By the time you read this, a month will have passed since the 2024 election. We all watched as the electoral maps slowly filled up with red across the West, while blue flowed down the coast and pooled in Colorado and New Mexico. Donald Trump was declared the winner of the presidential race; the long-predicted “red wave” had finally arrived.
But Westerners understand that the red-and-blue splotches mask a much more nuanced human reality. Smart, passionate people from a wide range of backgrounds are working tirelessly to create a more sustainable and just future for this part of the country. They’re the kind of people we often feature in the pages of High Country News, and they — you — are the ones who read it.
That doesn’t mean that we all agree about the issues. What it does mean is that we’re willing to try to see this place through the eyes of people who aren’t exactly like us. We’re committed to treating our fellow Westerners with grace, understanding that we are all imperfect, anxious and scarred by life’s inevitable insults. We recognize that this thing we call the West is still a work in progress, and that it always will be.
That’s why High Country News produces reporting and analysis that not only informs and inspires, but also challenges our assumptions and stereotypes. It’s why we host gatherings around the West that bring together people from all walks of life to wrestle with tough issues and find shared interests and common ground. And it’s why we’re redoubling our efforts to draw more people into the critical conversations about the future.
Because if 54 years of reporting has taught us one thing, it’s that we often have more in common than we think we do. Yes, there is racism. Yes, there is misogyny and hate. Yes, there are truly irreconcilable differences between some of us. But there is also a great deal of decency — a willingness to step up and help when others are in need. And no matter where we sit on the political spectrum, we share a deep-seated love of this land.
A recent poll conducted by researchers at Colorado College found that 70% of voters in the Mountain West want to protect clean air, water and wildlife habitat and also provide opportunities to visit public lands. And 78% of voters support limiting development to protect wildlife habitat, and want to see more emphasis on protecting migration routes and creating safe highway crossings.
“There may be a lot that divides voters across the country, but in the West there is nearly universal consensus in favor of conservation,” said associate professor Katrina Miller-Stevens.
As Jennifer Sahn, our editor-in-chief, said in her editor’s note at the front of the magazine, HCN will continue to defend the places we all want to conserve, and the communities that rely on them — that’s you and me and our neighbors and all the wildlife we share the land with.
It won’t be easy. It will take the hard work of journalism, of holding bad actors to account, of limiting billionaires’ ability to meddle in our democratic processes, of coming together and truly seeing one another again.
This, as much as anything, is what motivates our work at High Country News right now.
Thank you for supporting this work, and thank you for being a part of this community of thoughtful, determined people. We hope you’re making time to take care of yourselves, connect with loved ones and get out on the land. The work doesn’t end.
Have thoughts, suggestions or strenuous objections? Send them to dearfriends@hcn.org. We always love to hear from you.
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