This election feels like theater at times. But the stakes are very real.

Betrayal and revenge, victory and defeat, corruption and malevolence — these are not just themes of great Shakespearean plays. They also describe the inner workings of politics in Wyoming during the 2024 election season. 

Some may not believe this, but politics can be artistic if you turn your mind to it, and over these last few weeks, I’ve been turning my mind to very little else. Three separate issues have recently arisen around this year’s campaign season that each feel like a theme from a great play, novel or intellectual movement. So, I’ve decided to give them each three separate artistic titles, all done with humor and a touch of heavy sarcasm, something I enjoy immensely. I’m writing these down for you to enjoy as well, because we could all use some humor and creativity right about now. 

In the 1950s a specific style of play emerged from the workings of the existential movement called the Theater of the Absurd. The plays often focused around the supposed meaninglessness and absurdity of life as the existentialists perceived it. This idea seems perfectly mirrored in the quite absurd political attack (and support) mailers landing in our mailboxes, the meaningless conspiracy theories being spread around Wyoming from social media pages and the odd radio guests on morning talk shows who say the most irrational things. Like the Theater of the Absurd, they leave the audience (or the voter) with the feeling they’ve slipped through the looking glass and fallen out the other side. 

“He supports the Chinese Communist Party!” declared one social media post about a 60-something-year-old rancher candidate on the western side of the state. “She’s a Democrat agent!” said a mailer about a Christian mother and grandmother running for office in the middle of the state. “He wants pornography in our schools,” bleated another, this time about a businessman and new father from the southwestern part of the state. “He’s going to protect seniors from euthanasia,” another mailer concluded about a far-right candidate from the southeastern part of the state. 

Euthanasia? Is Wyoming euthanizing our elderly? I asked myself this question standing at our mailbox, the summer sun beating down on me as I stared down at the leaflet in my hands. Who in the world thinks our elderly are being prematurely murdered? Theater! Such absurd theater! And even more absurd when you realize someone is most likely getting paid a lot of money to create these ridiculous things. 

This season has also brought the first (and hopefully final) installment of “Something Crooked This Way Comes,” when we all learned about the allegedly illegal donation that the Crook County GOP made to the Wyoming Freedom Caucus’ political action committee with the aim of winning the majority (and the speakership) in the Wyoming House of Representatives. 

The title comes from Ray Bradbury’s novel “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” a dark novel that plays on themes from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.” That tragedy, perhaps not unlike the inner workings of the Freedom Caucus, unfolds in true Shakespearean style showing the devious and paranoid layers corrupting power can unleash when unchecked ambitions lead General MacBeth to murder the king and secure the crown for himself. Given Crook County is at the center of this little affair, and that their own Rep. Chip Nieman stands to become the next Speaker of the House should the Freedom Caucus secure the majority, the tragedy feels a perfect fit.

Senate President Ogden Driskill sounded the alarm around this bit of tragedy when he submitted a formal complaint to the Wyoming Secretary of State’s office. That came after lawmakers on the Joint Corporations Committee pressed Secretary of State Chuck Gray on whether his office would investigate the matter with or without a formal complaint.

Alas, however, the tragedy was prematurely abandoned when, with some bluff and bluster, the Freedom PAC returned the money without admitting fault.

And finally, we can mull over “Something is rotten in the county of Laramie,” taken from the similar line, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” spoken by the guard Marcellus about the corrupt kingdom of the same name in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”

Taft Love, a Wyoming Senate candidate and Laramie County GOP chairman, recently challenged the validity of the Laramie County clerk’s voting machine test, challenging whether it was conducted in accordance with state statute. The entire incident gave Love numerous high-profile headlines, something a candidate in a tight Senate race surely could use more of in order to pursue victory.

And while the deliberate politicizing of a subject as serious as election integrity would most definitely be a tragedy, the end of this Wyoming theater is yet to be determined. And could be far more serious than the lightness of this current bit of punditry. Let us hope this ends quickly and with as little chaos as possible for the actual sake of election integrity. 

I suspect many of us will be thrilled to see a temporary end to the absurd, crooked and rotten election cycle on Aug. 21. 

The winners and losers will no doubt have much to say about the way in which this election unfolded. And there are yet many more questions left unanswered. But for now, with under a week to go, we need only watch and wait.