I recently spent 10 days traveling 2,100 miles up and down the state, talking with more than 60 residents to see how Wyoming is processing this choice. Nearly everywhere I went, rage against Cheney erupted as regularly as a Yellowstone geyser. Support for her was harder to find, though equally passionate. But whatever side they are on, Wyoming voters draw their heat for this race from the same source: their knowledge that this is no ordinary political grudge match, but rather a test of the party’s future…

As I would discover, masses of people across Wyoming fervently insist that Cheney’s vote was somehow unconstitutional or illegal. Those people are misinformed: The Constitution says the House can basically run an impeachment any way it wants; there are no rules to break. Meanwhile, the Fifth and 14th Amendments define where due process pertains: No one shall be deprived of “life, liberty or property” without due process of law. Cheney’s vote, and the impeachment itself, deprived Trump of none of those things. Can a Cheney critic make a political argument that the Democratic-led impeachment was unfair or unnecessary? Sure. I began to think of “unconstitutional” as Wyoming-speak for “unfair.”

Two other reasons that Iverson and others say Cheney’s vote is so unforgivable are less rebuttable and may ultimately have more impact. First, on a matter of utmost importance to many residents, she unapologetically, enthusiastically went the other way. In the process, an unspoken bond was broken. Why should they trust her again? And second, the people of Wyoming are sensitive to any hint of someone talking down to them. To their ears, Cheney’s lectures about Trump are beginning to have that ring. “The reason why people live here is so we don’t have to be told how to live, how to believe,” Iverson said. “When you have a representative who’s saying, ‘President Trump is a bad person, President Trump started this riot, President Trump needs to be impeached’ … you’re telling people what they are to believe.”