DeVoto summed up the platform pressed by Western elected officials of his day in a memorable punchline: “Get out—and give us more money.” This “economic fantasy” is still with us, as DeVoto predicted, “yesterday, today, and forever.”

The new, fossil-fuel-friendly heads of federal land management agencies are serious about the “get out” part of that plea, firing thousands of their employees and closing dozens of offices across the West. Their list targets Fort Collins, Colorado; Flagstaff, Arizona; Moab and Salt Lake City, Utah; Lander, Wyoming; Boise, Idaho, and more. Local economies will lose millions they’ve depended on.

But Donald Trump and Elon Musk aren’t doing so well with the “give us more money” part. Voters who elected Trump may not get what they bargained for.

I have a home in southern Utah, in Torrey, gateway to Capitol Reef National Park. My neighbors in Wayne and Garfield counties, who gave well over 70 percent of their votes to Trump, often complain about federal overreach. They see conservation of national public lands as “locking up” land.

Yet Westerners love all that financial support coming in from the agencies they profess to hate. They rely on the federal government for so much more than they often acknowledge.

After a charming presentation about cowboy culture at Torrey’s nonprofit Entrada Institute recently, my wife asked a young rancher what his family did for health insurance.

“My wife works for the Forest Service,” he said. Indeed, government employees make up 23 percent of the workforce in Utah’s Garfield County and 25 percent in Wayne County. These salaries and the benefits that come with them are crucial to family stability.

A revealing interactive map in Grist magazine shows the reach of investment by the federal government through legislation passed by the Biden administration. I click on the town of Torrey and find tens of millions of federal dollars from the Inflation Reduction Act and bipartisan infrastructure law flowing into the county.

Think upgrades of rural airports, solar panels on small businesses, bridge replacements, removal of lead from drinking water—and on and on.

And then on February 14, the Department of the Interior announced the firings of more than 2,300 public servants at the Department of the Interior, including the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and Geological Survey. With this “Valentine’s Day Massacre,” southern Utah communities will feel accelerating impacts — loss of income and benefits, more money going to unemployment payments, understaffed parks and monuments, irate visitors.

My inbox and social media feed are flooded with anecdotes about what these firings mean. One man grew up in a Park Service family and then worked as a park ranger himself for years. He transferred to the Forest Service recently, becoming a “probationary” employee only because he was new to his position. He lost his job and his career thanks to the Trump administration.

When rural Westerners say “get out” to the feds, I don’t think this is what they have in mind.

President Trump is also considering once more eviscerating national monument protection for Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears in southern Utah. These monuments have been good for local communities and economies.

The monuments haven’t locked up the land; ranchers still have their grazing permits. Pre-existing mining and drilling claims remain in force. And the conservation and tourism values of these designated preserves expand every year.

According to a recent Colorado College poll, 84 percent of Utahns support establishment of new national parks, national monuments, national wildlife refuges and tribal protected areas. Still, Utah’s governor, attorney general, and congressional delegation continue to waste millions on fruitless lawsuits attacking those same preserves.

Westerners are evolving; politicians aren’t keeping up. And yet we keep re-electing these same officials. Maybe, just maybe, the Trumpian war on civil servants will force a reckoning. We’ll re-evaluate why we need a robust federal presence in the West.

And our war against ourselves will end.

Stephen Trimble is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He worked for the National Park Service, BLM, and Forest Service in his twenties and has been a conservation advocate ever since.

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None of this is happening.

After a few short weeks, inflation is rising, potentially crushing economic growth. In January 2025, inflation expectations were 3.3%. February’s reading was a shock, with expectations rising to 4.3%, according to Barron’s Business Journal. A jump of this magnitude has happened only five times in 14 years.

Though he tabled early Mexico and Canada tariffs, China’s are in place. To make matters worse, on February 10, Trump unveiled tariffs on steel and aluminum. The next day, the European Union, home to 450 million people, vowed retaliatory tariffs.

Meanwhile at home, so-called “egg-flation” is on the rise in the United States. It is most pronounced in the state of Colorado after a law passed in 2020 mandates that all eggs sold in the state must now come from “cage free” hens, meaning that they get to spread their wings and roam a bit each day.

