Wyoming is hyper romantic. Never mind

how far the bucking horse and cowboy fall

from reality; it is a much displayed symbol.

Displaying it can express rugged individualism,

a disdain for danger, a tie to an earlier era

of imagined glory in the taming or conquest

of nature, a righteous suppression of other

cultures, a declaration of an independence

of livelihood, yet inclusion in the national

economy, beef and the overall assertion of the

right of the individual to see things in a way

that validates self-images and individual sovereignties

within a region-wide lifestyle and a

set of traditions, however imagined.

Communing with the vegetables in a grocery

store, a reader of mine politely introduced

himself and said that he appreciates my

occasional rants and road-side philosophies

as published in local newspapers. Poor man;

he didn’t know the earful he was about to receive.

I expressed my gratitude for his kind

acknowledgement, and shared some thoughts

on Wyoming’s hyper romanticism, having

just then blended themselves with peppers and

cilantro, when he explained, “I grew up here

in Rock Springs, and it wasn’t always this

conservative. This used to be a place where

Democrats did pretty well in elections, but

now it’s this unbending cult of Republicanism.”

Then he asked, “Is Wyoming’s hyper

romanticism, which substitutes for science

and economics, despite the ecological and

economic evidence of the world’s developing

consensus on fossil fuels, a good or a bad

thing?”

I had met my match – now I was getting

an earful. I didn’t know how to answer his

question but I acted like I did, and I was only

half truthful. Wanting to appear smart, o-so-

Buddha-like and open minded, I responded,

“It’s neither good or bad. It just is. Perhaps it’s

just human nature to prefer images and stories

to science and math.”

The truthful half is that I find in-depth science

and complicated math pretty dry. I love

stories and I bet most people do, too. The

untruthful half – the bigger half – involves a

smattering of math and economics, like their

demographic and financial manifestations,

and ecology, including chemistry and wildlife

and other things like health care, the failed

War on Drugs and other issues that tell me

that most Wyomingites are terribly romantic,

and today, unlike in the past, they are in denial

of many things. The frustration this produces

is part of the reason that the state’s young and

educated are leaving by the thousands.

That this is unapologetically Trump Country

is the first sign that there is a big problem.

This era of U.S. history may go down as “Hyper-

Romantic America.” Wyomingites multiply

this with a Washington delegation that is

anti-environment, anti-public health and for

their own temporary aggrandizement, and to

hell with tomorrow. At the state level we keep

electing rancher legislators. These people are

the biggest recipients of government aid in the

country, and they are always indignant about

government regulations. They hypocritically

refuse to expand Medicaid because they hate

welfare and socialism, never mind that they

themselves are anything but free-market capitalists

and rugged individualists.

Books called “Welfare Ranching,” and

“Pushed Off the Mountain, Sold Down the

River, Wyoming’s Search for its Soul,” go

into more detail than I have room.

A coda to all of this is that there are many

very smart, well-informed and well-traveled

people in Wyoming. Typically, these people

are quiet and efficient, often involved in one

way or another with education, medicine or

wildlife and the environment. They are polite

to a fault. Frankly, many of these people are

afraid to speak out. One lady said to me, “My

husband and I have a lot to lose, like good

jobs. You don’t have anything to lose.” She

may be mistaken in the part about me. What

they do is none of my business, of course,

but it might be better for their souls if they

step forward with their logic, their knowledge

and with their powers of persuasion, and help

budge the balk of the population to see the denial

that Wyoming is in. The cliché, “Silence

equals assent,” could be applicable here.

Political parties are obsolete. What’s important

is to be able to see the world as it really

is. A good place to start is to realize that

all the air in the world is shared; it is called

the “atmosphere.” All the water of the world

is connected; it is called the “hydrosphere.”

When these are in trouble, we are in trouble

and there’s nothing romantic about that.