Presidential hopeful Bill Weld is closer to Wyoming's true values than Trump ever could hope to be

BY ROD MILLER

When they faced off in the presidential election in Wyoming a couple years ago, Donald Trump whupped Hillary Clinton like Crazy Horse whupped Custer.

He did it with late-stage Tea Party populist rhetoric, a perception that he was a successful capitalist and political sleight of hand that made him look like an “outsider.” Mostly he won by being someone other than Hillary Clinton.

All of this appealed to deeply held myths that Wyomingites hold dear, and consequently Trump won

Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld at a 2016 event.

a greater percentage of votes here than he did in any other state. The MAGA cap didn’t replace the Stetson on the streets of Gillette or Ten Sleep, but what was going on underneath the headgear had changed. Wyoming suddenly identified itself as “Trump Country,” and we thought we had finally met a man to match our mountains.  

We stuck with him when he was recorded as saying, “grab ’em by their pu----s” because, after all, he promised to drain the swamp. We (and here and throughout I use the editorial “we”) shrugged when Trump said he could shoot people on 5th Avenue with impunity and encouraged supporters at his rallies to rough up protesters, saying, “I’ll pay the legal fees.” We even held back our chuckles when he positioned himself as a man of faith who really loves God but can’t quote from the Bible.  

Wyoming will never be a bellwether state, simply because there are so few of us.  But we can give a presidential candidate a victory so overwhelming that it seems we have made him one of us. And we did that.  

Now its re-election time. Let’s take a look at what’s going on.

We are a couple of debate cycles into the Democrat Party’s search for a challenger to Trump, and several months away from an eventual nomination. We are seeing the expected political food fight among the 20 or so potential nominees as the process descends into identity and gesture politics raised to an art form.

Most of these candidates would better serve their party by running for the Senate in their home states, relegating Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to minority stature – if he could survive a challenge to his seat.  

But, Oh No!!! They have sugarplum visions of redecorating the Oval Office, and they’ll eat their own to get there. They seem to have forgotten the legacy of Sam Ervin, that “ol’ country lawyer” who reminded the Executive Branch about the true meaning of separation of powers. So they persist in trying to hoist one rainbow banner or another over the White House.  

Somehow, I doubt The Donald loses much sleep over any of them.

Here’s what Trump really should  worry about: His base is eroding. After two years of seeing him in action, and comparing that performance to what he said he would do, Trump stalwarts – even in Wyoming, his base of bases – are second-guessing themselves.  

Trump’s mismanagement of our economy, affecting mostly rural agriculturalists; his gonad-induced trade wars; his lack of concern about our sovereign debt; his tacit “go get ’em boys” to extreme nationalists; his sudden embracing of constitutionally questionable red flag laws to address gun violence, added to his expressed misogyny, his grifter, deadbeat attitude to his personal debts and his overall posturing as “Jerk in Chief” really rub the folks of Wyoming the wrong way.

And that’s just a partial list.

We, in Wyoming, are accustomed to much better in our elected representatives.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. You’ll still hear plenty of “But, Hillary,” and “Give him time to drain the swamp and get rid of pedophiles, and then he’ll get to work” from folks who drank deeply of the snake oil a couple of years ago. 

Wyomingites are a proud people, and it’s hard to admit we made a mistake. But we are also a realistic bunch, and we well-developed bullshit detectors. So Trump will have his work cut out for him next election in the Cowboy State.

But not because of any Democrat.

Trump has a very credible primary challenge from someone who should keep him up at night. Bill Weld of Massachusetts is the only announced Republican candidate with the courage to challenge Trump. So far at least. (South Carolina’s former governor, Mark Sanford, is considering a run as well.)

I know. I know. Bill Weld, Massachusetts, commie sympathizer central, home of the Kennedy School of Government. But hear me out. 

As a colony, it shed the first blood in our Revolution at the Boston Massacre, and the “Shot Heard Round the World” was fired on a Lexington meadow. Weld brings that to the table. Andas a former Libertarian, I think our natural rights are safe with him.

It’s still early in the process, but I kinda like this guy. He reminds me of a Bob Taft or a Barry Goldwater of the 21st century. He seems to espouse a sort of conservatism that I’m really comfortable with – small government, tight with a buck, environmental ethic, big on individual liberty. 

I’ve been disappointed before by politicians who say one thing and do another (see above description of the incumbent).  But I haven’t lost my faith in our republic, so I’m always willing to listen … and watch. Case in point: A few years to, after speechifying to a crowd about a river in Massachusetts that had been cleaned up, Weld jumped into it fully clothed. Take that, Trump! 

Like I say, it’s early. Lots can still happen. But I really don’t see the president putting any effective Band-Aids on the wounds he has caused to his base. They may not like Weld just because he has the temerity to step into the ring with the title-holder.  

But I really respond to that kind of political courage. And, to my knowledge, Bill Weld has never partied with the late Jeffrey Epstein. To me, that is just cowboy as hell and reinforces to me why I’m a Republican.

Rod Miller is a citizen, father and grandfather and a proud former Rawlins Outlaw living in Cheyenne.