Hello, and happy hasn’t-it-been-the-most-glorious-autumn!
Last week, I attended Jackson’s “No Kings” rally.
To honor my personal brand of being a data wonk, during the rally I counted the crowd a couple of times. Both times I counted at least 750 people. Yet because the mix of folks seemed to change between counts, I’m guessing the total turnout was well north of 750.
I was surprised by the large number of rally-goers. Even more surprising was how festive the event was. While a few leather-lunged types encouraged the crowd to shout rabble-rousing chants, for the most part they were ignored. Instead, the mood was celebratory.
Part of the mood was due to the fact it was a glorious autumn day. Mostly, though, I think the festive mood occurred because, in coming together, hundreds of people anxious about America’s future realized they had kindred souls: “I may be crazy, but I’m not alone in being crazy!”
After the rally, I read accounts about other No Kings rallies across the country. They suggested that most of America’s 2,600 other rallies were similar to Jackson’s: lots of people, joyful, and without incident.
Some stories, though, featured quotes from Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, and they sent me into a funk. Specifically, in the run-up to No Kings, Sen. Barrasso demonized and delegitimized everything about the event, and everyone involved with it. In the senator’s construction, the gatherings were “I Hate America Rallies,” the organizers were “radical leftists,” and the attendees were members of “far-left activist groups.”
In my experience, none of this was true. In fact, just the opposite.
What really depressed me, though, was that such fact-free, ad hominem attacks are very non-Wyoming.
Thanks to our small population, Wyoming’s elected officials and their constituents know each other very well. Yet there was our senior US senator, vilifying constituents he knew to be anything but America-hating far-left radicals.
Rather than simply stew about the issue, I sent Sen. Barrasso the letter that forms today’s CoThrive. As is the case with any personal writing, what I wrote is obviously as much about me as it is about the senator. Reflecting on it, basically what I asked of Sen. Barrasso was to be the kind of elected official I aspire to be.
With luck, I hit that mark more often than not. With luck, so will he.
As always, thank you for your interest and support.
Jonathan Schechter
Executive Director
PS – In my September 24, 2025 CoThrive, I posed five questions which I feel frame Jackson Hole’s future. As part of the Teton County Library’s “Swap Meet” series, I’ll be leading a discussion about the questions at the library on Thursday, November 13, from 7:00 – 8:30 pm. If you’re interested in joining the conversation, I’d love to see you there.
The questions are:
- Our ecosystem: Is it still our priority?
- Our character: What do we value?
- Champagne tastes; beer budget: What is the proper role of government?
- Subsidizing local business: Whom shall we house?
- Gridlock: How much traffic are we willing to put up with?
Letter to US Senator John Barrasso
Dear Senator Barrasso,
At the end of last week, you gave a speech on the Senate floor calling October 17’s “No Kings” rally the “I Hate America” rally. You also claimed that the organizers were “radicals” and “far-left activists.”
As I read them, your remarks implied that all No Kings attendees were certainly America-haters, and most likely far-left radicals to boot. I disagree. As evidence, I’d like to offer a profile of myself – someone who, along with 750+ of your other constituents, attended Jackson’s No Kings rally.
I moved to Wyoming in the mid-1980s, about the same time you did. During my time in Jackson, I’ve hated America so much that I’ve raised my son here, coached youth soccer, and done scads of additional volunteer work for local schools, non-profits, and other organizations. All with the hope of leaving my community a little better than I found it.
My hatred of America has also extended to starting and running several small businesses and non-profits, and serving on the boards of others. In fact, I hate America so much that I served eight years as an elected trustee of St. John’s Health, another volunteer job.
For some people, this might have been enough. But feeling the need to express my radical far-left hatred of America even more, I am now in my seventh year serving on Jackson’s town council.
“Aha,” you might say. “All elected officials in Jackson are far-left activists.” While that may be the view from Washington, I ask you to consider that, over the last several years, I have been firm in not wanting to raise taxes, and firm in insisting that the town take a hard look at its expenses.
Which, I’m guessing, is a perspective similar to the one you bring to your job as an elected official.
For as far-left and America-hating as all this is, though, perhaps the apex of my radical America-hating, far-left activism is this: I’ve repeatedly voted for you.
I’ve voted for you because you struck me as a sensible person, someone grounded in core American and Wyoming values such as common sense, neighborliness and temperance in thought, word, and deed. I believed you were someone whose Wyoming sensibilities gave you the ability to rise above the kind of vitriol and lunacy that’s wracking our nation. That’s wrecking our nation.
I believed you were someone who wouldn’t succumb to Washington’s swampiness and craziness and pettiness, but would instead infuse the Senate with our state’s well-deserved reputation for accepting people for who they are, and treating even those with whom we disagree with warmth and respect.
Yet there you were on the Senate floor, attacking folks like me. Suggesting that I and the other 750+ people who attended Jackson’s No Kings rally are America haters and radical left-wingers.
Again, I disagree.
Had you been at Jackson’s No Kings event, you would have been among 750+ constituents who, contrary to your assertions, love their nation and worship its ideals. People who have served their community, state, and nation not because they hate them, but because they love them. Just like you.
These 750+ folks are heartbroken over how America’s core values – honesty, integrity, the rule of law, and so many more – are getting trampled by the Trump administration. And disturbed even further by how this trampling is being abetted by the legislative branch, some of whose members seem more interested in vilifying their constituents than providing the checks and balances mandated by the Constitution.
I don’t hate America, sir. Instead, I feel this quote from Mark Twain describes me pretty well: “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”
At the moment, I think it’s an open question whether the government deserves our support. What’s not an open question, though, is whether people who attended Jackson’s No Kings rally hate their country. The answer is a resounding “NO!”
All of us were there because our love of country compelled us to be. We raised our voices not out of hatred, but out of an abiding love for an America we feel is losing its Constitutional moorings.
Using Twain’s construction, Jackson’s No Kings demonstration was a gathering of patriots. Using your construction, rather than an “I Hate America” rally, what occurred on October 18 was an “I Love America” rally – 750+ of your constituents exhibiting patriotism at its finest, born of a deep, deep love of the United States.
In closing, let me offer this. Before you entered politics, you entered medicine. When you did, you took the Hippocratic Oath to heal the ill and infirm, and at worst do no harm.
Right now, America is, at best, infirm. One of the causes of our illness is the growing tendency not to discuss and debate, but to demonize and delegitimize.
To heal, our nation needs its leaders to bring us together.
You can be one of those leaders, Dr. Barrasso. You’re in a position to demonstrate not just to your constituents but to the entire nation what it means to embody core Wyoming values such as mutual respect and an awareness we’re all in this together.
Sadly, your recent comments moved us away from where we need to go. Please do better. I know you can.
