Rod Miller: The Hypocrisy of the Wyoming GOP

Reprinted with permission from CowboyStateDaily.com

Once upon a time, the Republican Party in Wyoming was a proud, respected political institution that represented the bedrock conservative ideals of Wyoming’s citizens.

But, before our very eyes, the Wyoming GOP is transforming itself into a hypocritical, comic opera theater of the absurd. And it wants desperately for the good people of the Cowboy State to follow them down their path of madness.

Today’s Republican Party, and the MAGA brand it rides for, is a hollow caricature of its former self. And it has turned its back on the voters of Wyoming.

A recent case in point is the GOP’s refusal to support the clear winner of the Republican primary in Senate District 1. The winner of that primary, Senator Ogden Driskill, is in line to become president of the Wyoming Senate.

The county GOP apparatus is instead actively supporting the write-in candidacy of Roger Connett, whom Driskill roundly defeated in the primary.

By so doing, GOP party leadership is telling the voters of SD 1 that their votes don’t amount to a pitcher of spit. They are not merely ignoring the wishes of Wyoming voters, they are actively working against them.

With all the grief that the Wyoming GOP gave to Liz Cheney for “not representing the interests of Wyoming’s voters”, they are doing the exact same thing to the voting citizens of Wyoming’s Upper East Side. Shame on them, the hypocrites!

The Uinta County GOP pulled that same stunt over in the opposite corner of the Cowboy State. They upped the ante by formally endorsing the write-in opponent of their duly elected primary winner.

The GOP bigwigs are trying to replace the will of the voters, expressed at the ballot box, with their own ideas about what is best for us. For all their “we the people” rhetoric, the Wyoming Republican Party clearly doesn’t trust the people to make their own decisions.

It’s almost as if the Wyoming Republican Party has never read the opening phrase of the Wyoming Constitution; “All power is inherent in the people…”. It’s also as if they have deluded themselves into thinking that the term “Republican Party” occurs anywhere in that document. Let me assure them, it does not.

All that aside, if the Wyoming GOP is hell-bent on replacing the will of the voters, then they must have a replacement in mind. It’s not only fair but incumbent on us, the citizens of Wyoming, to ask of the GOP, with what do they intend to replace our collective wisdom?

If the GOP elites don’t like our choices for political representation, then what are they offering as a substitute? Is there a system other than representative democracy that they prefer?

Which brand are they riding for, and what kind of hat does it wear – a hardworkin’ Stetson, or a red MAGA hat?

For a handful of power-hungry party hacks to usurp the will of rank and file, bona-fide Wyoming Republicans who exercised their franchise in the GOP primaries is bush league politics of the first order.

For that same clique to claim to be the voice of the people out of one side of their mouths, and then to try to drown out that voice from the other side, is hypocrisy defined.

It is cancel culture at its worst, elevated to an art form by the real Republicans In Name Only.

This is a disturbing trend to see in Wyoming, where our history (or at least the part of it that we thump our chests about) has enshrined the notion of one-person, one-vote, and extended that blessing to everyone.

The Wyoming GOP is undermining democracy in the Equality State in favor of their own lust for power.

The ultimate irony is that these yokels wrap themselves in Brown & Gold, and call themselves cowboys.