Cradled in the Grand Tetons is one of the two places in Wyoming you know the name of: Jackson Hole
The other is the capital, of course, but Jackson is perhaps the more famous. Outdoor activities make the airport in Jackson Hole the busiest in Wyoming, despite the relatively small population of the town. If you get to the Rockies, rest assured you’re about to see a flyer inviting you to the tourist town. And the Mayor, Pete Muldoon, wants you to know just what you should expect.
After Trump’s inauguration, someone — Muldoon doesn’t know who — hung pictures of Donald Trump and Mike Pence in the city’s Town Hall. A few months later, Muldoon took them down. He replaced the framed portraits with one of local Native American Chief Washakie. He was given a full military burial by the U.S. government, the only chief to receive such an honor.
So among local Republicans, outrage ensued. After the chairman of Jackson’s Republican Party learned of the removal, he demanded they be re-hung. Muldoon was having none of it. He explained his actions in a statement which read, in part:
Since it’s not a requirement, the only two reasons I can see for displaying the portrait would be for educational purposes or to honor Donald Trump…there are two other equal branches of government, and no one seems particularly interested in displaying portraits of the Speaker of the House or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. This leaves us with the portrait as an honor. When the Town Of Jackson decides to honor such a divisive person, it is taking sides against some of its residents.”
After noting that America doesn’t have a king, Muldoon went on to say,
Dictators like Joseph Stalin required their portraits to be displayed everywhere. Luckily, we do not live in a dictatorship.”
Trump won the state of Wyoming by a commanding majority. But Democrat Hillary Clinton won Teton County, where Jackson sits between the mountains, by nearly 30 points. Muldoon insists that his actions are non-partisan, however:
I’ll be replacing presidential portraits with an organizational chart of federal, state and local government.”
Now that is the kind of mayor I can believe in.
Too many people identify Wyoming politically either with Dick Cheney or Matthew Shepard, two of the saddest stories ever to come out of the state. It’s nice, then, to see a mayor (and his kind of awesome band) singing a different tune.
Featured image via Facebook
