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Deep red tiny NV town is in shock. ENTIRELY 100% dependent on national park that just lost 20% of staff in Elon's purge
https://www.sfgate.com/national-parks/article/tiny-nevada-town-shock-national-park-loses-staff-20195067.phpThis tiny Nevada town is in shock after Great Basin National Park lost 20% of its staff
Just 41 people live in this town that's entirely dependent on the national park
Baker is a tiny town in Nevada with a population of 41. It’s the last stop on America’s loneliest road, before entering Utah, and the gateway to Great Basin National Park, Nevada’s only national park. Surrounded by a sea of public land in the high desert, Baker’s reputation far exceeds its stature. It’s well-known fGreat Basin National Park lost five people on its small staff, the Nevada Current reported last week. That’s 20% of the park’s staff, said Liz Woolsey, who owns and runs the Stargazer Inn and the Bristlecone General Store in Baker with her husband.
It’s still the off-season for folks who live in Baker. Even so, the aftershocks of the firings at Great Basin National Park are reverberating in the small community.
“We’re still in shock, and the waves are rippling from every decision being made, it seems, daily or hourly,” Woolsey said.or its friendly business owners, food trucks and star-filled night sky.
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In Baker, local businesses are utterly dependent on tourism to the national park. The Stargazer Inn has seven rooms, Woolsey said. The general store stocks food, supplies and outdoor gear, but it’s also a bookstore and sells local art.
“We are certainly just trying to figure out what’s at stake here,” Woolsey said. “If we don’t get tourism, people, travelers here, that’s definitely going to negatively impact our business.”
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https://www.bestplaces.net/voting/city/nevada/baker
The political climate in Baker, NV is strongly conservative.
White Pine County, NV is very conservative. In White Pine County, NV 19.7% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 77.9% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 2.4% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, White Pine county remained overwhelmingly Republican, 77.9% to 19.7%.
White Pine county voted Republican in every Presidential election since 2000.
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Girard442
(6,719 posts)
Hugin
(36,642 posts)Not worth the trouble.
Ocelot II
(126,104 posts)The treatment of obesity in leopards.
Cha
(313,116 posts)
Smirk! 
TheBlackAdder
(29,593 posts)Bobcats, Cougars, Lynxes and Florida Jaguars are stepping up to the plate to relieve the burden.
defacto7
(14,129 posts)
Wifes husband
(464 posts)
DENVERPOPS
(13,003 posts)Especially those complaining: HEY YOU GREW IT, YOU CHEW IT..........................
SheltieLover
(71,894 posts)
MotownPgh
(455 posts)loggers and miners and others coming in to take the resources out of the park.
Irish_Dem
(72,560 posts)bluestarone
(19,964 posts)
Irish_Dem
(72,560 posts)And especially when they can make money from their destruction.
allegorical oracle
(5,392 posts)got where to we're at.
Believe they see themselves as "held back" or muzzled by libtards -- rules, laws, teachers, politicians -- who forced them to accept the notion of a polite society that treated everyone with dignity (now known as DEI, apparently). They've long resented the hell out of being kept from freely expressing their bigotry and/or restrictive religious views.
Then djt came along. Suddenly, they felt free. Here was this filthy-mouthed bully -- a rich TV celeb -- who had a resentment chip on his shoulder as big as theirs. He became their political Messiah.
Irish_Dem
(72,560 posts)People who cannot make it in the real world, so they need to blame others for their own failures.
And act out their hatred, racism, sexism.
Glaisne
(588 posts)After everything has been extracted they'll be left with the polluted and devastated landscape, just the way MAGA likes it. It's what they voted for.
Irish_Dem
(72,560 posts)The only thing they care about.
Linda ladeewolf
(973 posts)They’d better start planting lots of trees, different kinds to replace what’s going to be gone.
IbogaProject
(4,677 posts)Mining is the likely outcome.
CrispyQ
(40,001 posts)I tried to warn a cousin back in 2016 that repubs were coming for our public lands & he said "Oh no. Those are protected." 
druidity33
(6,790 posts)ever seen what a strip mine looks like after they're done?
bottomofthehill
(9,216 posts)Just go find another way to make a living. Maybe Elon will find rare earth minerals and you can take up mining.
yardwork
(67,263 posts)
underpants
(191,559 posts)Get the gubment outa my business! Hold it! THATS MY BUSINESS!!!