The law went into effect last month, and combined with avian flu, Coloradoans now pay up to a $1 per egg. In recent years it was $2 per dozen. Labor shortages from frightened undocumented workers staying home are also hurting egg prices.

Although deporting undocumented workers apparently pleases many supporters of the president, the government’s roundups could have an inflationary impact on basic living costs. Migrant workers do our toughest jobs, whether it’s picking fruit, processing proteins like eggs and meat or building Tesla’s Gigafactory.

Fake news narratives paint undocumented workers as a drag on America. The facts show that they pay into our retirement system and Treasury to the tune of $76 billion annually, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. These workers receive no benefits in return.

We are at 4.1% unemployment—a tight labor market. If we lose millions of these workers we will see a dramatic rise in labor costs, and a lessening of productivity.

Combined with tariffs, these actions are stagflationary, contributing to cost increases while slowing growth.

Vulnerable Americans, those who rent and who live paycheck to paycheck, have few options when goods rise rapidly in cost. We import over 80% of our aluminum: Are we prepared for soaring prices on automobiles, electronics and packaged food products?

President Trump won the presidency in part on his promise to fix what he labeled a horrible economy. But thanks to his unnecessary tariffs, the only way to achieve lower prices here at home now is through a recession.

Recessionary periods are hard on people. Job losses, home foreclosures and drug use typically spike during tough times. A recession combined with a trade war hark back to the 1970s, a time when high prices and high unemployment—plus two energy shocks— battered Americans’ wallets and psyches.

Americans were so frustrated during that time that they elected Ronald Reagan, who cut taxes for the rich, emptied our mental institutions and gutted protections for labor. He also ushered in the billionaire class that today includes Donald Trump and many in his cabinet.

Yet there was a time of hope instead of empty promises at the start of Donald Trump’s first presidency. Steve Bannon, a conservative media executive, initially served as chief strategist to the president. His advice to Trump: Shake things up by raising taxes on billionaires and cutting taxes for working people.

Bannon was fired seven months later as Trump passed broad tax cuts, up for renewal soon, for the wealthy. His policies continue to favor the richest in America.

Running for office for the second time, Donald Trump singled out the migrant community for persecution, demonizing them for exaggerated ills in the economy. What never got communicated clearly was that our economy was on a steady keel, with prices steadying along with interest rate declines. Now we’re primed for an inflationary spiral.

Who will do the jobs that migrants do? Where will we source necessary foreign-made goods? How will we build needed housing? Undocumented workers make up 20% of the construction force.

And what is government efficiency when Trump allows people without security clearances to fight fraud by eviscerating federal agencies mandated by Congress?

Dave Marston is the publisher of Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring conversation about Western issues. He lives in Durango, Colorado.

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As it became clear that enthusiasm for Kamala Harris was waning leading up to the election, bond markets were already going down. That’s important, because the bond market is a predictor of the future.

For contrast, the stock market went up 3% the morning after the election, as Donald Trump promised dramatic tax breaks and lenient environmental regulations for corporations. That explains why so many billionaires supported Trump.

Our bond market, perhaps not as well understood as stocks, is the biggest in the world, and though the Federal Reserve sets a “target” interest rate and regulates short-term interest rates.

The nation’s $28 trillion treasury market sets the final interest rate through an auction.

Here’s what an auction determines: When prices of bonds drop, yields for investors go up. But this also drives up mortgage rates, interest rates on car loans, credit cards and so forth. Foreign countries and investors also trade bonds based on expectations for future borrowing. If our government needs to sell more bonds, lower prices and higher rates of return to investors usually follow.

America is piling up huge annual deficits, and when buyers of our bonds grow concerned about the credit worthiness of the United States, they typically start selling. This creates a knock-on effect of higher deficits, as the nation pays higher interest rates on its massive borrowing.

Never downplay the impact a falling bond markets can have. Bond traders have toppled governments—Great Britain in 2022 is a prime example, reinforcing bond traders nickname “bond vigilantes.”

After Donald Trump was elected, the bond market, which had already declined significantly in anticipation of his win, fell 3% the next morning. That is considered a very bad day for the bond market. Investors began predicting that two of Donald Trump’s election promises would lead to higher prices for consumers.

