had nowhere to go, she had to marry into agriculture or pursue a career.  While I knew her when she was young, a bit, I don't know if there was every a ranching suitor.  It wouldn't surprise me at all if there had been, as the tobacco chewing young Hageman was quite cute and very ranchy.

Well, whatever the case was then, she ended up with what lawyers call a boutique firm and made it the focus of her life, seemingly.  She ultimately married a lawyer twenty years her senior, more or less, and they didn't have a family for whatever reason.  Frankly, it's sad.

She was also left with a heritage that focused on the frontier pioneer myth.

Lots of ranch families have that, and in their heart of hearts believe they should have been given their public lands they were leasing by right, even though they couldn't afford it then, and they couldn't now.  They often don't believe that other people really work, as they falsely believe that their own work is exceptionally hard.  Many believe, at least in the back of their minds, that they are the population of the state, and those who aren't in agriculture are only able to get by as agriculture supports them.

It's a false, but deeply held, narrative.

And hence Hageman's, in my view, desire to transfer public lands from the Federal Government.  In her  mind, I suspect, those lands somehow, magically, go write to farmers and ranchers who, in her view, probably, rightfully deserve them.

That's not, of course, what would happen.  It'd actually destroy ranching.  But being from the  Wyobraska wheat belt, where most agriculture is farming, and the land is already publicly held, she doesn't realize it.

And she hasn't been on the farm, really, since sometime in the late 1970s or early 80s, at least in the sense we're talking about.

The whole thing is really sad, quite frankly.  But personal grief shouldn't make for bad public policy.

What's the deal with Lummis and Barrasso.

Let's take Barrasso up first.

Barrasso isn't a Wyomingite and its an open question to what extent he identifies with the state or its people at all. He's from Reading Pennsylvania, and the son of an Italian American cement finisher who had left school after 9th grade and an Italian American mother.  He was born in 1952, putting him solidly in the Baby Boomer generation. The beneficiary of a Catholic education, he came here as a surgeon.  

He's nearly the archetypical Baby Boomer, and in more ways than meets the eye. But to start off with, he was the child of hardworking blue collar Italians from the Catholic Ghetto who were probably bound and determined not to see him suffer they way they had, so they aimed for the blue collar mid Century minority's dream. . . send your kids into a profession and they'd really be something.  Hence why there were so many Irish American, Italian American and Jewish American lawyers and doctors.

But a lot of that dream really went awry.

Dr. Barrasso and his first wife Linda had two children.  His ex wife has had a local public life, but remains pretty quiet about their marriage.  She remarried to a local lawyer.  

Barrasso remarried too to a widely loved local woman who had been to law school, but who was not barred. She's since tragically died of brain cancer.  I knew her before their marriage.

None of this is facially surprising or atypical, but in context, its' revealing.  Barrasso's early connection with Wyoming was professional.  That's why he came here.  And his early life has the appearance of being very Catholic. That is significant.

It's significant in that when Barrasso was growing up, Catholics did not divorce easily and bore the brunt of having done so for the rest of their lives.  In my family, back before World War One, or around it, one of my mother's uncles divorced and remarried and the relationship with the family was completely severed.  Apparently it was later somewhat repaired, but only somewhat.  Leaving a spouse and leaving the faith was a betrayal.  It's still not taken lightly by serious Catholics.

But seriousness was not what the Baby Boomer generation was about.  It was about "me".   The couple divorced, for some reason, and he remarried.  The whys of the topic were never raised in his political career as post 1970s, that isn't done.

It probably should be.

Barrasso has pursued his political career the way it seems he pursued his life.  He compromised.  He compromised on his faith (he's now a Presbyterian) and he's compromised in his political views.  He was a moderate, but now is Trump's lap dog.  His views change when they need to change.  Apparently here, he thought it better to side with Lee and stay as quite as possible.

What about Lummis?

I know very little about Cynthia Lummis, which frankly is fairly typical of Wyomingites.  He website says she was born on a Laramie County ranch, but Wikipedia just states Cheyenne.  Her father was active in Republican politics and she, a lawyer, was elected state treasurer at one point.  Like Hageman, she has an agricultural degree.  She's a Missouri Synod Lutheran, which puts her in a very conservative branch of the Lutheran faith, but that appears to have no bearing on this matter.

She tends to stay out of public view for the most part.

On the public lands matter, her connection with a southeast Wyoming ranch may indicate something. As noted here, there's very little public land in the eastern part of Wyoming.  But overall, we just don't know very much about her.  She's basically a legacy of an earlier era in Wyoming when we didn't feel it was important to really know too much about a person.

Maybe we should.

Footnotes:

1.  Blessings on the hand of women!

Angels guard its strength and grace,

In the palace, cottage, hovel,

Oh, no matter where the place;

Would that never storms assailed it,

Rainbows ever gently curled;

For the hand that rocks the cradle

Is the hand that rules the world.

Infancy's the tender fountain,

Power may with beauty flow,

Mother's first to guide the streamlets,

From them souls unresting grow—

Grow on for the good or evil,

Sunshine streamed or evil hurled;

For the hand that rocks the cradle

Is the hand that rules the world.

Woman, how divine your mission

Here upon our natal sod!

Keep, oh, keep the young heart open

Always to the breath of God!

All true trophies of the ages

Are from mother-love impearled;

For the hand that rocks the cradle

Is the hand that rules the world.

Blessings on the hand of women!

Fathers, sons, and daughters cry,

And the sacred song is mingled

With the worship in the sky—

Mingles where no tempest darkens,

Rainbows evermore are hurled;

For the hand that rocks the cradle

Is the hand that rules the world.

Related threads:

Pioneer Day. Pie & Beer Day. Public land sales, part 1. The historo-religious motivation for some (but certainly not all) of the backers.

Labels: 1838 Mormon War, 1840s, 1847, 1890s, 1896, Fr. Hugh Barbour, Harriet Hageman, Mormon, Pioneer Day, polygamy, religion, Second Great Awakening, State of Deseret, Third Great Awakening, Utah War, WASP