In this week’s Wyoming Republican Primary, the Cowboy State took a hint from Idaho and booted most of its “state freedom caucus” members.

Back in May, Idaho cut its group of “Freedom Caucus” legislators from a “Gang of Eight” down to a “small cocktail table of three.” My column that week noted that State Freedom Caucus members are mostly thorns in the side of Republican leaders, except in Wyoming, where they managed to win a slim majority in the House of Representatives. There they were the leaders, with no clue how to lead.

But that won’t be the case in 2027. After retirements, failed attempts at higher office and outright primary defeats, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus will hold a mere 10 seats in the 62-member Wyoming House.

A “near-total massacre,” is how Cheyenne’s Cowboy State Daily put it. The state’s largest online newspaper called the election result a “stinging rebuke” for the first-ever legislative chamber controlled by a state freedom caucus. It may well also be the last.

“Wyoming citizens spoke loud and clear tonight!” posted Republican State Representative Landon Brown, a vocal Freedom Caucus critic. “They want TRUE governance, not child’s play.”

Again, as in Idaho, primary election night was also a rebuke for Virginia-based Political Action Committee “Make Liberty Win,” which spent a reported $550,000 on Wyoming Freedom Caucus candidates and allies. These funds were “in addition” to paid canvassers supplied by the PAC’s largest donor, the libertarian group Young Americans for Liberty (YAL).

Young Americans for Liberty emerged back in 2008, when then-Congressman Ron Paul was asked to stop encouraging college students to back abolishment of the FDA and drug legalization. Paul had been on a college tour speaking to Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), the GOP youth group behind Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say ‘No’” campaign.

YAL now counters YAF with events on college campuses promising a drug-permissive future with unrestricted access to cannabis, opioids, meth and mushrooms.

Defeated Idaho Gang of Eight Senator Glenneda Zuiderveld frequently argued it was possible to take YAL money but not back their drug legalization agenda. Magic Valley Republicans didn’t buy that in May. This month, Wyoming Republicans didn’t buy it either.

David Chen covers State legislative issues for The New York Times. His article on Wyoming this week was summarized under the heading, “The Wyoming Freedom Caucus had ambitions for a total takeover of elected state government. But its candidates were rejected from the governor’s mansion to the Legislature.”

Chen reports that Wyoming caucus strategy mirrored closely the tactics used in Idaho, such as co-opting the state Republican Party organization. Wyoming Republican voters picked northeast rancher Eric Barlow as their candidate for Governor. But he only won that nomination by defeating the Wyoming Republican Party’s endorsed candidate, Brent Bien, two-to-one.

While it was Chen’s and the Times’ opinion that the Freedom Caucus failed because they were “ultraconservative” and “hard right,” thoughtful Wyoming natives see the truth.

Glenn Woods, of Casper radio K2, doubted that “ideas of a smaller and more limited government” are what hurt the Freedom Caucus. “It is more likely their slash-and-burn tactics towards anyone who disagreed with them that left a bad taste in people’s mouths.”

Woods is spot on. “Heavy-handed” is the least it would take before most Idaho Republicans see legalized meth for high schoolers as a necessary condition for a “free society.”

Idaho and Wyoming are among the last states to resist legalized drugs. We also have few Democrats. So, when a “libertarian movement” on the “right” appears intent on taking out our existing Republican leadership, only the most naïve can’t see the strategy at play.

That strategy has failed in Idaho. And now it is failing in Wyoming, too.