Showing posts with label Wyoming Freedom Caucus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wyoming Freedom Caucus. Show all posts
Thursday, November 27, 2025
Charlie Kirk and the hypocrisy of the Wyoming GOP
Charlie Kirk and the hypocrisy of the Wyoming GOP: A recently passed resolution to limit free speech demonstrates how little the state Republican Party believes in the First Amendment, writes columnist Rod Miller.
Saturday, November 15, 2025
Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 11. The blistering ignorance edition.
Guest Column: Fear Is No Energy Policy
Radiant scraps Wyoming nuclear microreactor manufacturing facility: California-based Radiant Industries cited the state's ban on spent nuclear fuel waste and said it will build a manufacturing plant in Tennessee.
Letter To The Editor: Why We Chose Tennessee Over Wyoming For Our Nuclear Generators
The Wyoming Freedom Caucus people, heavily made up in the legislature of carpetbaggers, and their street level MAGA adherents, which believe that global warming is a fib and that coal and petroleum will last forever, have likely chased Radiant Energy's nuclear generator factory out of the state, and out of Natrona County.
To hear many of the opposition to these proposals tell it, this is what was going to happen if Radiant Energy was allowed to come into the state
This is because they fear nuclear waste in spite of the repeated efforts of everyone who has looked into it that,to explain that in this case, there was nothing to fear.
The ironies of this are so thick it isn't funny. In a state in which rampaging gang land rape is thought of as a virtue, opponents of this project sometimes came across sounding like they were members of Greenpeace.
Well, you can't really have the a "save the planet" and "drill baby drill" point of view simultaneously, unless you are ignorant. And this has been the triumph of ignorance.
Indeed, a person sustains more exposure to radiation from ceiling fans (truly) than they would have for this proposal, of from background radon gas, or simply from living in the state.
Trump, who ironically supports nuclear, won't be around forever and the end of carbon based fuels is not only on the horizon, it's out on the front lawn. Nuclear energy is the future.
The entity would have directly employed 250 people.
But this is common for Wyoming. I've seen feedlots basically run off twice, and by long standing assertion, Natrona County fail to support an effort by Coors to grow barley here.
I suppose if there is a bright spot, it would be that, given economic realities, this points us back to a very early type of economy in the state in a way. That won't make those employed in the oil and gas industry who think it's going to last forever happy, and it won't make any truck driving public servants happy either, but that's going to occur. Of course, retirees who made their lives elsewhere and who don't give a rats ass about the state's economy now that they've left their job somewhere else won't care much.
In other news, visitors to Grand Teton Grand Teton spent $808M in 2024.
October 14, 2025.
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NOLS helps power Wyoming’s outdoor rec economy, study says
I guess somebody has to say it. . .right after people manage to chase Radiant away from Bar Nunn. . .
BREAKING: Bar Nunn Elementary, Woods Learning Center could close next school year
October 15, 2025
Cont:
Legislators Pointing Fingers Over Radiant Nuclear Killing Wyoming Project
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Wyoming Sheep Jams Reveal Mounting Pressures On Local Ranches And Farms
The fallout on Radiant pulling out is really proving to be the nuclear sh** that hit the fan and having all sort of interesting implications, one of which is that voters in some districts are getting a good look at their recently elected legislators for the first time.
One of whom is now in the spotlight is Natrona County Freedom Caucus member Bill Allemand, who hails from Midwest, a town that's completely dependant upon petroleum production. The town sits right in the center of the old Salt Creek Oil Field. Allemand himself is a truck driver. According to his website, he graduated from high school in 1977, which would mean that he's about 66 years old or so. He's from a ranching family in that area. It's really unclear, but he seems to have left and lived in Kansas for years. When he came back, he went to work as a truck driver in Wyoming, which perhaps he was in Kansas. His website conspicuously fails to mention a spouse, which would likely suggest there isn't one.
Right from the onset, Allemand ran as a member of the very far right. He displaced long serving legislator Pat Sweeney in a race that saw the district boundaries redrawn. Sweeney, a genteel older gentleman with a long history in politics was a tavern owner but had probably simply stayed around in politics too long, although he's still in it, now serving as a City of Casper Councilman. Allemand was shockingly rude during his campaign against Sweeney and would have lost for that reason alone in earlier times.
