Angry out-of-state election tactics threaten the Wyoming way

I don’t know about you but I’m tired of all the political anger. 

The emotion itself is untrustworthy and just so incredibly exhausting. Who in the world can be angry all the time? Marcus Aurelius had an important warning for Wyoming and America, when he said, “How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it,”  We need to run that bit of wisdom like a moving stadium banner around the Capitol dome in Washington D.C. and plaster it on billboards across the country.

And I’m afraid the problem is no longer just an issue of elsewhere. In Wyoming it feels like we’re on the precipice of losing our small-town, neighbor-helping-neighbor, kindness-matters, smile-and-wave-at-everyone culture, forever. Anger wants to win.  This means we could be headed towards losing what makes Wyoming uniquely….. well, Wyoming. There isn’t room here to list all that we’d lose if we let that happen —  mainly because it’s slightly different for each of us, but we all have our lists, and those things are in danger.

Why do I think the Wyoming way of life we hold dear is in peril? Here are a few of the more frustrating signs. 

This dubious out-of-state group Make Liberty Win supporting Freedom Caucus-aligned candidates is orchestrating increasingly deceitful and angry texts, phone calls, mailers and out-of-state door knockers, lying to voters and ruining the peace and quiet of residents in even the smallest of Wyoming’s communities. Coupled with the Freedom Caucus PAC itself using misleading procedural votes to try and paint candidates as something they are not, and it’s all an ugly mix. If bearing false witness was an Olympic sport these people have already won the gold medal.  

Does anyone know why our Secretary of State has done and said nothing about this? The mailers have falsely given challengers the title of legislator, given wrong dates for early voting and included erroneous photos of the candidates they are supposedly supporting. (Can you know anything about a candidate whose face you don’t know?) Despite numerous complaints, Chuck Gray appears to have said and done nothing.  

Next, the increasing loss of civility our elected officials show toward each other is another bad omen. Sen. Cheri Steinmetz (R-Lingle) recently showed her willingness to smear a friend (it’s probably safe to say former friend) in the Cowboy State Daily, while many others have been happy to trash political rivals in press releases and social media videos. We see that continue in Wyoming-related social media posts where the name-calling and ugliness among even the rank and file are at an all-time level. Where will it end? 

Steinmetz also recently claimed in the same article that civility is in fact a “liberal” trait. That’s an assertion our founding fathers, Ronald Reagan and every other statesman this country has ever known would be shocked to hear). My grandmothers, Sunday school teachers and parents would also have to disagree with the state senator. 

Civility is no longer a virtue conservatives or Republicans should strive for, according to Steinmetz, who is suspected of having her sights on the governor’s office.  Thomas Jefferson was indeed right when he said, “Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.”

This is surely a signal that many more of her ilk will wholeheartedly embrace mudslinging as business as usual — even after Saturday’s horrific events. Friends are now bitter enemies. Enemies are now the thing to acquire. We all need to stop this right now. 

But it’s becoming increasingly harder and harder to stop. The number of new residents who have poured into our state who feel Wyoming just isn’t what it should be and who have helped sow the division and imported smear tactics are making small but significant inroads in our politics. Many of them have no real understanding of the history or culture of the communities they now call home.  

Familiarity may explain why some have no qualms about deploying election tactics common in the blue states they recently moved here from, but these tactics are not normal in the Cowboy State. Many longtime residents are noticing the increasing vitriol and they are concerned. The political allure of Wyoming hides in an open secret — it’s just so much easier to be a big fish in Wyoming than in any other state. I fear many have embraced the smear tactics to increase their speed to the top of our proverbially small pond.

And finally, incumbents’ deliberate refusal to participate in community-wide debates — and doing so with ready-made excuses pulled from word salad of national rhetoric seeking to divide our country — has finally arrived in our humble little hamlet of Wyoming. These tactics serve only to deepen our divides by further dehumanizing those with whom we disagree politically. Refusing to engage in a debate with someone you disagree with hurts the person refusing as much as the voters who don’t get to hear and understand where each candidate is coming from politically. That contrast is critical to voters. 

Debates expand our understanding of issues; they strengthen critical thinking skills in the debaters, and minimize the echo chambers within certain political sects that feed polarization. 

Where will it all end?

Will sitting legislators soon refuse to help serve their constituents throughout the year unless their politics align with their own? Will more friendships die on the altar of so much political worship? Will outside groups like Make Liberty Win take over our Legislature and governor’s office so that we can become slaves to whatever ideas come from our masters in Washington D.C.? Will Wyoming lose everything unique and wonderful about our political culture this election cycle?

We should all be concerned. These real-time events will not make our state better. They will make our state different — different from the small-town, your-neighbor-is-your-friend-no-matter-what, we-all-celebrate-our-wins-together feel that is uniquely Wyoming — and that’s far worse. 

I hope we can all take stock these next few months and reject the anger wholeheartedly. Let’s all renew our love of Wyoming by embracing the joy of living in this state — it really is magnificent! Be kind to your neighbors.  Don’t ask them who they voted for, just like them for them. And walk away in kindness from those still willing to push anger and division on all of us.  Most importantly, don’t vote for angry people. Reject angry political texts, mailers, and the like. Hit “stop,” toss the mailer in the trash, tell the door knockers to move on. Wyoming will be better for it. Our country will be better for it. 

And lastly, let us all hear these words by former President George Washington in his farewell address as a call to renew our own inner sense of unity and civility: “The unity of government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize.”