this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2026
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Leopards Ate My Face

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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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[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 296 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 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.

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 142 points 5 days ago (3 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.

[–] foodandart@lemmy.zip 33 points 5 days 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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[–] kboos1@lemmy.world 181 points 5 days 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????

[–] neuromorph@lemmy.world 34 points 4 days ago (3 children)

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

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

"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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[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 11 points 4 days ago

The one where we kill all the brown people and that magically makes my gas cheaper.

[–] 1995ToyotaCorolla@lemmy.world 12 points 4 days ago

I bet he loves the burning cities and innocent people getting shot in the face because those things don’t affect him personally

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 119 points 5 days 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".

[–] lobut@lemmy.ca 58 points 5 days ago

If they had empathy, they wouldn't be conservative.

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[–] Typhoon@lemmy.ca 95 points 5 days 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.

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 28 points 4 days ago

this time it hurt you in a way that you noticed

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[–] veniasilente@lemmy.dbzer0.com 66 points 4 days ago

Yes you did.

[–] ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 11 points 3 days 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.

[–] SillyGooseQuacked@lemmy.world 102 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (4 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"

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 65 points 5 days ago

"WHAT DID YOU VOTE FOR THEN"

Conservatives: "We voted for the child rapist."

[–] U7826391786239@lemmy.zip 48 points 5 days ago

“WHAT DID YOU VOTE FOR THEN”

for white unarmed mother of 3 to be murdered and called a terrorist because she was murdered

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 45 points 5 days ago (7 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.

[–] Greddan@feddit.org 23 points 5 days ago (6 children)

Their only connection to the outside world used to be newspapers, then radio and television, now it's the internet. This makes them extremely vulnerable to disinformation.

I can't count the number of times I've been lectured by some yokel on how the city I've lived my entire life in is actually a warzone with shaira law.

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[–] ignirtoq@feddit.online 86 points 5 days ago (1 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.

[–] favoredponcho@lemmy.zip 23 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (4 children)

I would argue they didn’t become more efficient. They just outsourced everything to private contractors. And private contractors have an overhead of needing to compete for contracts, so they’re all spending money on staff that writes up the bids. Additionally, they only hire the workers when they win the contract and those contracts usually expire after 5-10 years. This means there is no long term, institutional capacity building. It might be fine for small projects, but for large complex projects, tearing down an organization only to reassemble it under another contractor every 5-10 years is in fact terribly inefficient and produces worse outcomes. Organizations cannot become good at the work. I’ve seen it first hand. There are many contractors that specialize only in federal procurement regulations, but have almost no in house technical knowledge of how to run the projects they’re bidding on beyond what is they need to say to win. And, most importantly, knowing what to say to win is different than having a mature organization in place to do the work.

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[–] mysticpickle@lemmy.ca 45 points 5 days ago

Awww is someone having a hard time finding his bootstraps? 😁

[–] Jaysyn@lemmy.world 46 points 5 days ago

You did vote for this & you were also warned.

You're just a sucker.

[–] Bubbaonthebeach@lemmy.ca 46 points 5 days ago (1 children)

'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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[–] ProfThadBach@lemmy.world 38 points 5 days ago (3 children)

We tried to fucking tell you chucklefucks what was going to happen if Trump was elected. Project 2025 laid it all out plain as day but you still fucking gargled his shit covered balls so fuck you fuck you fuck you.

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[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 43 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I didn’t vote for this

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

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[–] PissingIntoTheWind@lemmy.world 21 points 4 days ago

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

[–] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 28 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days 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?

[–] MisterOwl@lemmy.world 32 points 5 days ago (1 children)

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

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[–] DylanMc6@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Dear Terry: you're starting to come a looooooooooong long way. Seriously!

[–] BigMacHole@sopuli.xyz 39 points 5 days 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!

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.

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 26 points 5 days 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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[–] Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world 34 points 5 days ago

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

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

[–] ceenote@lemmy.world 33 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

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

[–] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 21 points 4 days ago

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

[–] WanderWisley@lemmy.world 20 points 5 days ago
[–] bearboiblake@pawb.social 26 points 5 days ago (32 children)

do you wanna stop fascism? want to see trump and elon musk lose power?

working class solidarity is the first step

our entire lives, we’ve been tricked and manipulated into fighting among ourselves, because they know if we worked together, we would be able to take them down.

why do you think, every time that something bad happens, there’s all the media spin about who we should blame?

they love to do this for age, think about all the boomers vs. gen X vs. gen Z articles and social media posts you’ve seen

but they do the same shit all the time with different things. their aim is to split the working class into as many splinter groups as possible.

we need to stop letting the assholes in power divide us like this.

unfortunately, that means extending solidarity to people who haven’t earned it, including people who chose to vote for Trump.

most of these people were tricked and manipulated. many of them have been fed a steady diet of misinformation. many of them are proud, insufferable bigots.

but being smugly superior, insulting, rude or intolerant isn’t how we change people’s minds. the best way to do that is by having a two-way conversation.

we are all so busy yelling at eachother. it doesn’t work. we need solidarity.

[–] dnick@sh.itjust.works 20 points 5 days ago

That is true, but it is also fair to point out that you are proposing solidarity with someone who voted for fully supporting these negative things happening to other people, even if there was only a vague sense of what that might mean, and is specifically upset now that it unexpectedly turned around on him and his circle. We have to stand with and support someone we might have to fully expect to continue doing the exact same thing as the opportunity arise.

It's true his interests overlap our own, and raising everyone up is in our best interests, but just realize that we want to give liferafts to people who would prefer to poke holes in the liferafts of others. We want to save people who are acting like spoiled, entitled children and who we have no reason to believe will act any different after they've been saved. Just understand that afterwards we need a system that will survive this type of behavior.

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[–] Dogiedog64@lemmy.world 23 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Here champ, you dropped this.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago (2 children)

"Dog ate my homework" ass motherfuckers

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[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 21 points 5 days ago

"They're hurting the wrong people"

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 22 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days 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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