Allemand in the legislature hasn't been hugely notable. He's in the camp that has sided against public lands in various ways and is one of the legislatures which Wyoming outdoor recreationist should not support. Now he's self branded as "Mr. No Nukes", a tag he proudly boasted about, right up until now when it's suddenly clear that a lot of Republicans are not very impressed. Allemand is already running for reelection for 2026 and may have a battle on his hands.
While Allemand is a Wyomingite, unlike a lot of Freedom Caucus members, he fits into that class of individuals who apparently made their lives elsewhere and returned to the state late in life. Brent Bien is another one. These people weren't all here when the state loved its uranium industry and are seemingly wedded to coal and oil at the existential level.
As an aside, Allemand in photographs appears to have a wad of chewing tobacco under his front lip 90% of the time. Perhaps I'm in error, but it's a pretty distinct look. He ought to ditch that.
Anyhow, now that Allemand prevailed and Radiant isn't coming, he's suddenly wanting to "bury the hatchet" with those whom he tangled with. They do not appear to be ready to do that, nor should they. Allemand didn't live in Bar Nunn but he went so far as to opine they should not have a police force, a totally local issues. During this controversy he drew attention to himself, and now he will have to live with the implications of it.
In a related matter:
Tom Lubnau: What Can We Learn From The Failed Federal Coal Sale
Lubnau starts off:
Given the disappointingly low bid, the BLM canceled the sale.
This makes plain in the present era something industry insiders, which I was to a slight degree back in the 90s, have known for decades. Coal is dead. People who boost it are either delusional, which much of the Freedom Caucus, maybe all of it, really are, or are telling people what they want to hear in order to advance themselves.
Which gets back to the Freedom Caucus. Why did they oppose nuclear projects? It's really unclear. To a large degree, however, it seems that a lot of them are just blisteringly ignorant on the state's history. They seem to be a carpetbagging Rexall Cowboys to a large extent.
I'm fairly firmly convinced that some don't' fit that category, and are just cynical. I'd place Chuck Gray in that category He's from the extreme far right but has gone full greenie in Natrona County, including opposing Radiant. Why? Probably simple political expediency. Indeed, I'm fairly convinced that if Donald Trump, in his declining mental state, announced that he intended to dump Melania and pursue Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a love interest, Gray would be AOC's biggest fan.
Little noticed in Natrona County, the same drama is going on in Campbell County.
Town hall on nuclear development reveals tensions over waste, state control in Gillette
October 16, 2025
Cont:
Governor Gordon Voices Disappointment in Radiant Nuclear Announcement
CHEYENNE, Wyo, October 14, 2025 - Governor Gordon (R-WY) made the following statement today regarding the announcement by Radiant Nuclear.
“It is a sad day when Wyoming loses out to Tennessee in providing energy leadership. Members of the Freedom Caucus inspired ‘Club No’ convinced Radiant that Wyoming isn’t about leadership and problem solving. Tennessee stood ready to accept that opportunity; maybe they understand how to build an economy.
‘Club No’ has ushered in a new culture of no matter who began or who commenced it, we’re against it. That is not the way Wyoming became the great state it is. We aren’t even following President Trump's lead.
Let me say it plainly: Wyoming should not be held back by fear. We should be pioneers. We should be the first state companies turn to when they want regulatory clarity, bold infrastructure, and a partner for innovation. The Trump Administration’s energy agenda gave us the opening; this microreactor project fits that agenda. Given a chance, if we had been willing to work together, no problem is unsolvable for Wyoming.
I applaud the citizens, county leaders, and those legislators who believed in opportunity over obstruction and Wyoming’s legendary reputation for finding solutions. Let’s work together to ensure Wyoming remains open for business. We will not let the ‘Club No’ crowd define our future.”
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An item from the Leopards Won't Eat My Face group:
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Seriously, how stupid can you be. Why did ranchers (and I am one) think Trump would be good for them? Republicans never are, and he's a rather dim urbanite.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
October 24, 2025
cont:
Oh yeah. . .that's clearly the reaction a totally stable secure genius would have . . .
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
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Inflation is up as prices jumped 3% last month.
October 25, 2025
cont:
When I was a kid, a particularly vicious insult was to call somebody a "diaper baby". It was such an insult, that it called for an immediate retraction or fisticuss. A person who would swallow such an insult accepted that they were, in fact, a diaper baby.