His first promise was to deport millions of undocumented workers even though our country is at full employment.  Deporting workers will cause a labor shortage and drive up the cost of American made goods, especially the cost of vegetables, meat and housing, industries that rely heavily on manual labor.

His second promise, using presidential power to impose tariffs on goods from other countries, is another way a president can raise costs for consumers. The president-elect has talked up tariffs repeatedly, calling them “beautiful” and promising that other countries will pay for them.

That is not how tariffs work.

If we want foreign goods from China and Mexico, we must pay the going rate. If we want to substitute an American good, we should be sure it’s available and that there is labor to produce it.

During his last presidency, Trump levied tariffs on China. It retaliated by levying tariffs on our farm products, which erased profits for midwestern farmers.

Trump quickly reallocated $12 billion via the U.S. Agriculture Department to support those farmers. That is called a bailout, or welfare.

Moreover, if he raises tariffs across the board on goods from other countries, there will be widespread “revenge- tariffs”—just as happened last time. Unless we borrow even more money in the bond market for various welfare schemes, the tariffs will harm the smallest American companies, while international corporations, with operations overseas, will be less impacted.

Once again farmers will be hurt. We are mostly a nation of consumers, not producers, and 68% of our economy is buying goods. That is why so many suffered during the inflationary spike under Joe Biden, causing the necessary goods in life to become shockingly pricey.

When Donald Trump takes charge next year—and if he fulfills his promises—tariffs and labor shortages are bound to dramatically raise prices and interest rates for American consumers. Once an economy contracts, recession follows.

Somehow, we missed thoroughly debunking Donald Trump’s wrongheaded assumptions about what makes our economy work. Now, we face an uncertain future with a leader whose policies benefit the rich while harming working people.

Dave Marston is the publisher of Writers on the Range, Writersontherange.org. A nonprofit dedicated to lively discussion about the West. He worked in finance in New York City and now lives in Durango, Colorado.

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Consider grizzly bears. In 1973, grizzlies were on a steep decline and headed for the list of threatened species. Wolves were almost extirpated from the West.

As that story was told, its villains were often the folks in the cowboy hats. It was an old tale that cattle and predators didn’t mix. Environmentalists came up with all kinds of insults for livestock producers, but the one that stung the most was “welfare rancher.”

It was true that some livestock interests played into negative stereotypes, promising to “shoot, shovel and shut up” any predators caught within rifle range.

But fast-forward 50 years to 2024. Those few hundred grizzly bears have been reproducing under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, and now number perhaps 2,000 in the Northern Rockies. Since the 1990s, wolves have gone from a handful to about 2,500 in the Northern Rockies.

This has been a conservation success story. Yet too often the story still smears a broad brush on the same bad guy, the rancher.

If you ask someone in Montana, Idaho or Wyoming what the largest environmental threat is, they probably won’t say the biodiversity crisis or climate change. Most times out here, the air blows clean and the place is full of open space.

But Westerners are likely to rue something they see with mounting heartbreak: Family farms and ranches lost to development, open spaces built on and paved over.

While bears and wolves have expanded their range in the last half-century, times have been hard on local agricultural producers. High production and shipping costs, low commodity prices and meat packing monopolies tighten the vise. Millions of acres of ranch lands have been transformed by trophy homes, ranchettes or roadside strip malls.

It turns out that losing all that ranch land is bad for the environment. More residential sprawl means lost winter range and wildlife migration routes for deer, elk and antelope, which people, mountain lions and wolves depend on. And the loss of farming and ranching has significantly more negative consequences. It’s irreversible. 

Subdivisions are essentially minefields for hungry bears. Garbage cans, pet food and hobby chickens are just too much temptation for bruins to resist. Fed bears end up dead bears.

A problem, yes, but also an opportunity. Conservation groups like the Montana Land Reliance and scores of local land trusts are focusing on conserving agricultural lands. The same ethos is beginning to take hold in the wildlife advocacy world as well.

There is a joint benefit in keeping bears acting like bears and not raiding ranches. Ranchers and their families feel safer and have more and fatter calves to send to market. Wildlife advocates enjoy more wild animals behaving as they should in the habitats where they can best survive.

