Gardiner MT In County That Voted 52-44 For Trump; Now They're Worried About NPS Cuts Impact On Yellowstone Visitors

On March 1, hundreds of people gathered in Gardiner, Montana, at the northern entrance to Yellowstone National Park. The crowd — which included residents from across the state and current and former public lands employees — was part of a nationwide protest against the layoffs of federal workers. Roughly 5 percent of National Park Service workers have been caught up in the sweeping layoffs carried out by Donald Trump’s administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. This isn’t counting the hundreds of others who are taking the “fork in the road” offer to resign from their positions. The staffing crisis facing national parks is felt not only within the federal workforce itself but also in gateway towns like Gardiner, where the economy depends heavily on Yellowstone.

There, under the Roosevelt Arch — named for President Theodore Roosevelt, who laid its cornerstone and is known for preserving over 230 million acres of public land — protesters shouted chants like “Public lands in public hands!” and “Hey, ho, Trump and Musk have got to go.” Organizers talked about what public lands mean to the local economy. The crowd even harmonized to Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.” The chaos and uncertainties that have come with Trump’s executive actions reach all corners of the country and, as with the case of cutting funding to USAID, some other countries. But Gardiner, perhaps like no other place, can be seen as an epicenter of loss following Trump’s decisions. Shutting down federal funding through the Park Service could cripple the town.

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For Parks and other community members, the memory of 2022’s devastating flood stokes worst-case scenario fears for what life could be like without the driving economic force of the park. The flood washed out 3 miles of road from Gardiner into the park’s interior, severing the community from the park and barring public access for the entirety of peak season. The slew of cancellations from the park’s usual large volume of visitors caused cascading damages to locals who had already invested in the season. A study conducted after the flood found that communities like Gardiner whose park access was cut off lost 75 percent of their income on average. The findings, corroborated by a survey of townspeople, indicated that the flood exceeded the economic losses from the COVID-19 shutdown two years prior, resulting in a net loss of $156 million.

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Tourism to Yellowstone typically starts in March for the north entrance and ramps up by mid-April, when the west entrance road into the park opens. So far, Gardiner is experiencing a worrisome start, according to Chester Evitt, the owner of Mama Bear’s Armory, a local gunsmith and outdoor gear shop. Evitt said he has had only a handful of customers since January, forcing him to use his disability checks from his time as a combat veteran to pay the shop rent. Evitt said that he and his family voted for Trump, but if he could take his vote back now he would. “I’ve been alive for 11 presidents and I haven’t seen one that has been as destructive as this one,” said Evitt. “These cuts are affecting our little town more than the 500-year flood.” Evitt said that he tried to go to the local bank to get a loan to help him make it to May, but when he arrived, there were several other business owners there for the same reason. The bank told all of them that it couldn’t offer any monetary assistance until things were more certain.

Ed. BOO FUCKING HOO YOU IGNORANT FUCKING HAYSEED.

https://grist.org/economics/yellowstone-gateway-town-fears-future-economy-trump-funding-cuts/