Terry Zink has spent 57 years building a life in Montana’s backcountry. The 57-year-old third-generation houndsman from Marion—a remote town nestled deep within the Flathead National Forest—runs a small archery target business serving outdoor recreation workers and guides who, until recently, had steady employment managing America’s public lands.ContentsDOGE’s Destruction: 16,000 Jobs Eliminated in Public Land […]

Terry Zink has spent 57 years building a life in Montana’s backcountry. The 57-year-old third-generation houndsman from Marion—a remote town nestled deep within the Flathead National Forest—runs a small archery target business serving outdoor recreation workers and guides who, until recently, had steady employment managing America’s public lands. Contents

Those workers are disappearing. Their jobs are gone. And Zink, who voted for Trump in 2024, is watching his customer base—and his livelihood—vanish before his eyes.

“You won’t meet anyone more conservative than me, and I didn’t vote for this,” Zink told Politico reporters as he surveyed the damage. “You cannot fire our firefighters. You cannot fire our trail crews. You have to have selective logging, water restoration, and healthy forests” (1).

  • bearboiblake@pawb.socialEnglish
    5·
    27 days ago

    This is wishful thinking tbh, I think the more likely outcome is that things escalate to the point that protests become widespread and radical enough (maybe becoming riots) that Trump suspends elections citing the riots as his reasoning, meanwhile ICE is used to round up and silence the opposition, until the protests/riots escalate and the national guard are brought in to “restore order”. If I was a betting man, I’d put money on it. It’s probably the goal.

    • foodandart@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1·
      27 days ago

      Suspending elections? Yep. That is EXACTLY the agenda, which is why cooler heads on the street need to be the rule and really, REALLY folks instead need lean into a Democratic wave at every level of government come the mid-terms.

      The biggest rebuke will be undermining his authority by removing those who are appeasing his increasingly erratic EO’s. Businesses are pulling back from investing in US factories because EO’s aren’t LAW so much as any given President’s whims, and they can be swept away by the next adminsitration. This is something business understands with crystalline clarity. And they’re not wrong about it. Shit’s slowing down in the economy and all the gaslighting coming from the government won’t stop it.

      I mean already the govermnet is looking at temporarily reinstating the ACA subsidies (likely for a year or two - just long enough to keep the GOP in power through the mid-terms) because not having them… well it’s in the process of fucking over meemaw and pawpaw and the kids as we speak…

      FFS, even that gorgon, Marjorie Taylor Greene saw the writing on the wall once her kids lost their affordable coverage. Maybe she can give them money from the millions she already has? It’s not like she can’t swing their insurance costs.

      But she doesn’t want to, I’ll bet.

      Fun times ahead.