Counting down the final days of the Trump administration, it can’t come soon enough, and Wyoming is in an existential crisis. That is, who and what are we? What do we like and dislike? Do we have any values? Here we are, a well-educated people, we mostly associate ourselves with the ideals of democracy and Christianity and high moral standards. Yet on November 8th of last year, this state overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump. 70%, the highest in the nation. It’s really perplexing, especially given that we had ample warning. What does this say about Wyomingites? It says a lot.
If I write a few lines from the Access Hollywood tapes, though cleaned up a bit for suitability in a respectable newspaper, and you the reader becomes disgusted with me for writing them, remember, you will be disgusted with Trump’s words, not mine: “I did try to f**k her. She was married… I moved on her like a bitch… And she was married. Then all of a sudden, I see her, she’s not got the big phony tits and everything… I’ve got to use some Tic Tacks, just in case I start kissing her… I just start kissing them. …I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the p***y. You can do anything.”
So, is the above how today’s Wyomingites want posterity to know us in tomorrow’s history books? Does the above accord with anything that could be called particularly Christian? Or decent? Or does it encompass the values of people from the Equality State? Perhaps a temporary lapse into being the “Cowboy State” could explain a lot, but if this is what cowboys have become, then God help us.
So, who are we? This is not a situation that we can blame on those awful east coasters, or Californians, who overwhelmingly voted for the much better speaker, and more experienced and knowledgeable candidate, …this is us. Many Wyomingites were absolutely deplorable on Nov. 8. If they still support Trump then they are beyond redemption. Posterity will be confused and disgusted with us.
Against Hilary Clinton was a lot of fake news, which rural America fell for lock, stock, and barrel. There really wasn’t much fake news about Trump, and there’s still not, all you had to do was listen to him. That so many people, albeit a minority, still voted for him suggests some weird things about the psyche of our country.
Wyoming thought it was getting a savior of fossil-fuel jobs. Wanting jobs is understandable and good, but we have to be realistic and realize that fossil fuels are globally on the way out, and for the very good reason that they are, by way of air pollution, threatening the ability of humans to continue to live on this planet.
Our single global atmosphere is a chemical stew. If we add too much carbon dioxide and methane, we will all die.
What’s more is that there are clean alternatives, and our Wyoming legislature should start inviting the companies that produce clean energy into our state, instead of chasing them away. They do this, for example, with production taxes, which are very likely illegal, as well as a disincentive. Likely, most of our Republican politicians are heavily invested in fossil fuels, and they are willing to let the state depopulate for the sake of propping up their own portfolios.
Higher fossil-fuel-commodity prices could help Wyoming a lot right now, but, ironically, it is exactly such a scenario that will make clean energy that much more economical, because, remember, renewables do not require any commodities. They only require physics and some pretty smart people.
America was in a global love fest with president Obama. Now we chase away students who would like to attend our universities, we chase away immigrants who are more likely than Americans to start businesses (and create jobs), foreign tourism is down because they are afraid of becoming victims of gun violence, and hostility to “the other”.
From time to time in the history of this country, perhaps starting with the Salem Witch Trials, and including the Joseph McCarthy era, and perhaps the Civil War and the “Revolutionary” War (my ancestors were Loyalists), too, hysteria has to run its course.
It’s like everything is fine and good and we have to go look for or create problems. This is an existential crisis.
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