It expressed an extreme sort of narcissistic childish immmaturity.
Trump has hiked tariffs on Canada as he couldn't hack Ontario's well done Reagan advertisement. That's because, quite frankly, Donald Trump is a diaper baby.
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The Senate voted to end King Donny's bogus emergency tariffs on Brazil and will be voting to remove his emergency tariff authority entirely later this week.
As Smarmy Mike sent the House home, and won't recall them, nothing can happen right now. The Trump UniBrain GOP in the House earlier voted not to take up the illegal tariffs for the rest of the year anyhow.
What this frankly is, is a sign that an economic train wreck is coming and the Senate doesn't want the blame, or rather a few GOP Senators that aren't part of the UniBrain see it coming and don't want the blame.
October 29, 2025.
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In exchange for promises from China, which I'm sure are all so good, that will crack down on fentanyl, the United States will shave 10% off the tariffs it charges on Chinese goods.
2025 年 10 月 30 日'
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Trump's decision to stop the production of pennies is causing a crisis in retail in parts of the country as exact change can no longer be made as the supply of pennies dries up.
October 31, 2025
¢¢¢
Gordon declares public welfare emergency in light of SNAP lapse, OK’s $10 million in aid: The executive order allows Wyoming’s governor to send emergency funds to charitable organizations, churches.
November 1, 2025
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This has the effect of being a cave in to Republican budget cuts.
This must now go back to the House, which of course is in recess.
November 10, 2025
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And tariffs are coming off of all sorts of food items, now that Taco realizes they heard the economy and people are angry.
November 11, 2025
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And with this entry, we'll close out this edition.
Last edition:
Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 10. The killing the messenger edition.
Friday, November 14, 2025
Meat loves salt, but does the Freedom Caucus love Wyoming?
Meat loves salt, but does the Freedom Caucus love Wyoming?: A proposal to prohibit using SNAP to purchase sugar, spices and condiments reveals the far right's appetite for cruelty, writes guest columnist Lindsey Hanlon.
This is, I'd note a somewhat ironic caption. The answer is clearly no. Freedom Caucusers are largely carpetbaggers to begin with, or strongly influenced by them, and are in love with pre civil rights Alabama.
Monday, November 10, 2025
The 2026 Wyoming Legislature, Part 1. The way too early edition.
April 10, 2025
Freedom Caucus leader John Bear went on record at a meeting of legislators on how to handle the upcoming populist initiative to reduce property taxes by 50%, after they've just been reduced by 25%, as favoring completely eliminating property taxes in favor of sales taxes.
On the imported geezer reduce my property taxes on the house I bought after I moved here from California initiative, he feels that the effect wouldn't be cumulative (50% of the just reduced 25%), while other legislators do.
May 2, 2025
A press interview of Freedeom Caucus member Bear reveals the WFC wants to treat the Wyoming budget to some DOGEy style actions, particularly in regard to grants and loans.
May 4, 2025
I don't know anything about the woman from Teton County who was his competition, but Miller was another individual who spent a career in the military, and therefore was a lifelong recipient of public funds, and who has now returned as an opponent of the Federal government.
May 7, 2025
Wyoming Legislature finalizes list of ‘off-season’ topics for study
May 9, 2025
Chuck Gray Supports 22 New Election-Reform Bills, Committee To Study 10
Some of these bills are frankly nuts.
May 19, 2025
Wyoming lawmakers go after funding for state associations that sometimes oppose their bills: Green River Rep. Marlene Brady is leading the charge on prohibiting cities, towns and counties from paying dues to elected officials’ associations.
May 21, 2025
Legislative panel pursues bills to regulate Wyoming library books with sexual material: Lawmakers are taking up library books as conservative activists around the state pore over material in young adult and teen library sections for sexual content.
For reasons I won't go into, I've seen some of the book that is featured in this article, and there's no way it should be in the children's section of a library.
May 22, 2025
Committee Adopts Bill To Make Wyoming Senate Confirm Supreme Court Justices
This is inaccurate. Rather they voted to have the LSO draft such a bill.
May 23, 2025
As scrutiny of judges grows, lawmakers weigh changes to Wyoming’s selection process: In her final official appearance before lawmakers, Wyoming Supreme Court Chief Justice Kate Fox defended the process for choosing the state’s judges. But some lawmakers still want changes.
