Me_not_you

This plan to sell off public lands is a terrible proposal that doesn’t make any sense under our present circumstances and would be a colossal political blunder, but I will try to be fair to @BasedMikeLee and at least explain where this is all coming from. Selling off public lands in the west is an old idea on the right and became a point of special interest in the late 70s and early 80s. Look up the Sagebrush Rebellion. In short, Orrin Hatch led efforts out of Utah to transfer federal land to states and private holders throughout the western states, mostly for grazing and mining. This was all part of the larger anti-fed, small government for small government’s sake, anti-EPA sentiment that prevailed during the Reagan years. Western ranchers and their Republican states—remember even California was a Republican state then—didn’t like the idea of DC bureaucrats telling them what they could and couldn’t do in their own backyards. Fine. But that was a different time. Much different priorities. Much different demographics. Much different needs. Lee is obviously drafting off his state’s legacy on this issue but this current proposal has badly misread the current lay of the land. You could plausibly defend targeted land swaps or narrow leases for ranchers or even mining in places where it makes sense. It’s a completely different thing to propose selling off our country’s pristine western landscape for… “affordable housing.” What? Affordable housing is a fake and indefensible justification that, if it’s not a cover for more sinister motivations, gives the impression of more sinister motivations. This has all been very poorly messaged and poorly conceived and is a crystal clear example of where older GOP ideas are mismatched with the political desires of young people on the right. Our public lands are one of the last holdouts against the slopification of our country and our lives more broadly. This is not something to toy around with as part of some libertarian/boomer con point-scoring exercise. This needs to be reworked. This is political poison, and even under the most charitable reading provides only marginal short-term benefit. Don’t do this!