The events of January 6 in Washington pose a direct threat to our public lands and the survival of our forests, deserts, parks, wildlife, clean air and water.
Those of us who live in the West value our open spaces and public lands. We have national parks and national forests, national wildlife refuges and state parks. We strive for clean air and water. All of these things depend on government agencies and laws that have been built up over more than two centuries. Yet we see that our outgoing President and a small fraction of his following oppose our government and want to replace it with anarchy. The attack on the Capitol on January 6 by white nationalists threatens our environment and our way of life in the rural West.
Of course, we can’t all agree on everything and some people don’t agree that clean air is a good idea, for example. They might think the industry will voluntarily work toward clean air or they may think that unregulated commerce is more important than environmental protection. Those people can change the course of law and regulation by winning elections. Donald Trump believes these things for example. He lost his election and so the course of government now goes in a different direction.
Most Americans believe that wildlife needs to be protected and people expect that the air and water will be clean. More and more people use the public lands for solace and recreation. Even people who can’t visit public lands are glad these places are protected, to whatever extent they are protected. These are American values that are threatened by anti-government anarchy.
Generations of Americans built a system of laws in this country. We have built a government intended to keep the peace and improve the lives of all Americans, whether it has always succeeded or not. We have a system of elections managed by states to elect officials at all levels. This construct of ideas and actions defines our country and our people’s lives. Nothing is more important than the democratic system of government and the structure and safety it gives to each of our lives every day.
We all depend on the rule of law and democratic elections for everything we invest in, whether it is our children, our property, our business, our finances and our hopes. We are enclosed and protected by our mutual agreement in the rule of law and respect for the collective work of each generation to make America better for the next generation. Nothing is more valuable than our investment in the American idea.
The federal government, however flawed, is our mutual project. It is meant to be a community gathering place, a place to take action on problems and challenges.
Yet it appears today that a large number of Americans reject all of this. They have been persuaded by a strong personality to doubt our elections and to oppose our federal government as illegitimate. They bought the obvious lie that our recent election was fraudulent. These are the people who overran our Capitol building on January 6 and vandalized, killed, injured and spoke loudly that they reject democracy and they reject the 240 year old system of government generations of Americans have built and fought for.
The strongman they follow, has lied to the American public for 4 years. Seeing his power slipping as the 2020 election neared, he erected his final big lie – that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and fraudulent (even though he celebrated republican victories in the same election for lower offices). His followers bought this big lie and thousands of them are angry and ready for violent revolution – all based on the obvious falsehoods of narcissist Donald Trump.
We have here a mass of uneducated, disenfranchised white people. They are driven by racism and resentment. They face economic hardship no doubt. But their deep love for Donald Trump and their inclination toward violence and anti-Americanism is on vivid display. They believe violence can overcome the fact that they are a small minority of the American public and that their ideas are deeply unpopular.
In the West we are familiar with the white supremacy movement and the militarized far right. We saw them occupy, vandalize and attack the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge exactly five years ago. These are people with largely incoherent complaints about the federal government and their solution is to use violence and intimidation to assert their ideas. They have given up on government and they have rejected democratic process that doesn’t vindicate their extremist views. They are anti American anarchists.
This matters greatly for America. Will we have anarchy brought on by those who reject pluralism, diversity and science? Will we have angry white people with military hardware governing us through fear? Will the US become Syria?
We have had the luxury of trusting that the American Idea would prevail and that these sorts of dramas would play themselves out and fizzle. Yet Donald Trump’s fascism has attracted a following and unless everyone stands up for American institutions and collective democracy, we could descend into anarchy. If we do, everything we have built together and personally could be lost.
For the plants and animals, rivers and mountains of the United States landmass, everything rides of the preservation of American democracy and institutions of government. The state and federal agencies that manage our wild country and that work to limit air and water pollution; these agencies are built firmly on the American idea, the self-governance of the People. Trump’s far right has expressed contempt for these agencies and they propose no alternative.
The next few weeks will be tense and critical. As President Biden faces the huge task of rescuing our government from the narcissistic fascist, he also faces daunting challenges with the pandemic made far worse by Trump’s failure to govern responsibly. As a consequence of Trump dismissal of the pandemic, our economy faces serious problems and our health care system is on its knees. Perhaps this is what Donald intended.
And Trump has exacted very serious damage on all of the federal agencies and on all of our relationships abroad. His whole administration was about weakening the United States and ruining its government. He did this because of his own personal problems, his own mental illness and his deep anger at the world as a whole. What a profound tragedy for America that he exists at all, much less meets the approval of 70 million Americans!
Now is the time for the vast majority of Americans to stand up in ways big and small and protect our government and help President Biden stabilize and rescue our nation.
