So much of what we conservatives get is filtered through the myopic lens of the mainstream media. In an effort to take a respite from Florida’s heat, humidity and tropical storms, my wife and I decided to tour the conservative northwestern states of our fragile union. We drove through and spent time in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and Colorado. We even attended Freedom Fest in Rapid City putting more than 2,500 miles on our rental cars.
Here are some hopefully useful and encouraging observations.
Only once did we spot a Black Lives Matter sign in a store window in Laramie, Wyoming. We attributed it to the city being the locale of the University of Wyoming, and we know well how universities, even in solid red states, attract left-leaning faculty, staff and sow their ideological seeds on young students’ minds. We were reassured by myriad “All Lives Matter” and “Trump 2024” bumper stickers throughout our sojourn.
Our Constitution’s Second Amendment was proudly displayed by the citizens throughout all five states. In Cody, Wyoming we attended two days of the Cody Stampede and observed three things: 1) The term rodeo is both a verb and a noun—people rodeo (participate in) and it’s a place you go to see people risk their lives and limbs on bucking broncos and steers, and perform stunts with only one hand or foot holding on to a galloping horse; 2) Firearms were worn proudly by many of the attendees in a non-threatening, reassuring way; 3) MAGA signs were everywhere and people stood for and sang the national anthem with their hands over their hearts and hats off; 4) Unlike the sad spectacle of social justice warriors in other sporting venues, nobody took a knee during our national anthem.
Freedom Fest 2021
Freedom fest in Rapid City attracts every conservative flora and fauna imaginable. It began with a keynote address from South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, showing why she is so respected in conservative circles and many think would make a great vice presidential or presidential candidate in 2024 to run against Joe Dementia Biden or the Kamala dreaming team. Noem stated, “South Dakota is the only state in the union to NOT have shutdowns, shelter in place orders, mask mandates, businesses deemed essential or nonessential, because I don’t think Governors have authority to do these things. Now in South Dakota, our state motto is ‘Under God the People Rule’ and that is what we believe and what we do every single day here. I want you to know that the people of South Dakota are happy, and they’re happy because they’re free.” The crowd from the four corners of our continent and everywhere in between erupted with applause.
A Who’s Who of conservative institutions were also represented at display booths in the Freedom Fest exhibitor hall. It was a big and inclusive text that featured libertarian Reason Foundation in L.A. and the Claremont Institute in Pasadena; Hillsdale College in western Michigan; the Heartland Institute in Chicago; CFACT in Washington, D.C.; The James Madison Institute, Tallahassee, Fl.; the Mises Institute, Auburn, AL, and Project Veritas, Washington, D.C. Conservative publishers and books were also well represented. I was looking for Kurt Schlichter’s most recent book Kelly Turnbull, The Split, but his publisher missed a great promotional opportunity by sitting out Freedom Fest.
The presentations were filled with spirited debate and healthy disagreement between people which is necessary for like-minded people in a large and diverse tent. There were also conservative media stars like Dr. Drew Pinsky, with whom my wife and I along with two other good friends had spent a week on a Windstar cruise of the Greek Islands (“Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, Life goes on, bra”). Dr. Drew was rightfully putting it to Anthony Fauci, the putative head of D.C.’s, know-nothing health bureaucracy about their colossal and politicized mistakes on CCP Covid-19. Dr. Drew, along with his and my friend, Dr. Michael Howard, was one of the very first physicians to call out Fauci’s politicization and poorly reasoned CCPCovid-19 pronouncements on Fox News early in the pandemic. Dr. Drew recounted how the progressive social media company, Twitter, and its mob of enforcers de-platformed him, as they recently did to Alex Berenson for his CCP Covid-19 health policy rejoinder to Fauci.”
Victor Davis Hanson has most recently summed this up, “Social media fights, the cancel culture wars between celebrities and elites, the virtue signaling of academics, actors, and activists—all of it means nothing if Americans do not have safe roads, viable travel, affordable gas, food, and housing, and safety in their homes.
While in Sioux City we toured the Mt. Rushmore and Crazy House monuments. Seeing these monuments to our national pride gives lie to our nation’s alleged systemic racism. Both were started by white males. Mt. Rushmore by Doane Robinson who conceived the idea for Mount Rushmore in 1923 to promote tourism in South Dakota. In 1924, Robinson persuaded sculptor Gutzon Borglum, a Danish immigrant, to travel to the Black Hills region to ensure the carving could be accomplished. It was a memorial that our nation and people around the have marveled at. The Crazy Horse monument was the idea of Korczak Ziolkowski, a Polish immigrant who grew up in foster families near Boston. His work began in 1947 and is still being completed by his descendants. The Ziolkowski family has turned down multiple offers of federal financial help because of the strings attached. The fact that a white family would devote their fortune and lives to honoring a native American warrior who defeated General Custer at Little Big Horn, gives lie to the racist characterization from The 1619 Project (see Peter A. Coclanis’ destruction of Matthew Desmond’s “New History of American Capitalism” [NHAC] bastardization of America’s Economy).
As Mark Steyn recently observed, “Out there, in towns you've never heard of [or been to], among people you've never heard of, there is still life in America, but to survive they will have to give up reflex veneration for institutions [many state and our current federal government] that despise them.”
Each night my wife and I toasted our fortune at living in Florida, despite the Swamp being thrust on us by our non-compos mentis President and his morally corrupt minions. We exclaimed, “God bless Governor Ron DeSantis.”