May 25, 2025
A draft bill would allow for nuclear facilities to have armed guards as a type of private police force.
Private police forces are rare, but not completely unknown. The Wyoming Stock Growers Association at one time was authorized to have them, although that's long ago in the past. While I haven't kept up on it, so I don't know the current status, railroads at one time had them as well.
June 4, 2025
Oh great . . .
Wyoming Freedom Caucus plans on ‘DOGE-ing’ state budget: House Appropriations Chairman John Bear takes inspiration from the Trump administration’s efforts to cut federal jobs and spending.
DOGE has been such a disaster that even Trump is questioning it. This is the last thing Wyoming needs
Deep down, to a large extent, the Freedom Caucus just hates the government.
Meanwhile:
The State's Democratic Party is abasically as dead as a doornail. Those looking for a middle path aren't being offered it by the Democrats, who recently replaced their leadership. The thin, bow tie, wearing newly elected leader provides an apt symbol for a party grossly out of step with the state.
June 5, 2025
Wyoming Legislature to consider abolishing property taxes through constitutional amendment: After creating a complicated web of residential property tax exemptions, lawmakers are now weighing whether to eliminate property taxes entirely.
June 11, 2025
Wyoming lawmaker uses slur for Japanese people before visiting Heart Mountain internment site: Rep. John Winter made the remark while discussing logistics for a tour of the former internment camp, where more than 14,000 Japanese Americans were held against their will during World War II.
Wyoming lawmakers step toward bill clarifying corner crossing’s legality: Some agricultural industry lobbyists urged a legislative committee to wait and see whether the U.S. Supreme Court takes the case, but others — including law enforcement — testified that they could use precise legal directions.
July 28, 2025
Wyoming lawmakers consider nuclear waste storage as tensions rise over microreactor plant proposal: A draft bill that would make an exception to Wyoming's nuclear waste ban is intended to accommodate a California firm's plans to "mass-produce" microreactors near Casper.
July 31, 2025
Legislators Clash Over Proposed Bill That Would Allow Spent Nuclear Fuel In Wyoming
August 1, 2025
Lawmakers table bill to allow nuclear waste storage in Wyoming
August 9, 2025
Tom Lubnau: Calling Innocent People Pornographers And Pedophiles At Taxpayer Expense
August 20, 2025
As Wyoming lawmakers rehash election reforms, two familiar camps remain divided: A committee voted to sponsor three failed bills from the 2025 session that would continue the overhaul of Wyoming’s elections system.
Going Feral: Wyoming lawmakers advance bill decriminalizing cor...:
Wyoming lawmakers advance bill decriminalizing corner crossing
Wyoming lawmakers advance bill decriminalizing corner crossing: By one vote, a legislative committee agrees to consider a draft measure again in November when amendments are possible.
Gomers in the Wyoming “Freedom” Caucus: If the caucus was a herd, it would be full of gomers, columnist Rod Miller says. Its members make a lot of noise, but can’t get the job done.
August 22, 2025
Cities, counties continue to push for new tax program to make up lost funds
August 23, 2025
Homeowners urge Wyoming lawmakers to skip further property tax cuts: Public services are worth paying for, residents told lawmakers who are considering additional tax reform.
August 27, 2025
The legislature has a draft bill before it to drop the felony larceny threshold from $1,000 to $500.
A typical law and order type of bill, this is a bad idea in a state with a grossly overburdened criminal justice system.
August 29, 2025
Wyoming Lawmakers Drafting Legislation To Ban Cloud Seeding For 10 Years
October 14, 2025
Panel advances legislation restricting sexual content in Wyoming library books: The Judiciary Committee voted 11-2 in support of the measure, and the issue unified Wyoming Freedom Caucus lawmakers with Republicans not always aligned with them.
Committee Adopts Bill Greenlighting Lawsuits Over 'Sexually Explicit' Library Books
October 24, 2025
October 31, 2025Wyoming lawmakers hit pause on redrawing voting maps: Efforts to reconfigure the state’s legislative districts to adhere to county lines came to a halt Wednesday.
Absolutely incredible.
Claims ‘chemtrails’ poison citizens spur Wyoming lawmakers to advance ‘geoengineering’ ban: Claims ‘chemtrails’ poison citizens spur Wyoming lawmakers to advance ‘geoengineering’ ban Nano particles released from Department of War jets are sterilizing soils, blocking sun, lawmakers hear from Wyomingites and YouTuber before backing bill.Apparently every member of this committee save for Barry Crago and Karlee Provenza voted for this goofball bill.
