The Wildlife News

Deplorables

Jonathan Ratner

You may remember a bit more than 8 years ago when Hillary Clinton described about 1/3 of Americans as deplorables and she was given hell for it. Politicians cant tell the truth.

That is us. A country does not sink to this level of depravity unless it is deeply sick in its body politic.

We need to face the facts, the reality.

I never want to hear the words “America is better than this” again. I never want to be told about America’s better angels.

I want honesty. I want an admission of exactly who we are as a country, and let’s be damn clear about that definition: We are a country that just elected – that just willfully chose – one of the most cruel, unscrupulous and transparently self-serving political figures in modern history to be president. Again.

This sums up the situation as we stare at ourselves in the mirror. Read the full piece here

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Jonathan Ratner

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  1. Daryl Hunter Avatar
    Daryl Hunter

    John, if you want to get reasonable stuff done don’t do so much stupid things that screw Americans. Everyone likes the environment, but we don’t like immigration by executive fiat, DEI, transitioning kids under 18, having men competing in women’s sports, unaffordable energy and food, and having housing costs beyond the ability of our children to buy them. Oh I could go in but being reasonable isn’t in the liberal DNA. Cheers ~

    Reply
    1. Frank Krosnicki Avatar
      Frank Krosnicki

      Well said , Daryl. I cannot stand Donald Trump. However, as you point out , we have been going down the wrong path. I can only hope that the new administration does better.

      Reply
    2. Chris Zinda Avatar
      Chris Zinda

      Curious.

      What’s reasonable during anthropogenic climate chaos and the 6th mass extinction?

      Reply
      1. Mary Avatar
        Mary

        Yeah, it’s game over for earth’s atmosphere.– global warming will be ignored and accelerated, we will lose our fresh water, and millions of species, extinct.

        Reply
    3. M Leybra Avatar
      M Leybra

      Four more years of open Southern border, arming the world & a ‘grand giveaway’ of taxpayer money (socialism) is what you’d prefer just bc you’re, like any mediocre average male, jealous of Trump? Or “can’t stand” him?

      Reply
      1. Chris Zinda Avatar
        Chris Zinda

        Good one.

        You owned me.

        Reply
      2. easternsierraheidi Avatar
        easternsierraheidi

        You could have begun a legitimate discussion but instead chose a personal attack. Is there a reason for this – I mean, beyond just wanting to? What do you intend to accomplish?

        Reply
  2. Chris Zinda Avatar
    Chris Zinda

    A journo friend asked my thoughts on what the next Trump Admin means for public lands.

    My response:

    My first thought was Mencken.

    “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

    Re: public lands.

    Things won’t change much, as they didn’t change much from Biden to Trump. More unsustainable mining, gas, solar, grazing, wreckreation. A continuation of climate chaos and species extinction. Bundy cattle will remain.

    Given the GOP is also likely to control congress, perhaps a thing that will change is that BLM lands will be auctioned to the highest bidder, that the Trump Admin will join the Utah suit Jan 6, the SCOTUS will agree, and Congress will make it official.

    Wilderness as preservation is dead, areas opened to bikes, bolts and BASE jumping f*&ks.

    The Trump Admin and GOP Congress will get tough on climate/extinction protests, passing laws to keep protestors in jail for decades,Trump using his immunity telling the Natl Guard to shoot them in the heat of a moment.

    Reply
  3. Jeff Hoffman Avatar
    Jeff Hoffman

    I really like Jonathan’s essays and work, but he obviously has TDS and has bought into Democratic Party propaganda. Trump is no worse than Biden or Harris, he’s just evil in different ways. I held my nose and voted Green as I’ve done for decades, but no decent human has a chance of getting elected to a national or even statewide office, let’s get real. The Democrats are almost as bad as the Republicans regarding the environment, and both parties support the war machine, which creates extreme environmental and ecological destruction. As Chris Zinda pointed out, there may be some additional dire consequences of a 2d Trump term, but Biden is driving a road through a wilderness in Alaska fer crissake, so why nitpick?

    Reply
    1. easternsierraheidi Avatar
      easternsierraheidi

      I know that Dems are not going to and never would “save the planet” but I find your “TDS” comment to be extremely, unnecessarily and I suspect very deliberately offensive.

      No Repub has to lift a finger to demolish any kind of cohesive and compassionate environmental progress. You and your ilk, under the guise of “I’m a better enviro than you are” or whatever motivation drives you, are doing the work of the dominant culture – not the living world.

      Excuse me – I have to vomit again.

      Reply
  4. Maximilian Werner Avatar
    Maximilian Werner

    Over the last few months, the traditional and progressive liberals alike have had numerous opportunities and incentives to ask ourselves what brought us to this point. But we have learned nothing: Enter the figurehead, Trump, the supreme symbol of applied postmodernism run amok. Daryl is spot on, although he is one of many in a long line of people who have watched in astonishment as the progressive left has ignored common sense and science in favor of people’s feelings about what “ought” to be as well as policies that defy comprehension. The progressive left took it too far and now we are all–and I mean all–going to pay for their excesses.

    Reply
    1. Chris Zinda Avatar
      Chris Zinda

      Funny you say this.

      Do you mean Progressive with a capital P or lower case?

      Seems to me everyone forgot the difference.

      To a journo friend earlier today:

      Four years from now both parties will be in the throws of rebuilding, recapture. During the next year, the Dems need to be ripped to shreds, challenged like the Earth Day era environmentally, with labor and public health the focus. This will have as much success as an attempt to turn conservationists to preservationists, yet must be modeled after the last successful pushback of a former Gilded/Progressive (capital P) era. That history needs to be a mantra.