Joinfortmill
(18,614 posts)Glaisne
(588 posts)propaganda hate, anti-government talk radio and "Christian Radio" because it's the only radio stations they receive clearly.
hatrack
(63,052 posts)Womp womp motherfuckers.
Blues Heron
(7,183 posts)Maybe if they lose a lot of business they can start to think about the wisdom of voting for straight up international vandals. These dumb pukes dont know anything though, that why this is such a surprise for them, but not us.
brush
(60,645 posts)
LisaL
(47,280 posts)NT
Arazi
(8,178 posts)Those folks aren’t staying at a hotel
hatrack
(63,052 posts)Also incredibly beautiful. Long drive, but worth it!
Cherrycheeks
(246 posts)Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps!Fafo!
😉
dalton99a
(89,502 posts)Better yet, pray
LisaL
(47,280 posts)how it feels to know they voted themselves out of a job. And it's not like they can easily find a new job in that tiny little town they live in. I guess they could have to go on government's assistance now? Oh, wait... that will be gone too.
samsingh
(18,110 posts)livetohike
(23,542 posts)it was opened in the mid 1980’s. We got stuck on a road in the back country ( did not have 4 wheel drive) and cell phones were not a thing yet.
We hiked 15 miles to get help with our two Lab/Shepherd mixes. Made it to Baker where the gas station owner drove my husband back to the truck and pulled it out. He did not want paid and even invited us to dinner at his house. We left $40 under a potted plant on his porch.
Politics never entered the conversation. Just one human being helping another.
GoCubsGo
(34,088 posts)The rest can lie in the beds they made for themselves, including those "Independents" and non-voters.
allegorical oracle
(5,392 posts)observation, as I'm surrounded by them, that they don't cope well with inconvenience. They have the shortest fuses in the world and will cuss out anybody near them.
Made a rare visit to Walmart a few weeks ago. It wasn't possible to check out because cash register computers had crashed. One self-serve register was open, with a long line of folks in red hats. The woman who bagged my items looked at me and I saw she was near tears. Asked her if she was okay, and she replied, "I've been called every name in the book, today -- like we did this on purpose."
Trumpsters are not going to tolerate their loss of services with grace. A price will be paid.
MarineCombatEngineer
(15,864 posts)just wait until their SS payments stop coming.
FAFO.
BrianTheEVGuy
(697 posts)… and yet the mildest slowdown in modern conveniences throws them into a blind rage.
Wait until conveniences become inaccessible luxuries. They’ll learn what true toughness is, and how little of it they actually have.
ecstatic
(34,861 posts)there's a chance the magasses will blame Democrats for what republicans and tRump are doing.
Cosmocat
(15,208 posts)nm
Raftergirl
(1,677 posts)They can go be migrant workers and pick crops that will be rotting in the fields now that the immigrant migrant workers are gone.
haele
(14,409 posts)Poor hardscrabble farmers, tavern/store owners who couldn't compete back east or in Midwest towns, and itinerant miners.
Found a source of water, settled down near roads and railroads on homestead deeds, and tried to make a go of it in shacks or sod or adobe houses.
Most of them couldn't make it through winter on their own, no matter how clever they were. If disease and exposure didn't get them, starvation drove them back into town to work as skivvies or to hire on as hands.
The Wild West (which was circa 1870 - 1900) wasn't filled with lone gunslingers riding aimlessly around searching for a meaning to their lives or old miners living in caves with a pack mule and a dog working his claim.
It was filled with dead bodies and company towns built to make some robber Barron on the coasts or in big cities like Chicago or Kansas City lots of money off near indentured servitude.
On edit -
After the 1900's with more irrigation, reliable roads and more rail commerce, you started seeing homesteaders being able to settle and start larger ranching operations or build businesses near way stations to support those ranches and more remote resources extraction - and later, tourism - but you still don't find a lot of lone libertarian cowboy types - or families - able to survive on their own without a larger support infrastructure (as in a rich patron or the Federal or State Government) within a day's wagon trip. It wasn't until the 1920's and paved highways that these "individualists" were actually able to make it on their own.