November 4, 2025
This is shaping up to be the stupidest legislature in Wyoming's history.
Legislature To Consider At Least 13 Election Bills After Committee Adds 6 More
Wyoming lawmakers advance election reform bills despite feasibility warnings
Wyoming Freedom Caucus wants to cut state budget, but won’t say how much yet: Cuts are coming in next year’s legislative session, but where and how deep remains to be seen.
And of course 82 year old Jim Magana, who seemingly hasn't managed to grasp that the positions he consistently advocates hurt the reputations of ranchers in general, is at it again:
Rancher lobbyist knocks Wyoming bill recognizing corner crossing’s court-decided legality: Jim Magagna
Magagna should have stepped down from a leadership role with the WSGA a good 30 years ago. He's hurting the livestock industry by seemingly never accepting its no longer the 1960s.
November 8, 2025
Fixing what isn't broken:
Undeterred by tight timeline, Wyoming lawmakers charge ahead with election reform: County clerks are anxious about changes made in the last session and what’s now coming down the pike.
November 20, 2025
Wyoming to again weigh making landowner tags ‘transferable,’ a step toward pay-for-play hunting
This again:
Wyoming to again weigh making landowner tags ‘transferable,’ a step toward pay-for-play hunting: Legislation that would enable ranchers and large property owners to sell tags to the highest bidder passed through the Agriculture Committee and has a shot at becoming law in 2026.
Here's the tale of the tape:
Ayes included Pearson, Cowley Republican Rep. Dalton Banks, Cheyenne Republican Rep. Steve Johnson, Riverton Republican Rep. Pepper Ottman, Douglas Republican Rep. Tomi Strock, Thermopolis Republican Rep. John Winter and Casper Republican Sen. Bob Ide.
Opposing were Buffalo Republican Sen. Barry Crago, Cheyenne Republican Sen. Taft Love, La Barge Republican Rep. Mike Schmid, Baggs Republican Rep. Bob Davis and Laramie Democrat Rep. Karlee Provenza.
Of course, Casper Republican Ide is in favor of it.
Don't vote for the people in the aye column.
And with this hideous idea, we're going to close out this edition and start a new one.
Related threads:
Wyoming Freedom Caucus Membership Survey: 31 House Reps Say They're Not Members
The Wyoming Freedom Caucus and the 2025 and 2026 Legislatures. Some things to keep in mind.
Friday, November 7, 2025
What’s next from the Wyoming Freedom Caucus? Tinfoil Stetsons?
What’s next from the Wyoming Freedom Caucus? Tinfoil Stetsons?: By backing anti-chemtrail legislation, the Freedom Caucus is making a hard run for an Oscar nomination in the theater of the absurd, writes columnist Rod Miller.
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
The ascent of the ignorant.
I know I have an Ivy League education which is now supposed to make me ashamed.
But I am really tired of trying to argue with ignoramuses who don’t know anything about anything on this hellsite.
It will be a miracle if America survives this ascent of the ignorant.
Jon "Bowzer" Bauman.
We need to stop trusting the experts... Trusting the experts is not a feature of science or democracy, it's a feature of religion and totalitarianism.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., ignoramus.
Bauman, famous for his portrayal as a deep voiced "greaser" in the band Sha Na Na, but in fact very well educated and now a Democratic political activist, has it right.
I've struggled to put together posts on this topic, unsuccessfully several times. Lots of people like me, Conservatives back in the day, and Social Conservatives still, keep wondering what happened, even while pretty much knowing what happened. We're horrified as the country rockets towards Petainism, or Francoism, or just outright stupidity, even while we wonder how on earth we went to a country in which homosexual propaganda is outright directed at the young.
Justice Kennedy. . . you are to blame for a lot of this.
Anyhow, one of the real stunning things of the Trump ascent has been the ascent of the ignorant.
And that's hard to take.
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William F. Buckley, conservative intellectual. He wouldn't recognize, or approve of, the current Republican Party.
Conservatism used to be fairly intellectual. . .well it was fairly intellectual after the McCarthy era. In truth, it's always cycled between intellectualism and wild conspiratorial phantasy, just as the left has cycled between intellectualism and wild eye flaming goofballedry . To some extent, the poor nation is getting both of these now at the same time, but it's most prominent on the right.
