Terry Zink has spent 57 years building a life in Montana’s backcountry. The 57-year-old third-generation houndsman from Marion—a remote town nestled deep within the Flathead National Forest—runs a small archery target business serving outdoor recreation workers and guides who, until recently, had steady employment managing America’s public lands. Contents

Those workers are disappearing. Their jobs are gone. And Zink, who voted for Trump in 2024, is watching his customer base—and his livelihood—vanish before his eyes.

“You won’t meet anyone more conservative than me, and I didn’t vote for this,” Zink told Politico reporters as he surveyed the damage. “You cannot fire our firefighters. You cannot fire our trail crews. You have to have selective logging, water restoration, and healthy forests” (1).

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[–] [S] 294 points 10 months ago* (9 children)

“You won’t meet anyone more conservative than me, and I didn’t vote for this,” Zink told Politico...

Right. You voted for other people to lose their jobs. In reality you voted for and deserve exactly what you're getting.

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  • [–] 139 points 10 months ago (7 children)

    “You won’t meet anyone more conservative than me, and I didn’t vote for this,”

    Ha, I grabbed that quote too.

    Narrator Voice: But He did. He actually did vote for this.

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  • [–] 31 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    honestly, what I hear when these nitwits say this is "I spent all my time being told what to think by people on TV (famous celebrities! Ooooo!) in the media that I was easily impressed by..."

    It's the full flower of the Southern Strategy that Lee Atwater leveraged in 1980 to help Reagan take the election. The early 80's was also when Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Lee Atwater - broke into politics in the biggest way and cemented lying and couched racism as right wing political tools..

    https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/75/creatures-of-the-swamp/

    It's been all downhill for the US since then.

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

    It's been all downhill for the US since then 1642 1492.

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  • [–] 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    1642?

    Charles the First Attacked Parliament?

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  • [–] 177 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    So his business is built around serving federal government employees and federal spending, he voted to reduce federal spending and is upset that it negatively affected his business.

    Whhhhhaaattt????

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  • [–] 117 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Of course not. He voted for other people to lose their jobs.

    Maybe he should reflect on what it's like to be "other people".

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  • [–] 101 points 10 months ago* (10 children)

    Folks from rural areas prioritize cultural signaling for conservativism over economic growth. I'd hazard that Mr. Zink would probably vote Trump again, given the opportunity, if the opposite candidate publicly supported trans rights or was just a Democratic black woman.

    Edit:

    Goosechase.jpg "You won't meet anyone more conservative than me, and I didn't vote for this"

    "WHAT DID YOU VOTE FOR THEN"

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  • [–] 43 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    God people in rural communities are so stupid when they vote. I live in a very lopsided state. Just for ease of understanding, about 80% of the state is rural, but also 80% of the people live in the cities. Rural folks often forget just how many more people live in cities.

    So they get resentful and say "why are MAH tax dollars going to all them city folks"! I've had this talk so many times with them, why should they pay (like pennies or their salary) to my city improvements just because they're state taxes?

    Well, rural guy, because in actuality "us city folk" subsidize all of the rural state. They think they're paying for our stuff but turns out density is way cheaper and way more economically viable than rural. So we subsidize them all the time. I always remind them who do they think pays for the roads, the infrastructure, their state parks? It's not them and their low tax income. Their life depends on the city people

    And then they vote to hurt us by cutting programs... And forget that we were paying for them to be on those programs.

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  • [–] 17 points 10 months ago*

    As LBJ famously stated back in the 60's to his then-press secretary Bill Moyers: "If you can convince the lowest white man, that he's better than the best black man, he won't notice that your picking his pocket. Hell, give him someone to look down on and he'll open his pocket for you.."

    This is exactly the classism couched in racism that took our erstwile Mr. Rural for a ride. All them "blacks" on welfare taking their tax dollars.. (because the unspoken bit is, ONLY blacks and minorities and uppity unwed women that breed like rabbits - the welfare "queens" don'tcha know.. are on welfare..)

    Every goddamn decade these poorly educated idiots fall for it.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    There is a grain of truth in that rural areas get worse government service. Power outages last for longer, often they don't even have sewer hookups and have to maintain septic systems, roads are maintained at a lower level, etc. They really do get less benefit (in outcome terms) than city folk.

