How Wyoming can become a two-party state

Excuse me for entertaining the anachronistic notion that a two-party system would be a healthy thing for the citizens of Wyoming. Not much chance Wyoming will turn Blue or even purple in the near future, however, the irony of conservatives ignoring climate change is that we may find ourselves a bluish-shade of purple as sea levels rise and west coast liberals are forced inland.

Until then, Democrats have to fight to avoid extinction. Each year, fewer eligible voters register to vote as the margin between registered Republicans and registered Democrats grows wider.

All five state elected officials are Republicans. With the exception of Dave Freudenthal’s two terms as governor, ending nearly a decade ago, no Democrat has been elected to any statewide office since 1990. A Wyoming Democrat hasn’t served in Congress since Teno Roncalio’s 1978 retirement. The vast majority of county officials are Republicans as are the majority of registered voters in 22 of 23 counties.

Does it matter? The sheer numbers don’t. It makes no difference that there are more members of one party than the other. It is not about partisanship. What matters is the way in which those numerical differences translate into public policy. The numbers alone don’t explain the harm one party rule is currently doing because that party no longer has to appeal to the center.

Wide swaths of Wyoming families are not being represented. Their concerns routinely go  unaddressed. Republicans are captive to a radical right, conservative Christian cabal. While the minimum wage goes unchanged and the healthcare needs of the uninsured are ignored, the legislature tilts at the windmills of culture wars.

Without a robust challenge from another party, the Republicans are freed of any rational restraint. 

As Wyoming’s Democratic Party heads for hospice care, it could have one last breath before going the way of the Wooly Mammoth. To save itself, the Wyoming Democratic Party  must find a way to become relevant in the lives of low and middle-income Wyoming families.

Here’s how.

Stop spending money on office space and equipment, staff, and candidates. Start spending on the initiative process to give voters an opportunity to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and to expand Medicaid.

These are proposals that will significantly improve the lives of thousands of Wyoming families, a large percentage of whom are otherwise not likely to registered to vote because today’s politics are irrelevant to their daily struggle.

Wages and medical care keep them up at night worrying about their children. These are the issues that matter to them and will motivate them to participate in the political process. 

Wyoming Republicans have demonstrated they have no interest in serving these families. Give up any hope you have that this might change. Take these matters directly to the people by placing the two issues on the 2022 ballot.

The Wyoming initiative process was designed to not work. You can’t gather enough signatures using volunteers. Since the citizen-oriented process was put on the books, 32 initiatives have been proposed. Three passed. Those that didn’t make the ballot relied on volunteers to gather the large number of signatures required.

The proponents cannot rely on volunteers to get the more than 30,000 valid signatures required to put the question on a ballot. Neither can one rely on volunteers to draft language that won’t run afoul of existing law. 

It won’t be cheap. If you are serious about getting this done, you must have sufficient funding to contract an organization with the resources and expertise to get it done.

Then, sit back and imagine the 2022 election. Working families’ wages and access to healthcare will be on the ballot next to the governorship, the other four statewide elected officials, candidates for congress, and the state legislature.

Every campaign will feature two candidates. The Republican will oppose minimum wage increases and the expansion of Medicaid. The Democrat will support both.

Now, tell me who you think will win the bulk of those contests. The people. That’s who.

Fox News will be the death of America

Recently a Wyoming Tribune-Eagle letter-to-the-editor offered advice. “If you don’t watch Fox News, you don’t know what’s going on in this country.” (To find out what’s really going on, watch Fox News, May 10, 2019)

Did he write that with a straight face? The problem is you can’t see the writer’s body language. Was he smiling, winking, or crossing his fingers while writing? Neither do we know whether the writer is a real person or actually a Russian BOT? After the Mueller report, it’s a question we should be asking.

Folks who watch Fox News are often misinformed by Wyoming Senator John Barrasso and may not have heard of the Mueller Report except through Trump Tweets and AG Bill Barr’s fictional summary of its contents. Mueller’s report describes Russian interference with our 2016 election, what the Trump campaign knew about Putin’s involvement, how the Trump campaign welcomed it, and how their campaign benefited.

The report details evidence that would cause a thinking person to believe President Trump obstructed justice. That is not what the folks on Fox told you. Verily I say unto you, don’t take their word for it, nor mine. Read the report. I know it’s long but patriotic Americans ought to be willing to sacrifice a little for the truth.

It is hard to decipher because of the redactions of a massive amount of evidence Trump’s personal lawyer, William Barr, didn’t want you to see. There is enough left that you’ll find the Mueller investigation teaches us to be wary of letters-to-the-editor such as the one I am referring to. Russian BOTS reached more than 126 million Americans during and after the 2016 campaign. Russian controlled Twitter accounts reached 1.4 million.

