Due to the bird flu epidemic, eggs were $4 a dozen six weeks ago when Donald Trump took office. But he turned Elon Musk loose firing agricultural inspectors and scientists and cutting funding for scientific and medical research, and now eggs are up to $6 a dozen.
Then Musk and his team of 20-year-old far-right goofballs barged their way into more departments, firing thousands of employees willy-nilly from the Park Service and the Forest Service. Most of these employees were not policymakers, but people who did essential work in the field, maintaining campgrounds and trails, planning timber sales, supporting firefighters, and giving guidance to tourists — who are essential to western Montana’s economy, whether you like it or not.
Now Musk and his team are combing through all of Americans’ Social Security files, and cutting off lease payments for the Kalispell Social Security office and the Shelby Border Patrol station. Unelected and unconfirmed by the Senate, Musk is not looking for “waste, fraud and abuse” or increasing “efficiency”. He’s moving way too fast for that, recklessly ripping wires and pipes out of walls to see what breaks. And every American adult knows that you don’t save money by refusing to pay your rent, you just get evicted.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is down 6.6% in the last two weeks because of Trump’s capricious, on-and-off-again tariffs, which are driving prices still higher for a wide range of goods — like building materials, which won’t help ease Montana’s shortage of affordable housing.
And finally, Trump has abandoned our democratic allies in Ukraine and NATO and is instead taking the side of Russia, the country that has done more to actively oppose American interests around the world in the last 25 years than any other.
Trump got 65% of the vote in Flathead County, but I can’t believe this kind of madness is what most of you thought you were voting for.
Edward Salmon
Columbia Falls