The Brussels sprouts of Wyoming politics

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Do you remember when you were a little kid and Mom wanted you to try a new food? You sat with a nice plate of mac ‘n’ cheese or meatloaf as she spooned from a serving dish some sort of unfamiliar vegetable and said, “Here, eat this. It’s good for you.”

I remember. I remember very clearly. The new vegetable was Brussels sprouts, and it took me a long time to forgive my mom for feeding them to me.

They looked pleasant enough at first, little round green thingies that I thought should taste like grapes or lime sherbet. But when I put one in my mouth and chomped down, it tasted like I was gnawing into a decaying antelope gutpile with maggot sprinkles.

I spewed half-masticated Brussels sprouts all over the tablecloth and glared at my mom with a look that said, “You tried to poison me!”

But now I know how they taste, and I’ve never thrown my lip over a Brussels sprout again. I know enough not to bite down on something just because someone tells me that it’ll be good for me.

I equate the Wyoming Freedom Caucus to the Brussels sprouts of politics in the Big Empty, and you should too.

They emerged in Wyoming a few years ago and have spent the last couple of election cycles telling us to eat their brand of politics because it’ll be good for us.

They told us, “Here, try our way of cutting taxes and strangling your small towns, and you’ll be better off.” They said, “It’s the ‘Establishment’ that is holding you back and trying to turn you into Colorado. Elect us and we’ll get rid of the ‘Establishment’ for you.”

(Author’s note: by “the Establishment”, the Freedom Caucus means Wyoming’s political structurethat has existed since 1890.)

These carpetbagging gomers assaulted our eyeballs with glitzy mailers and snake oil political ads, telling us that they came here to save “Wyoming Values,” to preserve cowboy culture and to save us from evil outside influences.

Talk about irony!

So we switched off our bullshit detectors and bought into their tantalizing lies, put their Brussels sprouts into our mouths and bit down. 

Here’s how that has tasted since we gave them control of the Wyoming House:

Instead of guarding the cow camp against rustlers, the Freedom Caucus has spent time drafting legislation about the dangers of chemtrails and UFOs. The Chemtrail Caucus proposes to pinch down funding for our towns and counties until they dry up and blow away. They want to shrink the size of our Supreme Court so that their crazy ideas will go unchallenged. They intend to dismantle Wyoming institutions that push back against their populist fantasies, including the University of Wyoming, home of the Cowboys!

They even want the state of Wyoming to seize federal land to make it state land, and then they want to sell Wyoming state land for a dollar an acre. And they want to restrict our election laws to make it harder for us to vote against them.

They strut around the Capitol in their red blazers and tinfoil Stetsons emulating British redcoats in Boston enforcing King George’s Intolerable Acts. They look like an over-the-hill lounge act singing golden oldies in some Ramada Inn bar on the outskirts of a dying town in Missouri. At least they have the fashion sense not to wear brown and gold while they try to tear down the Cowboy State.

(Another author’s note: Former Speaker of the U.S. House Sam Rayburn once said, “Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.”)

See what I mean about tasting like rancid antelope guts?

So what should we do about them? We should spit ‘em out all over the tablecloth (or politely into a napkin), and never take another bite of their Brussels sprouts.

We’ll have our chance to cleanse our palates on Aug. 18 during the primary election. And if we all put our shoulder to the wheel, we’ll rid ourselves of nauseating Chemtrail Caucus goofiness.

I don’t mean to be alarmist. I don’t consider these redcoats to be an existential threat to our Wyoming way of life. Wyoming people are very resilient, and we’ve weathered gnarly crises before, like the Johnson County War, and we’ll be just fine if we work together.

I consider these knuckleheads to be nothing more than a minor, temporary irritant, like a zit on our collective nose. But we should get rid of the Freedom Caucus because I think we’re all sick and tired of the taste of political Brussels sprouts.