Day 57, Wednesday, April 24, 2024: Big Timber, Montana to Miles City, Montana

Carnegie libraries visited: Hardin and Miles City, Montana

Were I to live in Montana, I would have a big-ass truck. A few guns. A cattle ranch, but only a modest one, so I could continue my job as a digital nomad. I’d wear a Resistol hat, Tony Lama boots, and Levi jeans. I would have a bushy cowboy mustache, unlike the one I can grow now. (When I’ve grown a mustache in the past, I called it a very fine one, like so fine you can barely see it.)

Hardin Carnegie Library

Were I to live in Montana, I’d probably be a Republican, like about 70 percent of my fellow Montanans. I’d want the government to have low taxes, provide good roads, defend us against foreign countries, and otherwise leave me be. The federal government owns 30 percent of the land there, yet Washington’s politics seem a million miles away. 

Not all older white men who live in the country who drive pickup trucks and own a Bible are Republicans. My brother Curt, for example.

The closest I’ve been to being a real cowboy is when I worked at Philmont Scout Ranch, the national high adventure camp located in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of New Mexico. (Working there is also the closest I’ve come to living in heaven.) I worked at “The Ranch” for four summers between 1976 and 1982 as a backpacking guide (‘Ranger’), gold miner, pioneer, and cowboy. As a cowboy there, I lived by the rule ‘there are no rules except those I choose to follow’ (like, don’t point your rifle unless you plan to pull the trigger, the horses must be tended even when I am hungover, and so forth). 

So I can see why Montanas  are generally anti-government, conservative, Republicans. What I might have a harder time understanding is why the Republican party – if not necessarily the Republican voters – there has gone full-on MAGA. The real world – harsh winters, hot summers, the need to provide for your cattle and your family – suggests that Montanans would be highly sensitive to reality. The MAGA world is largely premised on the fantasies that cities are shit-holes, that our country is being overrun by drug-toting illegals who are looting us, that Democrats are American hating demons attacking all that Americans hold dear. 

Liz Cheney, eldest daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, grew up in neighboring Wyoming. As a member of Congress, she had risen to the third highest position in her party. She is a rock-solid conservative, voting in measures supported by President Trump 93 percent of the time during his first term. But on the measure that mattered most – the Articles of Impeachment for the President – she voted “Impeach”. For that action, Trump was determined to drive her out of the Republican Party. He called for her to be jailed for her participation in the congressional investigation of the January 6th attack on the Capitol. The Wyoming Republican party censured her, calling for her to resign “immediately”. In 2020 – before her impeachment vote – she had cruised to victory with 69 percent of the vote. In 2022, she was swamped in the Republican primary, receiving a mere 29 percent of the tally.

I said I “might” not understand Montana’s Republican party transformation, but I’m a political scientist and so I do have some insights. The outrage that typifies MAGA Republicans rarely comes from its members' own personal experiences. It comes, instead, from the purveyors of outrage who reach these members through TV and the internet. While I was riding a stationary bike at the Y today in Billings, Montana, I watched three television screens silently broadcasting on the wall in front of me. Montana has one of the most important Senate races in the country this year, with Democratic incumbent Jon Tester facing off against Republican challenger Tim Sheehy. The pro-Sheehy ads focused exclusively on the issue of illegal immigration (the One Nation PAC plans to spend over $15 million on these anti-Testor ads in Montana). Illegal immigration is a serious national problem. It is not a problem for the state of Montana, where these immigrants account for less than one percent of the population. These ads are not designed to inform Republican voters: they are designed to frighten and anger them. 

After I had finished my workout at the Livingston recreation center, I walked by the empty basketball court. It’s hard for me to walk by and not stop in to shoot a few jump shots. Ok, I don’t jump anymore; I just shoot. I played on basketball teams throughout my youth and loved the sport as much or more than tennis. By the time high school rolled around, it was clear to me that I was going to be more competitive in tennis (I didn’t break five feet until I was 16 years old) and so gave up playing competitively. I was still part of my high school team, however. By tradition, tennis players served as the team’s statisticians: we attended all the games, home and away, and sat at the scorer’s table keeping the shot charts. We were also treated like mascots.

When I was a senior in high school, our team competed in a tournament in Kansas. The tournament included a free throw contest. All the other teams had their varsity players compete in it, but our team (the Fayetteville Bulldogs), in a true flex, entered only its statisticians. John, the other statistician, and I beat all the varsity players who competed, so we joined our team and our cheerleaders as tournament champions. Winning awards just seemed natural to me.

I played basketball recreationally until I was about 40, when my body told me that I had played enough. I still would shoot around sometimes, and I always ended my play by shooting free throws, and I would always quit on a swish. I’ve only played a couple of times in the past couple of years, though, so I was dubious of how much of my muscle memory remained. I grabbed a ball, walked to the free throw line on the Livingston court, bounced it exactly three times (as I always did), squared up, and shot. 

Swish. Nothing but net. I did miss my next five shots, and I could already feel that my elbow was already getting sore (if you have not shot a basketball in awhile, you might be surprised at how much pressure it puts on that joint), so I lined up, made one more shot, and called it quits.

Billings Public Library

The Billings Public Library was glittering in the morning sun when I arrived. As the Architizer website describes it, 

The library is a celebration of Montana’s architectural heritage as it rises from a foundation of indigenous Rim Rock golden-gray sandstone and architectural masonry with rustic weeping mortar horizontal joints. It is capped with a well-proportioned and finely crafted assemblage of zinc-clad wall panels, environmentally responsive glazing systems, and shimmering perforated stainless steel shading panels that are calibrated to maximize views and optimize light.

These words hardly capture the wonder of this building. I envy the good citizens of Billings.

Upon entering, one immediately encounters two crescent shaped circulation clerks’ desks. Heather and Kerry greeted me warmly and I described my project. Heather, wearing a purple Fitbit fitness tracker (I used to wear the same style) and a pink camellia patterned blouse with black lace trim, was eager to tell about all the things the library did to serve the public. It does so many things (my favorite involved the bright blue ‘library on a tricycle’ that is pedaled to community events) that finally I had to pull myself away so that I could begin writing for the day.

Inside the Billings Public Library