It’s hard to know what’s going on in Wyoming. The least populous state in the country is now the center of attention because its lone congress member and daughter of a Republican scion, Liz Cheney, is seemingly committing political seppuku by saving democracy.
If this was a TV show you were just tuning into, you might have to go back a few episodes and try to get things in context, because on its face, none of this makes sense. How can somebody standing up against a breach of the nation’s capitol and seeking to punish those who threatened the murder of the vice president be in the wrong?
But to hear her opponent, Harriet Hageman, that is exactly the case and Cheney’s constituents are upset with her. Apparently, they don’t think keeping America a democratic republic is important. They have bigger fish to fry.
Liz Cheney’s Trump-backed opponent says people in WY are “extremely disappointed and embarrassed by what she’s doing,” and that she is spending too much time on the J6 investigation. pic.twitter.com/v94BMKlEqX
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) July 22, 2022
As I’ve mentioned here before, I grew up in Colorado and had many friends over the years who were from neighboring Wyoming. My Wyoming friends who moved from Wyoming to Colorado (and later on I met Wyomingites in California) were, generally speaking, people for whom the socio-political climate in Wyoming was a bit too repressive. My gay friends absolutely felt that way. I heard many stories of the family member that they could never discuss politics with, because it would turn into a fight. So they would go back there for holidays, family reunions and so forth and just not discuss hot button issues.
They learned to “tolerate their redneck cousins” as one put it to me, “because when it came to other things, business, playing golf, they were no problem.” Unfortunately, what we’re talking about right now is the underpinnings of our culture. There are going to be a lot of issues swamping those of doing business or playing sports if the country that we know and love suddenly is no more and we’re living in a political system other than democracy.
Maybe the Wyomingites Harriet Hageman is talking about don’t care about that. Maybe that’s her message here, that the “redneck cousins” outnumber the sane and educated folks.
What I can tell you, is that a recent poll shows Hageman with a 22 point lead against Cheney. It has been speculated that plenty of Democrats will switch parties to vote for Cheney and bring her out over the top in the primary. Maybe that will happen. That would be democracy in action, a bi-partisan effort to support a candidate who stood for larger issues that affected the entire country.
Or, there have been rumors of Cheney running as a Democrat, but I’ll believe that when I see it.
We have to wait. Either Cheney is toast and she will go down in history as somebody who did a great and courageous thing and lost her House seat because of it, or she may defeat Hageman and come out smelling like a rose. Many pundits foresee a situation where Cheney becomes the head of a new version of the GOP.
Right now, today, nobody knows. And anything is possible.
Liz Cheney certainly has the courage of her convictions. I’ll give her that much credit. I guess it’ll come down to how many rethugs in Wyoming are MAGAts and how many are true conservatives. I’ve heard there aren’t enough democrats in wyoming to make a difference.
The horses in Wyoming have more sense than the shitkickers who live there.
Its always tough figuring out how meth heads will vote…..and wyoming has a lot more meth heads than golfers….