Ronald Reagan and conservative George F. Will. Will left the Republican Party due to Trump. This is the same room that Trump has made look like a movie set designers version of a 19th Century New Orleans whorehouse.
A big part of Trump's intellectual, if you will, drive now comes from Dominionist who claim to be carrying a sword for Christianity but who don't grasp the mains intellect of it. It was Cardinal Newman who noted that to know history was to make a person a Catholic, and the Dominionist neither know history nor, for that matter, Christianity very well. Outside of those carrying a Pine Tree flag are those who are in the Petainist/Francoist Christian Nationalist movement, who at least aren't anti intellectual and are relatively intellectual themselves, when their beliefs are drilled into.
But beyond that are a great mass of people, including people now in power, who reflect blistering ignorance.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Anti vaxxers, who took their initial inspiration from a Playboy model whose only claim to fame was her boobs, and then having had a child (out of wedlock, of course), went into full bore ignorance during COVID, showing how low education in the country generally sunk. A person can oppose vaccines for themselves on philosophical, or even theological, grounds, but you can't oppose them on scientific grounds. That's just ignorant. Nonetheless, Trump has elevated Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and "Dr. Oz" to positions of real power, when they ought to be in the waterfowl section of the local zoo. No serious nation would have either of these people in positions where they dealt with anything biological, even if that meant they were disqualified from being dog catchers.
Mehmet Oz.
Most of the cabinet officers we hear from on a frequent basis are total sycophants who sound like their on the losing end of a debate in a high school forensics team. Some sound like outright thugs. Our Ambassador to Israel is there as he wants to help bring about the Apocalypse.
Trump is outright weaponizing the Justice Department into the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and persecuting (not a typo) anyone who publicly opposed him. He's also sending the National Guard, converted into the Ersatzheer, into Republican cities illegally. While all this occurs a populace that would have previously flooded into the streets in protests sits on its hand believing that there must really Marxist, Communist, Fascists, Monarchist about to take over these cities and convert them into Communist Anarchist Monarchies.
It's really doubtful the nation can recover from this.
At a lower level, we're debating library books in the children's section which an adult nation ought to be able to sort out in about fifteen minutes. But perhaps a bigger example is the outright believe by people who believe that you ought to drink petroleum oil for breakfast that nuclear power is going to turn your housecat into the central character in 1950s Japanese horror film. In the meantime, a legitimate concern on the part of some, youth being exposed to pornography, has been captured by local members of the Freedom Caucus who are freely dumb in their local efforts to oppose it, going to public forums like school boards to act up.
The press rarely gets things 100% right, indeed a local big story that I know very well has recently amused me by how off the mark the reporting is, but the press has become a whipping boy for people with agendas on both sides. Chuck Gray, the Wyoming Secretary of State, is so enamoured of this that he can't pick up a lunch menu without claiming its the product of the "radical left wing media". The left accuses the press of ignoring Trump's mental decline, which is obvious to everyone, while the right basically seeks to totally shut down everything but the Völkischer Beobachter.
How we get out of this is really questionable, but education, and I mean public education, is going to have to be they key to a large extent. People need to learn science again.
I don't know how Americans became so uneducated.
I went through the local public school system which wasn't perfect, but frankly it was pretty good. My parents also took a real interest in how we were doing in school, and I think everyone's parents did. My own kids went through the same system after I had, and it had improved from good to really good.
Even then, there were some hints of things changing, mostly in the form of a handful of homeschooled showing up in sports and the rise of a series of private Christian schools and schools that were private Christian schools but which wouldn't admit that they were. Homeschooling was, and is, mostly marked here by what the parents don't want their children to learn. Some of those parents were really well educated themselves, but imports from elsewhere and often members of distinct minority religious communities. Outside of the Catholic school, and probably the Lutheran school, this was true of the Christian schools as well.
Following COVID, here locally, we got the influx of people from somewhere else who detested education even as they put their kids in schools One member of the legislature enrolled her two kids in the local high school noting how she was a "refugee" from Illinois, where she'd been on a school board. Now we have a Freedom Caucus legislator being such a problem at a school board meeting she had to be escorted away from the podium when you can bet that every member of the school board is, in fact, conservative.