Scrivener7
(56,505 posts)
C_U_L8R
(47,699 posts)Home of the self-inflicted misfortune. Too bad, so sad.
MarineCombatEngineer
(15,864 posts)Sorry, but I'm all out of fucks to give, they are now reaping what they helped sow.
Dem4life1970
(938 posts)They voted for this. They are getting what they wanted, even if they were too stupid to realize it. Enjoy.
bif
(25,930 posts)gab13by13
(28,895 posts)Those 41 residents can drive frac water trucks to dump into a big holding pit.
Have your well water tested regularly.
BrianTheEVGuy
(697 posts)Sure, they’ve lost everything, their town will be destroyed and they’ll be broke and homeless, but at least trans people are being abused by the federal government! That’s a net win right?!
SweetieD
(1,673 posts)I live in Nevada. I'm pretty sure I read that BLM (bureau of land management) is the largest property owner in the State of Nevada. Without federal funding most of these counties other than washoe, Carson city, and clark county would totally fold. There is no real industry.
Yet every election these people in rural counties vote overwhelmingly for Republicans. Our current governer is a trumper.
BrianTheEVGuy
(697 posts)As a young man in his early 20s about 20 years ago, I moved from the east coast to California. I packed up my entire life in to my little Hyundai hatchback and drive from NJ to California.
Nevada was like another universe. When I crossed the state line I stopped in at a welcome center and a woman desperately implored me to gamble at the local casino, which was basically a gas station with some slot machines. I was stunned at the abject poverty I saw in all the little towns on the way. It felt like a hybrid of Martian landscapes and rural Appalachian poverty.
Glaisne
(588 posts)to resource extraction. They say BLM land should be given to the states to manage, which of course would basically be given away to corporate interests.The Republicans make it sound like the locals will make a lot of money (a few will I suppose), but most of the money will go to non-locals who will come in and do the work with the companies making a killing. The locals are left with the waste and the pollution. It's happened many times before.
dreamland
(1,118 posts)I really don't care, do u?
Joinfortmill
(18,614 posts)
mgardener
(2,102 posts)They would not have cared if the firings happened to others.
They only care cause it happened to them.
bullimiami
(14,047 posts)gab13by13
(28,895 posts)dalton99a
(89,502 posts)ecstatic
(34,861 posts)who refuse to put tRump and Elon in check.
The last thing we should do is let some of the responsible parties like tRump and republicans get a pass on this. They are all complicit!
Orrex
(65,580 posts)Right?
Um, right?
Aristus
(70,426 posts)It sucks to be you…
Paladin
(31,094 posts)77.9% Republican vote? Actions, meet consequences.
SamKnause
(14,356 posts)Enjoy it.
KY_EnviroGuy
(14,720 posts)They're really going to love it when the trickle-down effects of TFG's budget comes around for four straight years.
I've watched republicans pull this crap for decades:
* Pick a government function, property or benefit you want to eliminate and profit from.
* Lie like graveyard dogs to get elected, then start defunding said government function.
* After that public benefit starts to falter and citizens get pissed, go on Faux Snooze and say "see, we told you it was no good and needs to be sold off to private enterprise".
* Pad your pockets and those of your billionaire supporters with the proceeds.
* Right-wing extremist job done!
Tough shit, yaw'll. Get ready to become a mining camp.......
NNadir
(36,196 posts)OrlandoDem2
(3,023 posts)ecstatic
(34,861 posts)Enjoy! 
the_liberal_grandpa
(229 posts)
Rebl2
(16,704 posts)And guess they found out.
iemanja
(56,292 posts)where MAGAs celebrate stripping jobs away from federal workers. Both show an absence of compassion.
Jobless Trump voters are ideally poised to vote for Democrats in the next election. But rather than seeing an opportunity to actually win over voters, people here are working diligently to further alienate those voters and ensure Democrats are permanently shut out of power. Obviously, this isn't just about 14 voters in NV; there are dozens of threads in which people respond the exact same way to those who have lost their jobs. There will be tens of thousands, if not more, Republican voters losing their jobs. My question is why don't you want their votes?
Pototan
(2,744 posts)and we'll take them. But in the meantime, they have to learn the hard way.