The good news is, we have the technology to reduce conflicts between agricultural producers and bears and other wildlife. Range riders are essentially hired hands on horseback, keeping an eye on predators and livestock alike. Electric fences can keep bears, wolves and coyotes out of calving and lambing pastures. With some extra effort, livestock carcasses that are part of ranch life can be disposed of, composted or rendered so they don’t attract wildlife.

Bears sometimes eat calves and lambs, of course, and can even cause trouble with farm crops, eating corn on the cob and chickpeas in the field and learning to pry open grain bins.  But merely shooting the offender is rarely a long-term solution. Another hungry animal is sure to show up.

It’s not fair to expect ranchers to pay all those costs because society at large has decided it wants predators on the landscape. That’s where conservationists and wildlife agencies can come in, with private-public partnerships to get those solutions in place on the ground.

Don’t expect everyone to buy into this solution-based conservation paradigm. There is something deeply emotionally satisfying about engaging in political battles, no matter which side you are on. 

But the story is changing. Are we nimble enough to change with it?

Ben Long is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is senior program director for Resource Media and lives in Kalispell, Montana.

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We’ll hear about great Black jazz musicians like Duke Ellington and about barrier-breaking athletes like Jackie Robinson. Most have become household names. There will be quotes galore from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

But there are forgotten and fascinating people we also ought to learn about, such as Bass Reeves, one of the first U.S. marshals appointed to the Indian Territories. He served for 32 years in that capacity, making over 3,000 felony arrests and killing 14 men in the process.

Upon his death in 1910, he received a backhanded tribute in the Muskogee Phoenix: “And it is lamentable that we as white people must go to this poor, simple old negro to learn a lesson in courage, honesty and faithfulness to official duty.”

Another person to learn about is Matthew Henson, a courageous Black American who dragged an ailing Robert Peary across the finish line on a sled, making Henson technically the first human ever to reach the North Pole. Yet it was Peary who was lauded and promoted to rear admiral, while Henson was given an honorary burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

Then there’s Mary Eliza Mahoney, who, in 1879, became the first Black American to earn a professional nursing license. Unable to get a job in public nursing because of discrimination, she worked as a private nurse, and in 1908, co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses.

You will find Black people threaded throughout our complex history, and that is what bothers me about Black History Month: Why does America need a special month to acknowledge that Black Americans are truly a part of our story? Why, in many colleges and high schools, might Black history be taught as its own course, yet when it comes to courses in “American history,” Black involvement is mostly confined to the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement? Don’t we belong here?

Maybe Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was just confused recently when, after Senate Democrats failed to pass a voting rights act, he said, “African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.” McConnell said he made an inadvertent mistake.

I look forward to a time that we celebrate Black Americans’ full inclusion in the American Dream of democracy and nation building, even if that history includes painful episodes that make us cringe today.

We have had a long fight for rights that we still do not enjoy, like full, unrestricted voting privileges. The recent move of some states to decrease access to the polls seems a throwback to the Jim Crow wave of discrimination that followed the Civil War.

If I seem grouchy, I plead guilty. But what I reckon when I read about the past is that it’s been 157 years since the end of the war that freed Black slaves, 68 years after Brown vs. Board of Education mandated equal education for Blacks, 58 years after the Civil Rights Act assured all people equal rights under the law, and 57 years after Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which assured everyone the right to vote. Yet here we are, still on the margins of acceptance.

I want us to acknowledge that Black Americans are a part of the American story, along with its villains and heroes, its quirky individuals, and its ordinary and often conflicted citizens. Black Americans should be woven into the narrative because, in fact, Black Americans helped shape the American story, fighting in world wars, pressing for basic rights and working every job they could get in the face of discrimination.

When that’s finally accepted, we can let February find something else to tell stories about.

Wayne Hare is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org. He is a retired backcountry ranger, current wildland fire manager, journalist, and founding director of the civilconversationsproject.org.

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By Bruce Palmer

If you’re hankering for a true Western vacation, come to the Cowboy State, where we live by the slogan, “Wyoming is what America used to be.”  

