George Ochenski, Daily Montanan

Finally somebody is putting spoiled child Trump in his place

Every kid has heard “No means no!” when they want something their parents don’t think they should have. This week that phrase got a couple high profile uses when Canada’s new Prime Minister, Mark Carney, told Donald Trump right to his face that Canada was not and never would be for sale and Montana’s Congressman Ryan Zinke forcefully said “no” to the sale of public lands in the West.

In this day and age seeing U.S. politicians keep their campaign promises — or honor their oaths of office — is becoming increasingly rare. But on “keeping public lands in public hands,” Rep. Zinke did just that.

The measure in question was part of the “big, beautiful bill” touted by Trump to give yet more tax breaks to the already wealthy. The new twist was to sell hundreds of thousands of acres of federal lands in Nevada and Utah for mining, logging, drilling and development to finance those tax breaks.

Doug Burgum, the Secretary of the Interior, has publicly declared public lands and resources as “natural assets” that can be used to pay down the national debt. Consequently, GOP Reps. Mark Amodei of Nevada and Celeste Maloy of Utah inserted the public land sale as an amendment since it was not contained in the original draft of the bill due to bipartisan opposition.

Montana’s Congressman and former Secretary of the Interior called the move to sell public lands “a red line” and was adamant: “It’s a no now. It will be a no later. It will be a no forever.’’ As Zinke explained his firm opposition: “I prefer the management scheme and I give as an example a hotel. If you don’t like the management of a hotel, don’t sell the hotel; change the management.”

At almost the same time, Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney was using almost the same words in his White House meeting. After listening to Trump’s blather about how Canada should be our 51st state, how much he “loved Canada” and how erasing the “artificial” border line would make one beautiful piece of real estate, Carney used Trump’s own real estate line to fire back: “As you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale. We’re sitting in one right now. Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign the last several months, it’s not for sale, won’t be for sale,” adding: “Canada’s not for sale. It never will be for sale.”

Carney won office largely on his opposition to Trump’s intentions to take over Canada, saying during the election that: “America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country. But these are not idle threats. President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. That will never ever happen.”

Both Zinke and Carney are dead right. Polls show 74% of Americans oppose the sale of our public lands — and Carney’s election speaks for itself. He won by fighting Trump’s nasty threat to take over our northern neighbor that 77% of Canadians oppose.

For a guy who’s always been told he can have everything he wants, the double-barrel blast should be a wake up call. The world is not one big real estate sale to be marketed solely to make greedy billionaires even more money. Kudos to Zinke and Carney — and hopefully a sign to the rest of Congress and the world that it’s time to tell our spoiled child of a president “No means no!”

MAGA politics seem to be losing some of the shine

The state and nation’s voters are, as usual, deluged by a tidal wave of campaign promises from candidates as the November elections draw near.

And as usual, we are being promised far more than these candidates can or will deliver should they attain the offices they seek. But after the absolute debacle of the Trump/MAGA/insurrection administration — and evidence of failing campaigns by those who followed, supported, or emulated those extreme positions — it appears voters have wised up to the fact that their promises are as phony as the inflated assets valuations that now have their grifter-in-chief sinking in a quicksand of legal woes.

It’s telling that a desperate GOP is withdrawing tens of millions of dollars from political races in which the far-right candidates parroted MAGA’s extreme agenda that seeks to divide Americans based on any number of issues. Wrong skin color or race? Love someone of the same sex? Came from a “s–hole” country? Want to control your own body and decide when or if you want to have children? Won’t give the Q-Anon one finger salute at MAGA rallies? Think the climate crisis is real?

The reasons go on and on but the bottom line remains the same — if you’re not with us, you’re against us. But lo and behold, it would appear there are far more voters who are not marching in goose-step with the MAGA crowd, and who believe in tolerance, acceptance and common humanity. And that’s causing Congressional Republicans to distance themselves from those positions.

But at this late stage of the game, even those candidates who are trying to scurry away from their far-right primary positions are facing the ugly reality that they’re likely to lose. Why? For the simple reason that the vast majority of American voters and businesses prefer stability and predictability to insurrection, lawlessness and disregard for future generations.

Montanans, sad to say, are having their own experience with broken promises from the GOP politicians. Nothing speaks to their arrogance and ignorance more than the on-going debacle that now sees the Secretary of State spending $1.3 million dollars and rising to defend unconstitutional laws passed by the last Republican-dominated legislature. We were told those laws were necessary to ensure “voting integrity.” But disenfranchising voters, eliminating same-day registration, and making it harder to vote not only does the exact opposite, it’s unconstitutional to boot — which is why they’re now being halted in court.

One may wonder why these chest-pounding right-wingers would find the necessity for such anti-voter laws given their sweep of statewide offices in the last election. But as the MAGAs crash and burn across the nation, perhaps they’re worried the voters here might also have had enough of their incompetence and deception in governance.

The list is long and runs the gamut from not even responding to requests for information as required by Montana’s constitution to basically telling the public to take a hike on wolves, bison, environmental protection, and a host of state “services” as agencies roil in disarray.

It should come as no surprise that if you put “anti-government” candidates in office, they’re going to run government so poorly that citizens are dissatisfied. Not that they offer any viable alternative except anarchy…and that’s really not cutting it in these days of global, national, and local challenges to our society and planetary life-support systems.

November will tell the tale — but at this point it looks like a tale of woe for the GOP/MAGA platform.

George Ochenski is a longtime Helena resident, an environmental activist and Montana’s longest running columnist.

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