Herbert Hoover beat Al smith in a landslide in 1928.
In 1932 Hoover and the Republicans got devastated in the election of 1932 by FDR and the Democrats. Some people learn the hard way, but they learn on their own.
iemanja
(56,292 posts)and if those voters' experience with Democrats is to be confronted with taunting over the loss of jobs, they may well resent the party too much to vote for them.
Dan
(4,834 posts)Then I support their right to be stupid.
I just don’t care and as far as them deciding to vote Democratic, if the GOP inflicts enough pain on them, they’ll see the light. And if not, then they can enjoy the pain and I will continue to laugh at them.
Pototan
(2,744 posts)If that's what they want, to lose their jobs, to live with high prices and a poor economy. If they choose to give up their Democracy, I don't think I can convince them.
If a federal employee voted for Trump after knowing everything about him, but figured others would suffer, not them. And that person loses his or her job in a humiliating fashion. If that person then, after struggling for 4 years, votes for JD Vance, convincing that person is hopeless.
In the meantime, I'm sorry, I am getting quite a bit of satisfaction watching the Leopards enjoying their meals.
Cosmocat
(15,208 posts)They have been so completely programmed to hate the D, that is all they know.
Whatever consequences they suffer, they will find a way to make it about the D if at all possible, and even if they can't come election time the Rs will be screaming about some ancilarry reality based issue they will deem much more important than their own self interests.
Been doing this the entirety of my life ...
DFW
(58,518 posts)If all you watch is Fox and all you listen to is National Hate Radio, these people will stand in front of a Republican firing squad and, in their dying breath, curse the Democrats for putting them there.
It is one thing to beseech them to vote Democratic and offer them help. But when they say “no thanks, we’d rather starve,” and then blame us for the lack of food, compassion becomes a commodity in short supply. We are up against opposition of a nature FDR never had to contend with.
iemanja
(56,292 posts)You are assuming. There are voters who have chosen Obama and Biden in the past, yet you want to write them off too.
DFW
(58,518 posts)However, I am not going to wait for Godot, either.
Leaving your door open with a welcome mat out is not the same as persuading people to walk through it, especially if they have loudly expressed no desire to do so. Sure, they’ll come running when there’s no more work, no more food, no more shelter and no more medical care, but if we reach that point, it will be too late, because we won’t be in a position to offer it to them, either.
I’m not accusing Republican voters of biting the hand that is offering to feed them. But ignoring that hand is their option, and it will not feed them any more than the other option—and they will blame us for their hunger in either case.
liberalhistorian
(20,889 posts)vote for Dems! I know plenty of them, have family and friends in my home state of Ohio, and have lived in South Dakota, including under the Regime of Noem, before finally fleeing to Minnesota. They will continue to twist themselves into pretzels to find ways to blame Dems, no matter what happens or how much they suffer. They will continue to vote against their own interests and continue to denigrate the only party that's provided all the benefits and policies they've relied on for decades, the only party that's keeps on fighting for them.
I'm all out of fucks to give anymore. I am TIRED of taking the fucking high road, of "going high when they go low". You see where that's gotten us! No, enough is enough!
Pototan
(2,744 posts)COL Mustard
(7,517 posts)They were warned but they didn’t listen. Sucks to be them.
Martin68
(26,191 posts)on Medicaid and Social Security start to take kick in. For example, Paul Krugman points out that more people in West Virginia work in hospitals funded by Medicaid than in coal mines. Eventually there will be a trickle up effect that will create a major movement against MAGA and Trump/Musk/Vance.
Pacifist Patriot
(25,061 posts)DJ Synikus Makisimus
(1,077 posts)Folks here tend to think that MAGAts use our logic to analyze their predicament. They don't. if they did, they wouldn't be MAGAts. They turn on NewsMax to find out who to blame.
BobTheSubgenius
(12,052 posts)Why would you abandon a strategy that is clearly working so well for them?
elliesmandt
(38 posts)As ye sow, so shall ye reap.
SkylineChili
(59 posts)It won't stay empty for long. The area has gypsum, metatyuyamunite, a uranium-vanadium mineral, oil and gas reserves along with, according to a quick search, geo thermal potential, grazing and farming opportunities, and suitability for military testing.