That was done, Mueller found, for the express purposes of “supporting the Trump campaign and disparaging candidate Hillary Clinton.” Much of the false information Russians wanted voters to have was then retransmitted by their comrades at Fox.

The Russian BOTs and Fox share much in common. They both provided wildly false information for the purpose of benefitting Donald Trump, a president who is a hands-on favorite for a first ballot selection to the Liars Hall of Fame.

Just think, if not for Fox, we’d have never known about the non-existent “death panels” in the Affordable Care Act, or that, as Tucker Carlson misinformed viewers, “Far more children died last year drowning in their bathtubs than were killed accidentally by guns.”

No one but Fox acolytes knew that Obama declared Mother’s Day to be “National Abortion Freedom Day.” He didn’t.

But for Fox News, we’d still be thinking that Secondhand Smoke killed people. It was on Fox News that Dana Perino taught us that the insurance companies are mostly run by Democrats  and Eric Bolling informed us there had not been a single terrorist attack on the United States while George W. Bush was president. None of that is true.

But for Fox, who’d have believed there were “19 paramilitary training facilities in the United States, where radicalized Muslims were learning how to kill Americans? Didn’t happen.

Without Fox, millions of Americans might have been forced against their will to resort to actual science to understand climate change. Fox and Friends host Steve Doocy kept them honest when, on the day of a massive blizzard, he asked the question that answers itself. “How can there be global warming if it’s snowing and bitterly cold?” On Fox, Glen Beck assured us the polar ice cover is actually increasing. Alternative facts.

Since Fox started broadcasting, America redefined what is “fair and balanced.” Facts are now relics of the past that no longer interfere with what we want to know. Fox fills the vacuum.

If the Republic survives long enough for the history of these times to be written, our grandchildren will know how much damage Fox News did 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The hole we are in was dug by faithful viewers like the author of that letter to the editor.

We give our pets a dignified death; why not humans?

Max left this world last week. He was one of our many beloved pets, a beautiful long gray hair cat with white paws, a white mustache, and a white apron on his chest. He blessed us with his  16 yearlong life when he breathed his last.

Sixteen is elderly for a cat and Max was suffering the ailments all of God’s creatures share as any enter our last stage of life. In his last days, breathing was labored and he refused to eat, choosing instead to find a quiet place to hide away. The veterinarian measured his heart rate at about half that of a healthy cat. She then discovered a mass in his abdomen. Max had cancer.

He didn’t need us to subject him to an array of uncomfortable medical tests to know for certain why he was dying. We knew. Max knew. Each of us was ready. None of us was ready. We recognized the time had come. So, the vet very humanely sedated him and gave him a shot that sent him over the Rainbow Bridge.

We’ve been there before as have many of you. The moment is an inherent part of having a relationship with our pets. Just as we have a responsibility for their feeding and care during the days they have making our lives better, so it is we also have a responsibility to help them end their lives when the time has come. 

I never get over the profundity of the moment these loving creatures leave our world. As the vet administers the drug that, within seconds, will end their lives, everything in me wants to scream, “Stop.” Each time I am on the verge of demanding the whole thing end. I don’t want any of them to leave. I don’t want to be responsible for their death.

But, just as quickly, that impulse gives way to the reality of what is best for the pet over whose life God has given me dominion. I give thanks that they lived and acknowledge my responsibility for allowing them to leave with dignity. Max is calm, unaware of the drama in my mind. He no longer growls that weak Max growl as the vet moves his body and shaves a bit of fur so that she can insert the needle. The final drug is administered, a last breath taken. Max is no more.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. His soul quietly departs for that place all souls go. I don’t pretend to know where that is and I don’t try to guess. I simply have faith it is a place where Max is as  loved and loving in Heaven as he was on earth. Max is fine.

It occurs to me to ask why we make sure our pets die peaceful, dignified deaths but humans are often required to suffer to the very end. Is it because we care more for our pets than we do our fellow human beings? Or is it because we value animal life more than human life?

One day, my wife Pat and I talked to the cashier at the grocery store about his dog and how he had just endured putting him “to sleep.” We all agreed it was best for our pets when the time has come. Pat said, “If only the law allowed us to be as compassionate toward our fellow humans.”

A lady behind us whom we did not know was so offended by the idea that, though a complete stranger, she blurted out, “I’m glad I’m not your grandmother.” We agreed tacitly. None of the three of us thought the grocery store checkout line was a place to debate euthanasia. We each went our way.

Curiously, most states, including Wyoming, enable people like the lady in the line to impose their religious beliefs on us but not on our pets. If only the law allowed Max to make the choice for me that I was honored to make for him.