Perhaps you’re yearning for a conversation that doesn’t involve which COVID shot you got, Pfizer or  J&J. If so, Wyoming belongs on your itinerary: The state boasts all 11 of the most vaccine-hesitant counties in the nation. There’s nothing Moderna about modern Wyoming!

Wyoming has a long history of anti-vaxxers, and many can be found in our Legislature. As Republican State Sen. Troy McKeown falsely claimed, “The death rate from the vaccination so far is almost as high — if not higher — than the death rate from COVID.” We did have a mask mandate for a few months, but most people ignored it. Several legislators even hosted mask-burning rallies at the state Capitol.

In Wyoming, we’ve got cows and we’ve got coal. But we’re having a heck of a time getting rid of that coal. And that is making us mad, because no one could have seen this coming.

But we’re responding like rugged individualists: We’re going to sue the bastids. After Gov. Mark Gordon said, “I will not waver in my efforts to protect our industries, particularly our coal industry,” our legislators passed a bill giving him a $1.2 million slush fund to sue any state that has the nerve to pass laws that ”impede Wyoming’s ability to export coal or that cause the early retirement of coal-fired generation facilities in Wyoming.”

Once you come to Wyoming, it’s easy to pretend you’re back on the lightly populated Western frontier of 1890 or so. According to the 2020 census, Wyoming added just 13,000 residents over the past decade, a roughly 2% growth rate — by far the lowest in the Mountain West.

Idaho and Utah might be booming, while Wyoming is playing it safe by staying stagnant. But you won’t have to worry about any troublesome young ‘uns. A recent study by the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services shows that the population of 25- to 40-year-olds decreased by 6% in the last half of the decade. No rowdy whippersnappers to get in the way: Folks who grow up in Wyoming flee as soon as they get a chance, because good jobs are harder to find than endangered black-footed ferrets.

Fact is, millennials have become our primary export.

So who were those 13,000 people who did move here? Many were millionaires who flocked to Wyoming to dodge taxes. But you won’t have to interact with them because they’re hidden away on their sprawling ranches.

“Mega-stars like Harrison Ford, Sandra Bullock, Jeffree Star, and RuPaul are snatching up real estate across Wyoming, a state known for mud, manure and manual labor,” said MTV Pop Factor host Yoonj Kim on a recent episode. Why Wyoming? “To save money,” she explained. Wyoming is a tax haven for the wealthy, which means these newcomers contribute little to the public coffers.

In Wyoming, where revenue ends, adventure begins. In addition to playing the new road-trip game — “Guess the future Wyoming ghost town” — you can experience the thrill of being in the outback without assurance of medical care.

Thanks to Wyoming’s refusal to generate tax revenue, at least 10 communities are in danger of losing emergency ambulance service. So if you get seriously hurt while mountain biking (as I did, 30 miles from the nearest hospital), you can howl beside a lonesome road for hours on end — just like the coyotes — with nothing to disturb you, except maybe the coyotes.

And if you do make it to a hospital, you’ll get to live like the Wild West gambler you’ve always longed to be. Most of our rural hospitals are losing money, in large part because the state has refused to expand Medicaid, so they’ve been forced to eliminate some personnel and services. We call it “Wyoming Roulette”: Will the hospital (if you can find one) be equipped to help you?

Be prepared to open your wallet, regardless. Health-care procedures in Wyoming are among the most expensive in the nation. If the hospital you finally stagger into lacks the expertise to treat you, better hope your insurance covers helicopter rides. Our bare-bones hospitals often have to fly patients elsewhere, and $100,000 bills are not uncommon.

Still, a no-tax, no-vax Wyoming vacation may be just the adventure you need. Come to Wyoming and live dangerously! We’ll be waiting for you, pardner.

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More than 76% of eligible Coloradoans voted in 2020 — second only to Minnesota in statewide turnout. Every registered voter gets a mail-in ballot weeks ahead of election day, there are convenient and safe drop boxes, and in-person voting is also available. People seem to love the choices.

Yet other Rocky Mountain states seem locked in competition to pass the most brazenly anti-democratic election laws.