    I think @Greddan@feddit.org hit on the information environment as the reason they can't see that that lower service level comes at a way, way higher monetary cost. Our information aggregators are in the business of making money from engagement, and telling people things they want to hear that sound true is the most effective engagement tool. I don't see the problem getting any better unless we figure out a better information model.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago

    It is true, and I counter that with if you choose to live far away from people then you will be prioritized less. Things get fixed faster when there are more people affected, so when you choose to live miles away from anyone, when your power goes out it's not a high priority. I argue that that's their choice, and that it's deserved when it also costs much more for that one person to have power compared to thousands of people getting power for relatively the same cost in an urban area. Harsh I know, but that's how the money flows. They can always move to an urban area if they choose that services are more important than living rurally. More or less I agree with you, but I would tell them "you chose that".

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    "I love the poorly educated"- TRUMP and ever GOP ever.

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    [–] 93 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    “You won’t meet anyone more conservative than me, and I didn’t vote for this,”

    You consistently voted for this. Every time conservatives are in power they cut services and environmental protections. You voted for it over and over again but this time it actually hurt you and you're sad.

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  • [–] 83 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    "I believed we were cutting waste in Washington,” Mitchell said in an interview with local news. “I didn’t think they’d fire the people actually fighting fires and maintaining trails. That’s not waste—that’s the actual work.”

    It's all actual work. The relentless assault on all federal institutions for the last half century had the initial effect of making the vast majority of them the most efficient systems in existence. Both political parties initially agreed they should not be wasteful, and through several rounds of reform they became more efficient than private organizations doing the same job can even theoretically be. But it's never actually been about "waste," and they stated cutting bone by the early 2000s. The only federal jobs left do actual work, and better, more important work than the vast majority of private sector jobs.

    The waste is in private contracts that don't fund public sector jobs. But DOGE didn't go for those.

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  • [+] 23 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)
  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    That's what I meant by "private contacts." They don't outsource every single possible federal job, otherwise there would be no executive branch left. So the public sector jobs are highly efficient, and the waste has been outsourced to the private contracts where it's more obfuscated.

    We could do those jobs much more cheaply and efficiently by nationalizing them, but then that would be "big government," even though it would be saving tax payer dollars when all the accounting was said and done. So 🤷.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (2 children)

    Have you thought about getting consultants in to get their institutional knowledge? They hote lots of recent grads who theoretically know what to do..they work them hard and then churn through more, overcharging for their time and underpaying them. Some progress to become senior consultants. Not many.

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  • [+] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago

    Yes. I was making a joke. Consultants often are inexperienced and just make cuts, not improvements. Most of the work is done by cheap grads, who compete for few roles in the hope they make it. Most don't. The customers get overcharged for poor advice.

    Usually, they are just a way for management to have someone to point to for the decisions they make that negatively impact people or the business.

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  • [+] 49 points 10 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago*

    Trump has shown who he is. Year after year, after year. We can't blame it on folks not being educated anymore. They liked what he did when he did it to people they hated. That's it...

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  • [–] 44 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    'I didn't vote this." Yes. Yes you did. You didn't want to hear others tell you what you were voting for. You wanted to believe your own fantasy version. Even now, most MEGA voters want to believe their own fantasy of what Trump will do for America over the truth of what he is actively doing.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago

    thats why they fall for scams quite easily, they trump is just kidding or he suddenly reverses what he does, nope he doesnt. only the 1st term he had people preventing him from doing too much damage, this time no one is going to stop trump and his cronies, conservatives also want to blame democrats, but dems arnt in power anymore.

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  • [–] 44 points 10 months ago

    You did vote for this & you were also warned.

    You're just a sucker.

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  • [–] 42 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    I didn’t vote for this

    Edit: Pardon the comma splice. I found such cheese.

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  • [–] 39 points 10 months ago

    You LIBTARD RAPISTS need to have Compassion! He THOUGHT that only Brown and Gay people would be Effected! If he had KNOWN he would ALSO be Effected he would have STILL voted for Trump! So have some COMPASSION RAPIST LIBTARDS!

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  • [+] 37 points 10 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    We should ban all of the dumb fucking apes who voted for Trump from voting again

    They've made it incredibly obvious they're completely fucking incompetent, and don't actually care about society, but instead just want to hurt others. That level of stupidity shouldn't be tolerated

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  • [–] 36 points 10 months ago

    Terry, Sarah, this is what you get for voting for a hateful monster. Twice. You can starve for all I care. Your choice has led to death and destruction.

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  • [–] 34 points 10 months ago

    Yes you did. You absolutely voted for this exact thing.

