During this season of inauguration, a lot of people in Marin are wondering how President Trump has once again assumed our nation’s highest office. Conveniently, we have a recent local example that may shed some light.
In 2012, the Democratic Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said that “ranching operations have a long and important history on the Point Reyes peninsula and will be continued.” Just 13 years later, those ranches were given 15 months to wrap up and clear out. A stab in the back, perhaps, but considering the number of lives upended, the blatancy of the betrayal and the level of government from which the knife was dispatched, the saying feels vastly inadequate.
Mistrust is perhaps the most common theme that comes up in the conversations I’ve had with Trump supporters, and situations like the one in Point Reyes are exactly where that mistrust stems from. Environmental lawyers and liberal elites, in collusion with the federal government, scheme behind closed doors to uproot and destabilize the worker and dismantle a way of life.
Everywhere I’ve lived has a signature example. Seattleites campaigned to ban what little commercial and tribal subsistence fishing still exists in the name of saving orcas. Yet the most significant factor affecting orcas’ survival and essential food source, chinook salmon, is the development of Puget Sound, along with climate change. In New England, lobstermen are restricted out of concern over impending right whale extinction, when climate-induced changes in migration are the biggest factor. And now, ranchers here in Point Reyes National Seashore.
The harsh irony is that it’s the urban elites—in their addiction to convenience, comfort and growth—who are most responsible for the environmental and climate degradation against which they so fervently campaign. Disconnected from the land and the spiritual traditions that once bound them to it, they become hyper-occupied with its preservation. Out of guilt, shame, envy or boredom, they take it upon themselves to act as savior, deploying their influence, education and capital against the most visible and convenient scapegoat: the handful of holdouts still making a living from the land.
These urban refugees are convinced that the others still “out there” are damaging what’s left and need to be stopped, subconsciously recruiting those last holdouts into their sub/urban nightmare and perpetuating the cycle of urbanization and global environmental destruction. Those who don’t integrate or who aren’t accepted into the neoliberal fold are abandoned and understandably angry. That’s who votes for Trump. And, frankly, who can blame them?
The most unfortunate results of this pattern are the politicization of environmentalism and the homogenization of humanity. I’m frustrated that taking the pro-rancher side can feel like a betrayal of Marin County’s rich environmental legacy. I grew up here and I owe my life to those environmentalists who resisted powerful forces to halt development. Without their courage, the mountains, forests and waters would not have been around to raise me as they did.
But this apparent inconsistency in my allegiance is a false dichotomy. Rather, it’s evidence of how the liberal elite coopted and politicized the environmental movement, with dire and unforeseen consequences, including Trump’s two presidencies. Not too long ago, conservation and other environmental initiatives were Republican priorities. You can be an environmentalist and a supporter of the ranchers in West Marin.
As people are cleared off the land, their irreplaceable skills, stories, relationships and perspectives that define and enrich our human experience are lost forever. We should do all we can to sustain this diversity in the face of globalization. The ouster of the ranchers is one more tragic step toward homogeneity, and the latest shameful entry in a national record of dislocation. It may seem insignificant in idyllic Marin, but it’s happening all over the country. If we keep ignoring the trend, we’ll all be living in cities and working for Amazon. Is this the future we want?
Like it or not, people are part of the landscape. The position that we are and should be separate from nature is both arrogant and illusory. The problem is not humanity, but rather that some humans are so goddamned impactful. Disconnection from the land is what fuels the kind of consumption and ignorance that’s gotten us into this whole climate mess.
I’m no ecologist, but I know a bunch of them, and I’ve spent a lot of time on Point Reyes, including conducting fish surveys for the park. From a qualitative perspective, the seashore just doesn’t seem that degraded. Having worked throughout the West and seen the strip mines, clearcuts and foreign plant invasions, I can’t help but wonder why so much environmental and political firepower was directed at what seems to be a pretty harmonious balance of natural preservation, stewardship and culture. In the absence of any logical justification, we are left to infer that the ranch ouster was driven by something other than righteous environmental concern—say, ego or money?
Here’s how I see it. The environmental lawyers spotted a hole in legislation or operations and sniffed out an easy payday. They pointed out the hole to the government, threatened litigation and applied pressure. The government knew it couldn’t win, so it did the only thing it could, which was to turn back on past promises to save its own ass. The Nature Conservancy, with its financial and political resources, came in to greenwash the whole thing under the guise of environmental conservation.
Secrecy and ulterior motives make people angry and suspicious. Trump finds favor because yeah, it’s all about the money, but he doesn’t hide that. On the left, masquerading stirs up suspicion of the ruling class and politics in general, fueling movements like MAGA. So, how to proceed?
It’s on us to step out of our own tightly held views and imagine what the world could look like through a new lens. For a second, imagine there is no such thing as good and bad, right and wrong, left and right, red and blue. It’s exactly what I’m sure most of us would like anyone who voted for Trump to do. Why not lead the way? Feel how difficult it is to drop your views, and you’ll have a glimpse into the challenge we are presented with. But you will also find a path forward.
It is hard to let go of our beliefs, even for a moment, even just for pretend. Without them, what can we rely on? How do we make sense of the world? Of ourselves? The truth is we have nothing to rely on. Anything we think we can fall back on to make decisions or explain things is of our own fictitious creation. Spiritual traditions the world over carry this wisdom and the toolkits for accessing it. In zazen—Zen Buddhism’s object-less form of meditation—we practice letting go and sitting with the absence of certainty and security. Excruciating as it may be, this return to baseline opens up room for something else, some other possibility.
What’s called for now is humility. We must temporarily drop our ideals, concepts and labels, and grieve what’s been done, what we all have done and lost. Then, together, we can reevaluate the kind of world we want to live in.
Call Nichols has worked in the shellfish industry, watersheds and rural vitality. He grew up in Mill Valley and lives in San Rafael.