What I think that tells me is that education elsewhere had declined, and we took in an influx of the uneducated, who in the sprit of the times, spread their views to elements ready to accept it locally.
Another thing is this.
Americans have always had a sort of populist anti intellectual streak, which is heavily ironic as the Founding Fathers of the nation were largely well to do elitists. Indeed, Jefferson figured the republic would not last, as ultimately it would yield from hard working yeoman farmers to a city living mob, dependent upon the government. He wasn't quite right, but he wasn't all that far off. We've had two prior New York born Presidents in the country, a highly educated but quite rural intellectual, a more urbane intellectual, and a real estate developing complete buffoon.
The essence of populism is that people have a native wisdom. The problem is, only an educated public does. Jefferson appreciated that, which is why he so heavily depended on the yeomanry to carry the republic. Family units, living independently, and frankly as somewhat genteel hardworking Christian farmers. He wasn't a yeoman himself. He did foresaw a day in which the republic would be much like it has become, a screaming mass of poorly educated people who were easily lead.
The "new people", German propaganda poster from 1938. In reality, most Germans never looked like this, just as right now most Americans don't really reflect the ideals of the New Apostolic Reformation.
Populist movements have in fact always been easily lead. The Nazis were able to do it with the German populace. The Communist were able to do it with the Russian people. The Fascists were able to do it with the Italians.
Manipulation of the masses by forces co opting populist movements is uniformly simply. The people are worshipped for having common sense, with their leader supposedly reflecting back their wisdom. Out side of that group, are the enemies, some vague, often faceless group, who are out to destroy the common people. For the Nazis, those horrific enemies were the Communists and the Jews, as well as Gypsies, Catholics, homosexuals, and Slavs.
For the Fascist, it was the Socialist, Communists and Slavs.
Soviet realist painting of female farm worker. Female farm workers were a favorite subject for Soviet propaganda posters. They were always smiling, and tended to be a little chunky.
For the Communists, the population is the workers, whose enemy are capitalists, those who own their own businesses, and people who believe in any kind of religion.
Chinese girls are a favorite of Chinese Communist posters
For Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, which has been co opted by the National Conservatives, it's anyone who isn't a Christian conservative.
Now, it's always the case that populist movements, after they get co opted, are shot through with hypocrisy The movements become vehicles for obtaining power and people at the top either never believed in the movement, or they regard themselves as exceptions. Nazism was virulently anti homosexual, but Ernst Röhm was a flaming homosexual. Goebbels had been a Communist. Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler all lived well, not as common people. English roundheads in the English Civil War may have fought for Calvinist morality, but they kept in some cases mistresses.
And so we have Trump and his followers. Trump probably has no real solid moral beliefs at all, and is a serial polygamist who was born obscenely wealthy and is getting richer in the office.
The problem with populism is that the bloom always comes off the rose. It turns out that native intelligence is often pretty ignorant. It always collapses in one way or another, often violently It's followers are left to pick up the pieces often having been exposed, by the end, as people who were enemies of the very movement they espoused.
It didn't have to be this way.
There were real reasons that the mass of people were discontent. Ignored on immigration and the erosion of an industrial base for decades, and watching the decay of moral values even as they joyously participated in that decay themselves, there was a real opportunity for a return to true conservatism. Even National Conservatives had the opportunity to participate in that, although they'd lost faith in democracy in general which caused them to choose not to.
When this flies apart, and it will, the reckoning is going to be huge. What will have been achieved is to anger those who became victims of it. The real number of populists in the country is fewer than supposed, and the true diehards fewer yet. Trump mostly won because Joe Biden chose to run in his dotage, which was obviously advanced, and which camouflaged Trump's mental decline. That can't be camouflaged any longer.
Nonetheless, like good fascists, the GOP is going to go down with Trump, even though it need not to. Mike Johnson is effectively releasing cheery news from the Führerbunker as the edifice of the Republic literally collapses around him. The Leader and his Favorite Architect plan a monumental building as an old one is destroyed. Miller and Bondi send their thugs out to hang supposed enemies from lamposts. Loyal reports from loyal lieutenants about not being able to hang on are ignored. Vance consults his Plans for the Fatherland book as if he has a political future.
It should be obvious where this is headed.
But it's easier just to blame it on Trump's style, or his amazing intelligence that we can't grasp, and just ignore it.
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