      During this time, the GOP will be fighting to replace Trump with focus on their loyalty to christofascism. They will replace professional civil servants with political, yet another way to promote the Progressives line, as that was also a central plank. Trump and the GOP will court conflict, as is their modus operandi, and enviros, social warriors and Black Flaggers around the country should take this opportunity to accelerate.

      Reply
    2. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      Thank you. It’s been a worrisome trend I’ve feared for awhile. I’m still going to hope and do my damnedest. But I have been terribly disappointed in the Democrats, once the ‘environmental party’. But they haven’t been for quite some time.

      Reply
  5. Wayne Tyson Avatar
    Wayne Tyson

    Ever notice the difference in tone and trumped-up “facts” from some self-anointed “experts?”

    “Th’ werst kinda ignerance ain’t s’ much not knowin’ as ‘tiz knowin’ so much that ain’t so.” –Josh Billings

    Reply
  6. Chris Zinda Avatar
    Chris Zinda

    I wrote this last March as a catharsis, never pubd. It’s just as applicable post-election.

    You’re right: As a trained poli-sci guy, I don’t know jack.

    Progressive with a Capital P

    I come from Wisconsin and take pride in the role its people played in the Progressive movement of the early-20th century, “Gilded Age”. Born from the Republican party (also started in WI) and its factioning majority of the time, the Progressives built from the bottom up, from DA to the legislature to Governor to the US Congress, Fighting Bob LaFollette later running for President, in 1924 garnering one of the best 3rd party vote tallies ever. The Progressives were interested in social, labor, environmental change and were largely anti-war, their policies first usurped by Teddy Roosevelt and later FDR, a reason for the new deal.

    The Progressives were part of a larger trend – that of Political Realignment – whereby every 40 or so years the majority party factions and another takes control, in their time GOP to DNC. And, those resultant policies would never have happened were it not for that 3rd party.

    The last great realignment occurred in the 80s, ending 50 years of Democrat control. This realignment meant the entire politic shifted right, mostly seen in the DNC’s shift from labor to business, starting with Clinton and strengthened today, and through the GOP’s race to the conservative bottom.

    Why no 3rd party today? After the Progressive scare, the two major parties & the business interests strengthened their grip via the power of incumbency, ballot rules/qualification & financial aid itself. It also coincided with an electorate that was increasingly middle class and, through time, less involved with organized labor, the business and political class – including the DNC – creating & supporting laws to decrease labor’s influence.

    100 years after the heyday of the Progressive Party, it seems to me that 2024 had the potential to be another political realigning election during this new, polluted, Gilded Age. Yet, it is not because we lack a serious, bottom up, 3rd party alternative to press either of the corporate parties.

    And, the DNC could have capitalized in this opportunity in 2024 by nominating a younger candidate and forwarding a bold agenda for the 21st century. But they did not and never will, as they usurped and believe they are the real progressives (lowercase p) when, in reality, there are few Progressives (uppercase P) in America to press them at all.

    Reply
    1. Maximilian Werner Avatar
      Maximilian Werner

      Hi Chris,

      I think Wayne is referring to John’s post and mention of “facts.”

      You clearly have a long view of the current moment, which I appreciate. My own view has its roots in the late 80’s, early 90’s academy up to the present moment. I didn’t realize it then, but I think many of the illiberal ideas that Wayne referred to in his post started with the academy’s turn to postmodernism, which has since morphed into various other permutations of the same, but with disastrous results. Wuerthner has commented on this problem at length as it relates to wildlife etc. But he is really the only one as far as I can tell. A lone voice in the wilderness, as it were. Ideological capture is real.

      Reply
  7. Chris Zinda Avatar
    Chris Zinda

    Right on. Sorry if it was misdirected.

    I get salty when people don’t know the difference, having fallen victim to both machine’s decades long political libel.

    Reply
  8. Ralph Maughan Avatar
    Ralph Maughan

    Rather than blaming the American people, I would put the cause on Elon Musk who spent over 100 million dollars on electing Trump. Sadly, the issue of wealth has hardly discussed.

    America’s “democracy” has always been polluted by great wealth. Unlike many other countries, massive wealth in America has never been controlled.

    America and the human race will now bleed.

    Reply
    1. Jonathan Ratner Avatar
      Jonathan Ratner

      I am passed that point. The only reason people believed the propaganda is because so many of us gullible, deluded, uneducated and frankly, stupid. There is no other reasonable explanation.

      That is the best case scenario. Then there is a very large percentage of the population who simply agree with the fascist rhetoric and get off on seeing someone who is uninhibited enough to at least pretend to take a sledge hammer to the status quo.

      Trump and Musk are only expressions of the symptom, of the rot. They are not the cause of the rot.

      The cause is us.

      Reply
    2. Chris Zinda Avatar
      Chris Zinda

      We’ve historically had both oligarchs and stupid people, both making great fodder for Twain, Mencken, etc.

      For what it’s worth and neither controversial or innovative, the simple fact today is Dems are the face of the capital uniparty who want neoliberal incrementalism with little change, while Trump is seen as change by the commoner just because he speaks and acts like them, he and they being used by the ideological oligarchs who have been working on Project 2025 since the 1971 Powell Memorandum.

      Ready to go from the start
      there’s no way in hell there’s any such thing from the DNC or left.

      In short, they will cause great damage because they are vocationally organized, light years ahead of any other ideological group.

      From a poli sci perspective, they’re dedicated and effective without comparison, deserving of the “win” (ie we get what we deserve).

      Reply

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Author
Jonathan Ratner
Jonathan@Wild-Sage.org | Website

Jonathan Ratner has been in the trenches of public lands conservation for nearly 25 years. He started out doing forest carnivore work for the Forest Service, BLM, and the Inter-agency Grizzly Bear Study Team, with some Wilderness Rangering on the Pinedale Ranger District. That work lead him directly to deal with the gross corruption within the federal agencies' range program.

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