An out-of-state pipeline of fear helped sway Wyoming elections

Sophocles is said to have written, “Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.” Wise words indeed, but if last week’s election was any indication, succeeding through fraud may unfortunately be Wyoming’s new future.

Opinion

The state may be in for a whole lot more theater in our Legislature, and a whole lot less legitimate lawmaking. Legislative votes will be taken simply for use in elections, to hammer those who oppose the Wyoming Freedom Caucus’ imported agenda and divisive tactics.

Theater may be the new game, but if there’s one lesson from last week we must not miss, it’s that fear is central to the Freedom Caucus’ strategy. Those who do not wish to bend the knee to them will have to decide how to go forward.

You see, from the schoolyard bully to the tinpot dictator, fear is the key ingredient to intimidate and force others to bend to their will. Whether it’s bloodying the nose of an unsuspecting boy at recess or a lightning invasion of another country, fear is an effective tool, and bullies the world over know it.

Last week’s primary election, preceded by weeks of coordinated attacks on candidates using lies and misrepresentations, effectively demonstrated how the coordinated use of mistruths can instill fear — both in the electorate who are told Freedom Caucus opponents are coming for their rights, and in the politicians being demonized. These unprecedented wins did not happen solely because candidates, as Freedom Caucus leader John Bear says, worked hard on the ground. They didn’t win because they raised lots of money from constituents and spent it talking to voters. No, they won because out-of-state folks “played” in their races (frequently using lies) to their huge advantage.

The Freedom Caucus and its allies have gained a majority in the Wyoming Senate and will most likely claim the Wyoming House of Representatives as well in November, and they did it by attacking incumbents with dishonest mailers. Lies, lies and more lies. The bigger the lie, the better, and now that they’ve been successful, those who stand to be lied about have a reason to fear for their political futures.

Bear was featured in a Facebook post after the election by McShane LLC, a Las Vegas, Nevada-based consultant hired by Bear’s Freedom Caucus PAC, touting a “Wyoming victory.” In the post, Bear thanked the firm for bringing “their trademark aggressive tactics” to Wyoming.

Who is McShane LLC?

Well, it’s a GOP consulting firm. More specifically, it’s a firm that in 2021 had an employee linked to the Proud Boys. Other reporting shows McShane created a super PAC called “Take Back the West.” “The owner of McShane LLC, the political consulting company that arranged to recruit Proud Boys to attend a post-presidential election protest and rally in North Las Vegas, set up a political action committee in Nevada that has one benefactor — McShane LLC,” the Nevada Current reported in 2021.

At least one candidate in Tennessee fired McShane LLC after learning about its ties to the Proud Boys.

This is the political firepower Bear and his Speaker of the House candidate Rep. Chip Nieman clearly believed they needed in Wyoming to win the majority for themselves. McShane has enjoyed success in our state before. Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray paid McShane LLC nearly $200,000 during his bid to win in 2022, campaign finance records show.

And what other groups played in Wyoming’s elections? Well, in a post the day after Wyoming’s primary election, Corey DeAngelis, a senior fellow at the national American Federation for Children said on X, “My organization targeted three legislators in Wyoming House Republican primaries for voting against school choice this year. They all just lost their seats.”

This kind of spiking the football by a guy in Texas who has nothing to do with Wyoming, celebrating the losses of targeted lawmakers, is exactly the kind of dirty D.C. politics the Freedom Caucus has brought to Wyoming.

And of course, we can’t forget Make Liberty Win, the campaign wing of Young Americans for Liberty, Ron Paul’s brainchild, which was one of the main players this year sending out mailers, many of them also containing false and misleading information .

Here is the “Privacy and Disclosure Notice” at the end of the intensive seven-page survey created by Young Americans for Liberty that I’ve been told some Freedom Caucus candidates have admitted they filled out:

“Young Americans for Liberty does not intend to share these survey results with the public. However, if you are elected to office and vote against the positions you described or otherwise act against the policy positions you represent in this survey, YAL will make it known.”

If you didn’t catch it, that is a threat intended to intimidate Wyoming lawmakers into obeying an out-of-state group — not Wyoming voters — through fear.

You see fear is a powerful force. Fear can make people cower, obey and withdraw. But more importantly, fear makes people lose their sense of decency. We’ve seen it throughout history: Good people will acquiesce to things they do not believe in because of fear. They will agree to tactics they find personally repugnant because of fear. They will surrender because of fear. And while all political operators seek to instill some fear in their adversaries, overcoming one’s fear is something all political victors have in common.

But fear can also bring out the deepest acts of courage and heroism.

Winston Churchill said, “Fear is a response, courage is a decision,” and he’s right.

Fear has been used to great effect in politics here in Wyoming, and I think most politicians had better get comfortable with feeling it. But succumbing to fear is no way to live, and it’s no way to represent your constituents.

Courage is a decision, and Wyoming conservatives had better make the decision to embrace courage and push past fear. If not, we will continue to be ruled by the Freedom Caucus bullies and their out-of-state puppeteers. And that’s no way for the Cowboy State and her fierce people to live.

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