As Election Day looms, High Country News takes a look at Trump’s disruptive effect. From mobilizing undocumented immigrants to unsettling Mormon Country, Trump’s rhetoric is permanently recoloring Western politics.

Credit: Sidney Davidson Credit: Sidney Davidson

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Resistance is not futile

It was to our dismay that the USGS Director of the Southwest Climate Science Center put forward an argument to abandon large swaths of the Sonoran Desert to invasive species (“A conversation with Stephen Jackson,” HCN, 9/5/16). Climate change is certainly going to reorganize Sonoran Desert ecosystems, but the paleo-environmental record has shown that this…

by Thomas Minckley

Stopping the downward spiral

While the factors Elizabeth Zach cites  —  low reimbursement by public insurers, reduced inpatient services, hospital mergers and others  —  have historically impacted the ability of rural communities to sustain viable health services, this litany of forces reflects incomplete knowledge of research dating back 30 years (“A Rural Health Care Checkup: Lessons from the Central…

by Bruce Amundson

Consider the connections

Kudos to Rita Clagett for sharing her anguish over what to do about the prairie dog colony on her property (“Slaughter of the Innocents,” HCN, 9/5/16). Taking us through the steps that led to her “final solution” raised ethical questions we all might well ponder. But in calling her earlier defense of the colony an…

by Merrill Collett

Don’t embrace invasives

Stephen Jackson’s common-sense perspective — that we can’t do everything — matches the daily decision-making of land managers who determine where to invest their limited resources to best stop the spread of invasives (HCN, 9/5/16). Land managers are very aware of their limitations, and of the dynamic nature of the places they manage. The perception…

by Doug Johnson

Trump and the West

In the past, elections in the West have been fairly predictable. In urban areas and along the West Coast, folks tended to vote blue, for Democrats. In rural areas and in the Rocky Mountain interior, they leaned heavily red, for Republicans, especially in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah. Over the past decade, however, that pattern…

by Brian Calvert

Visits from students and an issue break

It’s starting to feel like autumn in Paonia. Breezes are getting crisper, ripe apples are dropping, and the aspen leaves are turning gold. The season has been busy here at High Country News headquarters, as we make some staffing adjustments. Tay Wiles, our former online editor, is moving to the San Francisco Bay area, where…

by Lyndsey Gilpin