Conservatives vs. Conservation

The President has used his executive authority to shrink two large tracts of Utah national park land created in recent years, outraging environmentalists and Native American activists who see his action as a blatant move to open land seen as sacred or simply pretty to ruthless economic exploitation. Republicans in Utah are hailing the President's action as a necessary correction of federal overreach, while Trump himself invokes the principles of states' rights and local control. The main idea in his mind, most likely is "Jobs!" He seems convinced that resource extraction is the quickest way to achieve the job growth he's promised Americans. He probably also agrees with the Republican ideology of "responsible stewardship," which sees no necessary incompatibility between job creation and environmental protection. The opposition considers "responsible stewardship" a bad joke, and more Republicans used to agree with them. The national park system is what it is, arguably, because Republicans like Theodore Roosevelt -- whom, for all I know, Trump admires as a tough guy but Tea Party conservatives despise as an original "progressive"-- didn't entirely trust the robber barons of his day to be responsible stewards of anything. TR saw himself as a moderate steering clear of the extremes of oligarchy and populism, and a moderate might well make the case that even though limits on economic exloitation of the landscape remain necessary, past Presidents went too far in seizing Utah land, or that maximizing park land isn't necessarily the best course for everyone. The problem, of course, is finding a true moderate today, when even centrists are getting fewer and further between.