08-17-2022, 11:38 AM
(08-17-2022, 09:41 AM)David Horn Wrote:(08-16-2022, 10:58 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Liz Cheney lost her re-election bid.
Kissing up to Donald Trump is nearly a necessity for getting along in Republican politics. We shall see if such is good in the general election.
(08-16-2022, 11:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Shame on the people of Wyoming. I would never want to visit that state.
According to an NY Times commentary I just read today, the Wyoming GOP is split between the elites (Cheney, et al) and the Blue Collars who hate them. This neo-GOP of almost all blue collar voters iis slowly but surely pushing the elites aside and taking over most state and local political positions. What do they want? Validation! In the end, they have stopped doing any of the things that government needs to do, and spend their time on identity politics of all kinds ... and punishing the elites for being, you know, elite.
This may be the first entity with a large enough concentration of hyper-partisans to actually deep six an entire state. We'll have to see.
The blue-collar are heavily involved in energy extraction (oil, natural gas, and open-pit coal mining) or such activities as vehicle repair in which they are dependent upon bosses and scared into compliance on politics. Related are people in restaurants and food retailing who get the worst of both the white-collar and blue-collar worlds and are under the thumb of ownership.
Not very often do Wyoming voters get to vote against elites, but this time they did, voting out Liz Cheney for trying to hold the political idol of many of them to account for his crimes. Wyoming has no large cities. The largest is Cheyenne, at 65K; Casper is at 59K; and Laramie is at 32K. Most states have suburbs bigger than these "cities". Indiana, arguably the state in which the concept of "suburb" is least developed for a middling state in population, has Noblesville (69K), Carmel (101K), Merrillville (36K), and Mishawaka* (51K), none of which you would know about unless you had connections to Indiana (especially living there).
Wyoming is weird in many ways, and few of them positive... if there were a contest to dis-establish states it would probably be the loser due to its small population and lack of cohesion. Its state capitol is located close to the state lines of two states. Only Trenton, new Jersey makes less sense as the location of a state capitol. Rawlins, Cheyenne and Laramie might as well be in Colorado in view of their orientation in economics and media. Casper would make sense as a city in Nebraska. Jackson seems more connected to Idaho or Montana than to Rawlins, Laramie, Cheyenne, or Casper. Southwestern Wyoming (Rock Springs, Evanston) would fit Utah now that that Mormons have abandoned that polygamy thingie for over a century. The state has no real center. Thermopolis (population 2725 in 2020) is the biggest city in the middle of the state, which tells how empty the middle of Wyoming is. Someone must have thought it cute to have two states with the blandest shape (a rectangle) possible. OK, North Dakota and South Dakota should have been one state.
* I swear that Mishawaka is the model for the fictional Pawnee, Indiana of Parks and Recreation!
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.