They will be busy and prosperous under privatization.
I think it is doubtful they will ever vote Democratic no matter how bad their situation. The brainwashing is generational, and is now baked solidly into their DNA for many MAGAs. Whatever tragedy befalls them, they blame the left. I lived in deep red land for many years and have many childhood friends who, no matter how much they are hurting, who would never, ever vote Democratic or admit Republican policies and actions are destroying their future and the future of democracy. They will always blame the left for everything, even when the evidence to the contrary is right in front of them. Christo-fascism, the prosperity Gospel, a twisted view of what Christ actually taught, combined a feeling that white, straight, Christians are the marginalized and the desire to align with a leader they perceive to be "powerful" is a toxic and difficult combination to address. Winning them over is a nice thought, but not sure it's possible. They like the strong man image, and are proud that Trump "stood up" to Zelenskyy as a Peace Maker, as one friend posted on FB. They admire Putin for the same reason--he's a strong man. It makes no sense to me that they equate patriotism with Russian Oligarchy, but they do. I've given up trying to figure them out long ago.
But yes, I have no F's to give for the people of Big Basin Nevada. Rather, I cry for the Park and the resources and beauty that will be despoiled.
AllaN01Bear
(26,545 posts)
aggiesal
(10,188 posts)I mean, we tried to tell you this was going to happen and you decided you wanted to own the libs.
How did that work out?
Bettie
(18,596 posts)they voted for.
So, they're celebrating right? No? Oh, they wanted harm to come to OTHER people, but not them.
Too bad, so sad. Make better choices.
Figarosmom
(7,051 posts)Starting to lunber mill in our National parks just so we don't import lumber. So this little Republican town has another " FO" coming.
angrychair
(10,900 posts)I hope they drown in their suffering and everyone goes bankrupt and the town no longer exist.
I'm all out of sympathy.
Thunderbeast
(3,666 posts)Great Basin has a spectacular underground trail with several cave rooms, stellagtites, stellagmites, and other gorgeous features.
Go there!
Raftergirl
(1,677 posts)That will put a real hurt on the whole state’s economy. .
erpowers
(9,425 posts)There are so many anti-government people who do not know how dependent they are on government. There are a number of ruby red states that are very dependent on government. Many diehard Republicans have businesses that are either dependent on government, or would not exist without the government. Yeah, FAFO is about to hit a large number of people, but it has been hitting them for years, but no one told them. I guess now they are realizing they are getting hit
liberalhistorian
(20,889 posts)fucks to give and ZERO sympathy for these people anymore! I don't want to hear their bullshit about being "lied to" anymore, either. They weren't lied to at all, they simply chose to ignore years of warnings as well as direct actions and statements from the Orange Menace himself. And all to "own the libs". FUCK THEM ALL!
allegorical oracle
(5,392 posts)that when there are layoffs, agencies closing, VA services dwindling, possible cuts to Medicaid and SS, or another pandemic, many of us will be on the same sinking ship with them. Planning for the future in such unpredictable times is onerous.
BeyondGeography
(40,552 posts)but your boy Trump would say it sounds like you don’t have any cards to play.
republianmushroom
(20,715 posts)
VGNonly
(8,199 posts)has the only glacier in Nevada (albeit very small). Climate change will eliminate it shortly.
kimbutgar
(25,594 posts)They got conned again by the known conman.
Hassler
(4,458 posts)And convince themselves that Scump is going to do something something about the border and red tape and tariffs. Even though they have no idea what exactly. And do they really want tourists disrupting their idyllic existence?
Cha
(313,116 posts)Fascist Fucked UP Cult That gets bossed around by a Rapist, Felon Treasonous Asshole. 
Sorry about your National Park Adjacent jobs.. Storm the fucking WH 
mucholderthandirt
(1,616 posts)
Mike 03
(18,583 posts)could be badly impacted. A few, off the top of my head (more questions than really assertions on my part):
Vernal, UT
Estes Park, CO
Jackson, WY (although it is now famous for another reason)
Areas around Gettysburg and certain Civil War battlefields, maybe?
Town really close to Smokey National Park
Maybe a good time to get my hands on an atlas of National Park system.
Emile
(36,032 posts)to entertain the wealthy.