    We knew it, and we tried to warn you over and over again.

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  • [–] 33 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    "what did you vote for then?" name a Trump policy that influenced your vote, please!

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    "i voted for that abstract thing, that will hurt the people i dont like, but if it hurts me i think trump will come around or say just kidding"-the voter probably.

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  • [–] 32 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Yes, you did. Fucking idiot. Enjoy being homeless.

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  • [–] 32 points 10 months ago*

    You mean "I ignored anyone who told me anything I didn't want to hear" right?

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  • [–] 64 points 10 months ago

    Yes you did.

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  • [–] 27 points 10 months ago*

    The workers who lost their jobs weren’t desk-bound administrators. They were firefighters, trail maintenance crews, wildlife biologists, rangers, foresters, and seasonal workers who kept public lands accessible and safe. They were the people who made it possible for outfitters, guides, hunters, ranchers, and tourism operators to do business.

    try doing that without desk-bound administrators and see how it goes

    The betrayal is particularly acute because these workers weren’t making big government salaries. Forest Service seasonal workers typically earn $15 to $18 per hour. Park rangers make $35,000 to $50,000 annually. These were working-class jobs that supported working-class families in rural communities with few other options.

    isn't this the same group of people who claim that minimum wage is too high?

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  • [–] 25 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    These are real jobs held by real people in small towns across Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona—states that overwhelmingly voted for Trump.

    Whoa whoa whoa, don't lump Colorado in with those states. We absolutely did NOT vote for that piece of shit - 3 times in a row.

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  • [–] 23 points 10 months ago*

    Here champ, you dropped this.

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  • [–] 22 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

    I moved to Wyoming about a decade ago. Never in my life have I met more hardcore and practical environmentalists in my life. These people spend a lot of money, time, and effort making sure that their rivers, forests, and wildlife are and remain healthy. It is a monumental task.

    I will never understand how their mental gymnastics work in order to reconcile their vote for a man who made his money in New York real estate and reality TV.

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  • [–] [S] 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

    for a man who made his money in New York real estate and reality TV.

    No one except law enforcement would know Trump's name if he hadn't been born rich. At best he'd be working at a used car lot wearing a cheap toupee and polyester suit.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

    No one except law enforcement would know Trump's name outside of New York if Mark Burnett hadn't put him on TV.

    I blame that prick.

    There was a real reason that Trump picked his skirts up and left for California to get on TV after he lost the Resorts Internation Hotel and Casino to Merv Griffin in the late 80's. The Trump Taj left a ton of people holding the bag and he had to leave. Got himself TV famous so as to make sure no one - least of all the gangsters of the Philly mob he stiffed - could touch him.

    (he owed Nicky Scarfo a lot of money..)

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago

    He made a lot of headlines over the years we gaudy gold embellishments, plastering his name everywhere, and a long history of reneging on contracts by making the lawsuits more expensive to run than the money he owed people. He’s always been a con artist with no legitimate business talent , and I don’t see how anyone missed that.

    But yeah he never could have done that if he hadn’t started rich

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  • [–] 21 points 10 months ago

    Do people just not understand how voting works, or what the word means? Do they maybe think it's short for Devote?

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  • [–] 20 points 10 months ago

    "They're hurting the wrong people"

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  • [–] 20 points 10 months ago
    [–] 17 points 10 months ago

    Yes the fuck you did, dipshit

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  • [–] 15 points 10 months ago

    More like “I refused to believe I was voting for this”

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  • [–] 14 points 10 months ago

    Fuck the irony is delicious. I love that.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    It's like signing a contract, you have only yourself to blame if the contract sucks but didn't read it before putting your signature on it.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago

    You wanted fascism, Zinky. Well, you got it. And you better thank Dear Leader and Jesus. You live in the Greatest Country In The World, and God gave you bootstraps!

    Quit crying and get a job, weakling. Hail Trump.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago

    Oh, Terry, you sweet summer child.

    What did you expect would get cut when Donald told you he was going to take a saw to our government?

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  • [–] 21 points 10 months ago

    They can get fucked. You wanted this. You got it.

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago

    If the failure and stupidity of DOGE isn't hammered into people for generations to come then a gross failure will have taken place.

    They claimed to want to cut waste but they have destroyed so much revenue it isn't funny.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    "Dog ate my homework" ass motherfuckers

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago

    Why does he need you guys to do controlled burns? Can't he just take some of the concentration camp inmates to rake all of Yellowstone?

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