Election highlights differences between Trump, Wyoming conservatism

Wyoming’s 2024 general election was significant in a few ways, but the most important is how it will shape the future — if there is one — for modern Reagan conservatism here and nationally. While Wyoming and the nation were faced with a binary choice, one that renders sweeping assessments about long-term outcomes a dangerous game, it is safe to say that the future of the Trump GOP is less conservative and more populist than ever. Trump’s GOP tent has certainly gotten larger, now filled with former moderate-to-liberal Democrats (think Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard) and libertarians (think Elon Musk) of different stripes, some looking for government to solve their problems and others wanting no government at all.

Trump’s win may likely mark a final shift away from Reagan conservatism, bringing in a new age of populist politics that will likely continue to challenge and repudiate the traditional tenets of conservatism for years to come. 

Where Reagan’s vision emphasized “the three-legged stool” of limited government, free markets and a strong moral stance on global affairs, Trump’s brand of populism diverges dramatically. 

Trump’s rise to the top of GOP leadership represents not just a departure from Reagan’s policies and a fundamental ideological shift that continues to reshape the Republican Party nationally, but one that may continue to challenge entrenched conservatism here in Wyoming. Trump’s populism is grounded in an anti-establishment philosophy, marked by grievances against both perceived national elites and foreign powers that challenge Trump’s brand of isolationism. Many of his new GOP base are not traditional Republicans who can articulate the reasons they belong to the GOP, but rather are a group of people who have a less philosophical basis for their beliefs, leaving them strong on populist devotion and weak on ideological understandings. Intellectual rigor about why these policy distinctions matter is swiftly receding inside today’s GOP.

In Wyoming, the GOP has no interest in Reagan’s big tent, but has instead been systematically working to remove as many people from the tent as possible. Unlike Trump, who, judging by Tuesday’s election results, has reached across not just economic divides, but philosophical divides to bring new people into the party, Wyoming’s GOP wants something more akin to a small, very exclusive club run from the top, orchestrating party discipline and party dictates from above. 

The Wyoming Freedom Caucus, now set to lead the House of Representatives, has a mixture of conservative, populist and libertarian members including many who embrace ideas antithetical to Reagan’s small government, free market beliefs, leaving them far more aligned with Trump’s new GOP but perhaps slightly out of step with the voting public. Many of these members have shown an eager willingness to break away from conservative bedrock ideas like local control and less government interference, favoring a more statist authoritarian, top-down approach, (as long as they are the ones holding power).

For many constituents across Wyoming who still self-identify as Reagan conservatives, this new realignment may either challenge their long-held beliefs at the ballot box or become the catalyst for pushback against the Freedom Caucus’ reign and policy decisions. 

Trump’s return to the White House means the federal government’s threats to Wyoming’s way of life will no longer be a political well to be drawn from for the next four years. 

As well, the past four years’ steady drip of stolen elections rhetoric will most likely struggle to maintain its prescient hold on the hearts and minds of GOP voters in Wyoming. For obvious reasons, the need to now challenge the validity of this week’s election outcome is gone. The hand-count ballot ideas, likely costing the state millions upon millions of dollars will seem much less likely a necessity now, taking this issue away from those who hoped to ride that hobby horse into higher office. 

The new national GOP is an unpredictable fusion of libertarians, former Democrats and working-class conservatives — a big tent that may struggle to remain unified, but here in Wyoming, the GOP has been a fusion of Trump election deniers, anti-elitist populists and Reagan conservatives. How these diverse factions will maintain unity when power and ego continue to pull at the threads is yet to be seen, but one thing is for sure, traditional conservatives will need to start making real decisions, real fast. 

Those decisions will likely center around whether they will stand up and criticize the Freedom Caucus for their non-conservative policy decisions in the next two years or remain quiet and hope for better days ahead. 

Increasingly, many of them have felt they were not bound by the same ideological commitments to small government, free-market capitalism and social conservatism that defined Reagan’s vision because to do so would put them at odds with the current Freedom Caucus mix. But this fear is only leading Wyoming deeper into anti-small government, anti-free market policy disasters. Disasters that their constituents would be right to hang on all their heads at the next election.

With Trump now headed back to the White House, Wyoming conservatives need to find the courage to stand up and speak out against populist claptrap just as Reagan would have done in his day. With Trump’s reelection comes a new opportunity to find the courage to do the right thing. 

Reagan’s famous line, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” underscored a fundamental belief in limited government and deregulation, a belief that still has value to this day. It’s a belief more conservatives need to fight for both here in Wyoming and nationally. 

Trump’s victory has forever changed the face of American conservatism, but this could be a temporary change if conservatives are willing to fight where fighting is needed. 

Conservative policies work, and we should not abandon them to the whims of populism, even if political courage is hard to find. If we don’t, Reagan conservatism is indeed in its final moments. Wyoming and the nation would not be better for its demise.