Montana bills would eliminate Election Day voter registration and impose new restrictions on absentee voting. In Wyoming, many lawmakers seek to abolish voting by mail entirely.

Hold my beer, says Arizona. Following Democrats’ success in federal races last fall, GOP legislators unleashed a barrage of bills restricting voting, of which seven are advancing through the legislature. Those measures include requiring absentee voters to get their ballots notarized and banning practices that don’t even exist in Arizona, such as automatic voter registration and Election Day registration.

And in Idaho, GOP state House Majority Leader Mike Moyle said, “Voting shouldn’t be easy,” when introducing a bill to make it a felony to collect and return multiple ballots on behalf of others.

While the most extreme measures may fail, still harmful bills remain, showing the need for federal protection of political rights. U.S. election overseers called November’s contests the most secure in history, yet “stolen election” claims still get pushed to justify rules changes. The first three months of 2021 saw legislators across 47 states introduce more than 360 restrictive bills encompassing dozens of voter suppression tactics.

Obstacles to voting impact people of color most heavily, and in the Interior West, Native Americans are the primary casualty. The 65,000-plus votes cast in the Arizona portion of Navajo Nation overwhelmingly favored President Joe Biden in 2020 and easily exceeded his statewide victory margin. In Tohono O’odham Nation, bordering Mexico, about 90% of ballots went for Biden.

It’s no accident that indigenous voters would be most inconvenienced or deterred by the four Arizona bills that would create new obstacles for absentee voters. The sheer size of the Navajo Reservation — 27,000 square miles spanning three states — makes in-person voting difficult.

Multiple studies have found that mail-in voting has been politically neutral. And despite being dragged down in federal elections last year by a historically unpopular candidate atop the ticket, Republicans dominated state elections and made a net gain in Congressional seats.

Meanwhile, more than 500 state bills were introduced this year to improve voter protections and strengthen procedures, including every West Coast and Plains state but Kansas. Kentucky just proved it possible to pass a bipartisan law that both improves election security and protects voters.

But stopping disenfranchisement of vulnerable groups requires federal reform. For decades, our Voting Rights Act required states with histories of voter suppression to get federal approval for new voting laws, ensuring they had no discriminatory purpose or effect. In practice, the law protected citizens in every state.

In 2006, an overwhelming Congressional majority (and a unanimous Senate) extended the Voting Rights Act for 25 years. But in 2013, Chief Justice John Roberts — who worked to restrict ballot access prior to his judicial career — joined the 5-4 Supreme Court majority to gut key protections of the law.

The ruling enabled states to resume voter suppression tactics, which Texas did within hours.

In response, the House of Representatives recently passed the “For the People Act,” potentially the most important voting rights advance since the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Now in the Senate, the bill would expand and secure ballot access, increase election security and reduce the power of money over elections.

With not a single Republican supporting the House bill, however, the bill is doomed unless the filibuster is ended. Even if the Act passed, one more task remains: passing a constitutional Amendment that embeds an affirmative right to vote and ensuresour votes count equally.

For as long as our ability to vote depends on the state we live in, and the political party controlling it, voting is merely a vulnerable privilege, not a right.

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 And there’s the rub. What this year took from us, along with far too many loved ones, is order itself, our sense of control over how life should go, our “normal.”  2020 put the lie to the notion that we are in charge.

Plans went out the window without a glimmer of warning. Not just specific plans, like someone’s birthday party or paying the rent, but the very ability to plan — to predict, to calculate, to organize.

The future went blank as the biggest jolts came seemingly out of the blue:  the coronavirus itself, the rise of one movement for social justice and another against established authority. Even immutable objects like the U.S. elections were battered by controversy and defied predictions, all as the stock market plummeted, then roared to historic highs. The mail did go through, but for a time even that was thrown in doubt.

With vaccinations barely under way, it’s still too early for much planning, but there are powerful choices we can make right now, especially in how we view what’s happened and what we intend to do about it. Like it or not, we learned a few things:

·      We discovered that kids actually want to go to school — just not necessarily for the teaching and learning part.

·      We must never forget the compassion, courage and sacrifice of our doctors, nurses and unsung helpers.

·      For those who thought leadership doesn’t matter that much in a land of the free and home of the brave, guess what: Leadership matters. Everywhere.

