VOTE FOR DEMOCRACY, NOT DICTATORSHIP
Noticeably absent in the speeches at the RNC was any mention of Project 2025, obviously shielding us from the true horrors of this project until after the election in November when a second Trump administration could put it in place. Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership, also called the unitary executive theory, is a 900-page guidebook created by an umbrella coalition of conservative think tanks including the Heritage Foundation. Although Donald Trump has claimed he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025, many of the authors of this mandate were operatives in the Trump administration (Stephen Miller, Mark Meadows, Russell Vought, others). With this project they have devised an all-encompassing plan to destroy democracy by means of an authoritarian takeover of every corner of the federal government. That means that the president has total control over all the federal agencies, including longstanding independent ones such as the EPA and the 150-year-old DOJ. Such a mandate has already been given a boost by the recent Supreme Court Chevron decision that strips power from federal agencies. Project 2025 seeks to eliminate citizen concern about mineral and other natural resource extraction, and promotes mining in Indian Nation Lands, the Boundary Waters, the Arctic Circle, Colorado, and New Mexico. Believe it or not, there is much more damage in the Project 2025 guidebook that threatens our security than can be listed here.
Among all the assaults on Wisconsin citizens’ rights stemming from Scott Walker’s Act 10 and GOP gerrymandered maps that have already given Project 2025 a head start, another existential menace looms large. We now have Congressman Tom Tiffany busily working with county board members to implement the agenda of the American Stewards of Liberty (ASL), a tactic straight out of the playbook of Project 2025.
One of the major contributors to Project 2025, the American Stewards of Liberty is a Texas-based anti-conservation organization dedicated to forcing natural resource extraction policies on private property owners and local residents – against their will. With the help of Tiffany, they are attempting to influence officials in Wisconsin’s northern counties in order to prevent conservation efforts. In Langlade County, entire sections referring to sulfide mining and to citizen concern regarding mining’s environmental hazards were removed from the Langlade County Comprehensive Plan and the Langlade County Land and Water Resource Management Plan during a revision process of these plans after ASL representatives met with Langlade County Board members. The ASL wanted to replace the language in these plans with Texas-based resource extraction policies (policies that often include diversion of water to drought-stricken areas). The public was given no opportunity for input in this process.
ASL meddling in community affairs could have serious implications for
Taylor and Marathon counties. Greenlight Metals (GLM) continues to
count on being granted permission to eventually open metallic sulfide
mines at the Bend deposit in Taylor and the Reef deposit in Marathon.
GLM has not yet been able to comply with required safety measures for either project.
Ultimately, it is up to the people who live there, and to all who enjoy the Ice Age Trail, the Nicolet-Chequamegon National Forest, the many recreational facilities, and all the other great features located there, to have a voice in how those lands are managed. And that is through the right to grant, or not grant, a social license to anyone wishing to engage in a project that may negatively impact that land.
Metallic sulfide mines are a huge issue throughout northern Wisconsin, as is the preservation of Wisconsin’s natural environment. Nowhere in the world have sulfide mines been proven to be safe; the inevitable acid mine drainage is a hazard to life-sustaining water. Not only are sulfide mines a threat to the natural environment, they do not contribute to the economic well-being of the impacted community. At the RNC, J. D. Vance wanted us to believe that a Trump administration would be the realization of the American Dream. Instead, it would be the reality of living a catastrophic nightmare. No one wants to live, nor can they thrive, in a ruined landscape; people and businesses are drawn to the aesthetics and general quality of life afforded by natural environments.
Donald Trump declared that, if elected, he would be dictator for one day only. We do not need a dictator; we already have the potential to determine our future. In a Cap Times October 19, 2023 opinion article, later reprinted in the Star News, Al Gedicks, UW La Crosse Professor Emeritus and long-time advocate for Indian Nations and Wisconsin citizen rights, assures us of the power in alliances. Referring to the victories over the Crandon and GTac mine projects he states: “The assertion of tribal sovereignty, combined with building alliances with the non-Native communities in the watersheds at risk from ecologically destructive mining projects has proven to be an effective strategy. The success of these struggles has already provided inspiration for ongoing mine battles at the Reef project in Marathon County, the Bend project in Taylor County and the Back Forty project next to the Menominee River on the Michigan-Wisconsin border.”
We must secure that power with our vote for democracy, not dictatorship, on November 5th.