My husband and I moved to Wyoming from Washington state roughly 3 years ago. We left behind a lifetime of family, friends, our church and our business to escape the liberal tyranny coming out of Olympia, the state capital.
For those who don’t know anything about the “other” Washington, it is a DEEP blue state, with a democrat super majority in all three branches of government, the education system, the medical system, most cities, towns, and municipalities, and pretty much every board, commission and council. Strange when you consider 26 counties voted for Trump in 2020 compared to 13 who voted for Biden.
There are conservatives living amongst the liberals, but most are trying to live under the radar, afraid to be outed as a flag-flying, Trump-supporting bigot.
People used to walk down our street and cautiously look around to be sure no one was listening before telling us they were so proud of our giant American flag flying from the 30 foot pole on our hill (you could see it for blocks!) or the “Trump 2020” sign in the yard. I once told a woman I could get her a yard sign, but she was too afraid of retaliation from her liberal neighbors.
She had reason for that fear. During the 2016 and 2020 election seasons, houses displaying Trump signs were occasionally set on fire, one of them just blocks from our house. Signs for republican candidates were almost guaranteed to be vandalized. Visible American flags invited loud obscenities. The intimidation was intentional, meant to keep us quiet and afraid.
I ran for school board in 2020, against an incumbent who was sponsored by the Multicare conglomerate (think Monument Health), and who supported race-based education, transitioning of children and other standard liberal ideals. I had magnetic signs on my car with my simple slogan- “education not indoctrination.” A man stopped me in a parking lot to whisper (literally), “I looked you up online and I like what you’re doing. You have my vote.” A grown man who looked a lot like a normal guy was whispering his support for a conservative candidate!
And…my car got keyed.
I didn’t win. I didn’t really expect to. Voting in Washington state is full of fraud, so many conservatives don’t bother to vote because they believe their vote doesn’t count.
I had never voted in person before moving to Wyoming. Not because I didn’t vote, but because for my entire adult life elections have been vote-by-mail. Washington has been the model for every state that wants to control election outcomes by controlling the physical ballot. Drop boxes. Ballot harvesting. USPS workers caught dumping mailed ballots in ravines and dumpsters. Yes, that really happened, more than once, in multiple elections.
Fraud has been uncovered, repeatedly, but rarely prosecuted.
What does all this have to do with Wyoming? A lot, actually. All of the fraud and government overreach taking place in Washington began with the legislature killing good bills and passing bad ones, and with legislators lying to our faces about what they stood for and what they were going to do for us. Washington state government does not work for the people.
When I first moved here, I was expecting a conservative government, considering there were only around five declared democrats. I was surprised to find that many politicians consider the “R” no more meaningful than costume jewelry. Everyone knows a democrat isn’t likely to be elected so they change their party affiliation and run as a republican. But most of them aren’t conservative at all. Fortunately, a lot of Wyomingites have been waking up to this fact, and we’ve been able to elect more Freedom Caucus (FC) members to office.
But the FC is facing an uphill battle, especially considering the start to this year’s legislative session:
The election integrity bills that were killed before even getting to the floor for a debate. The recalibration bill that had a lot of good, common-sense recommendations for getting school spending back on track and more money to the teachers and classrooms – dead before taking a breath.
Liberals parading as republicans will say the bills were poorly written, or there was one point that ruined the whole bill. But rather than allow debate or try to pass amendments to address what they don’t like, the entire bill gets killed.
Then there are bills like SF0083. This bill would take away the votes of smaller counties, giving greater control to the two largest counties. This is how 13 counties (really, only three) in Washington control the rest of the state. Votes are weighted by population so that the less populated conservative counties don’t have the same voice as the more densely populated liberal counties. SF0083 is sponsored by a “republican,” Sen. Cale Case, but this is a liberal scheme to gain more control.
There are many arguments against election integrity laws, including the ones recently killed in the legislature. “We don’t have election fraud in Wyoming” is the one I’ve heard most often. Maybe we don’t today, but by not ensuring that it CAN’T happen, it WILL happen eventually.
Recalibration is required by law, but under liberal leadership, it has been ignored for years. The same people screaming for more money for the schools are the ones refusing to let the current spending see the light of day. Maybe they don’t want people to know they’ve been lying about the FC wanting to “gut school funding.”
We are fortunate in Wyoming that our legislature does its work in the daylight. In Washington, the legislature is notorious for passing unpopular or secret bills (called “ghost bills” – title only with the wording filled in after passing) literally in the middle of the night.
You might be thinking that none of these things apply here in Wyoming. Remember the Willey family: prior to their fight with their daughter’s school over keeping her social transition a secret, the issue of students’ privacy rights versus parents’ rights to be informed of what was happening with their children at school wasn’t a “Wyoming problem.” Until it was.
How many times have political candidates used the phrase “Wyoming solutions to Wyoming problems”? How many elected officials have we heard say that the FC and other conservatives are too focused on “national issues” instead of Wyoming? Both of those are misleading because what happens elsewhere in the nation is most likely happening here, too.
Conservatives tend to want to be left alone to live their lives, run their businesses and raise their kids as they see fit. This can, unfortunately, lead to them sitting out of elections because they think if they leave the government alone, the government will return the favor. According to the Wyoming Secretary of State’s website, only 54% of voting age people were registered to vote in the 2024 election, with only 27% of voting age people actually voting.
Liberals are really good at playing the long game. They can and will call themselves conservative and say all the right things while campaigning, and even vote with the conservatives a couple of times, then vote along with the democrats when it really counts.
Wyoming is at a crossroads: current leadership, for the most part, leans heavily to the left – pushing for bigger government, higher taxes, more bureaucracy and less autonomy for individuals, while people are taking notice and resisting with their voices and their votes. Whether we turn towards freedom or tyranny depends on who has the most knowledge, patience and determination.
Know how your representatives are voting, not just what they’re saying. Look at the bills being presented: go to wyoleg.gov and read them. Use that same website to contact your legislators and tell them how you want them to represent you. Vote out people who don’t live up to their promises.
Don’t let Wyoming become another Washington.