·      Some kinds of work can be done better without all the commuting and water cooler time.

·      As donations poured into food banks and other charities, many of us learned that where government wouldn’t or couldn’t help, we could still make a difference.

·      Some of us found we could get by with considerably less toilet paper than we thought.

 ·      We don’t actually need showy conventions and predictable speeches to nominate a candidate for public office.

·      We can name racism, face it, and do something about it. Justice is a work in progress.

·      Screen life, especially social media, can’t substitute for real life. But what we read and say online can have real consequences.

·      Flu seasons of the future might get a lot less deadly if we hang onto these masks and remember what we’ve learned about viral transmission.

·      Elections matter. They can be free and fair and without a lot of hype, thanks to legions of principled poll workers. Having different ways to vote will make an election harder, not easier, to steal.

·      Not everyone made it through lockdown on quarantines, streaming and sourdough bread. A lot of people made it by a hair’s breadth, in debt or despair, putting their lives on the line for everyone else. Others didn’t make it at all.

·      The power of human touch and the joy of being together should never be taken for granted. Never.

 As for that “normal” we’re in such an all-fired rush to get back to? Not so fast, pardner. There’s some normal we should have shed a long time ago, and this pandemic we can’t wait to leave behind is giving us a chance to see the world anew and make real changes in it.

As 2021 begins, it’s as if we’re pausing atop a great historic pivot, the likes of which we may never see again. We may not control the outcome, but we can step up and own our part in it.

No matter who won the 2020 elections, we all win when we choose hope over hate; when culture and community flourish with or without Twitter and TikTok; when George Floyd’s grandkids go about their lives without fear; when we help each other find jobs, food, shelter, promise and meaning in life. When we help each other, period.

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 Which brings me to some of the ways people use prejudice and personal attack as forms of identity, here in the West. In Idaho, where I’ve lived for over nine years, big diesel pickup trucks are a way of life — even for folks who live in Boise and probably don’t need them for hauling.

 Before the 2016 election, I began noticing more and more big pickups with full-sized American flags mounted in the rear cab. Soon after, many of those trucks had a full-sized Confederate flag mounted on the opposite side. I asked a man who works on diesel engines why he thought so many guys in big pickups were flying the Confederate flag, here in Idaho. After all, this was the West, not the South.

 “They’re just giving the finger to this f***ing politically-correct government,” he said.

 If that were true, then American flags as protest to Obama should have stopped once Trump was elected. Instead, there were more flags than ever before the 2020 election. I’ve come to see the flag flying as a form of personal identity.

I asked an African-American friend how the flags made him feel. “Intimidated and unwelcome,” was his reply. But they intimidate me, too, and I’m white.

 Others use their trucks as weapons of aggression. I drive a 15-year-old little red sporty Japanese car. Back when I lived in southern California, the sunroof was open almost every day. In Idaho, I still like to open my sunroof on nice days. Funny thing is, even though the air here is theoretically much cleaner than it is in Los Angeles, I nearly always end up having to close it. Perhaps because my little red car is definitely not an “Idaho car.”

 When somebody in a big diesel pickup equipped with “rolling coal” sees me, he inevitably speeds up, passes me, and then steps on the brakes. As I near his tail, a giant cloud of toxic black diesel exhaust blows out, and if I haven’t already shut my sunroof, I’m going to be inhaling it. What drives his aggression and gives him pleasure about harming me?

 In 2017, Idaho State Sen. Michelle Stennett, D-Ketchum, introduced a bill to prohibit the practice of modifying diesel engines to increase the amount of soot and smoke belching from tailpipes. The bill failed to pass, but thanks to the Clean Air Act, rolling coal is already illegal. In Idaho, however, don’t expect much enforcement.

 Unless there’s a state law, most Idaho police won’t issue tickets for rolling-coal pollution violations. The bill would have made it a misdemeanor, but the state senate decided that public health was less important than the right of angry drivers in diesel trucks to blow smoke into our faces.

 I’ve also heard from bicycle riders who say they’re sitting ducks when trucks pass by while belching out black smoke, and that this is a particular problem on rural roads. It seems to me there was a time – not that long ago – when this would have been considered rude, if not downright dangerous.

 The people who spew hate on the Internet or peddle conspiracy theories on Facebook, who wave flags all over town, or who blow smoke in our faces, all say they are expressing the freedom to be themselves. They are proud to be “politically incorrect.”

 Last week at my local gym, a man strode angrily up to the front desk to complain about the rap music playing that day. “Turn off that f*#%in’ music and put on some rock ‘n roll!” he insisted. The staffer at the front desk was Black. After a moment of deer-in-the-headlights shock, he quickly complied.

 You know what politically correct means? It means nothing more than good manners, and manners are sorely lacking these days.

The post We’ve Been Living With Too Much Rudeness appeared first on Writers On The Range.

It has since become clear that Trump cared more about freedom for government and corporations — and for that matter, COVID-19 — to run rampant.

Perhaps nowhere was Trump’s approach more thorough than when it comes to the Earth. He removed limits on mercury and methane emissions, incapacitated the Clean Water Act and gutted protections for the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, to name just a few of nearly 100 rollbacks. All purportedly to help the economy, achieve “energy dominance” on public lands and make him look good — energy-efficient light bulbs, he said, “make you look orange.”

President-elect Joseph R. Biden has indicated that he’ll quickly roll back the rollbacks as soon as he’s inaugurated. Yet a reset is not enough. In fact, many of the rules didn’t cut it under President Obama, and though Obama tried to fix many of them, his efforts often fell short. Here are a few examples of policies and rules that Trump obliterated, and that Biden — hopefully with Congress’s help — could now rebuild, making them better and stronger than before.

Clean Power Plan: President Obama’s plan mandated a cut in power sector carbon emissions by 32% from 2005 levels by 2030, which essentially would have forced coal out of the energy mix while leaving room for natural gas. Before it went into effect, Trump gutted the plan, though it was hardly necessary: Economics forced coal plant retirements after Trump’s election, coal mining jobs continued to wane and emissions dropped even more than the Obama plan would have required. The plan was obsolete before it was finalized.

Biden’s plan must include more ambitious emissions cuts and, equally as important, provide for a just transition for workers and communities that will be abandoned by the fossil fuel industries.

Oil and gas development: Trump rolled over the environment by rolling back rules for fracking, stocking the Interior Department with industry insiders, ramming through approvals of pipelines built by his multi-million-dollar donors, and by slashing royalties paid by oil companies.

Yet Obama’s policies were equally friendly to energy development. His administration leased out two million more acres of public land to oil and gas companies during his first term than Trump and oversaw a drilling boom of unprecedented magnitude. Biden needs not only to roll back the rollbacks, but also to overhaul the leasing process to shift power away from corporate boardrooms and back into public hands, and increase oil and gas royalty payments across the board to give American taxpayers a fair shake.

Bears Ears National Monument: In 2015, the Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute, Hopi and Zuni tribes asked Obama to designate as a national monument 1.9 million acres of public land in southeastern Utah, with tribal representatives having a major management role. When Obama established the monument, it was 600,000 acres smaller than the proposal, and the tribal role was reduced to an advisory one. Trump slashed the monument by 85% and rammed through a shoddy management plan for what remained, further diminishing the tribal role.

Biden should restore the monument, giving the tribal nations an equal role in determining new boundaries and creating a strong management plan.

 That’s only the beginning. Biden will also have to restore another 80 or more regulations, redirect agencies that have been steered off-course, invalidate the lease sale for the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, bring science back into policymaking, stop the building of the border wall, and clean the house of Trump appointees who are trying to destroy the so-called administrative state from within.

 That includes William Perry Pendley — Twitter handle @Sagebrush_Rebel — whom Trump installed as acting director of the Bureau of Land Management in 2019. This September, a judge ruled that Pendley — never approved by Congress — had served unlawfully, and ordered him out of his role. Anticipating Trump, Pendley changed his title and refused to leave, insisting that the law and the court’s order “has no impact” on him.

 With Trump now taking a similar stance, Biden may be forced to drag two people out of office come January.

The post Now We Need to Rollback the Rollbacks appeared first on Writers On The Range.