Men's Lifestyle May 11, 2026 0 Comments

How Trump’s Anti-DEI Blitz Is Quietly Crushing Opportunities—And What It Means for You

Ever wonder how a hefty half-ton bison named Crazy Alice could become the unlikeliest heroine in the battle over Montana’s prairie? Well, strap in—because this ain’t your average wildlife story. Imagine a peaceful herd grazing under endless skies, only to find themselves booted off their stomping grounds to make way for cattle. Sounds straightforward? Nope. It’s a wild tangle of politics, profit, and plain-old stubbornness, wrapped up in the grand theater of American land use. Crazy Alice isn’t just a bison—she’s a symbol, a resistance figure shaking up the status quo when government decisions threaten to rewrite centuries-old relationships between wildlife and ranchers. And while we’re all mourning icons like Ted Turner who popularized bison burgers, this saga begs one question: when progress claims to move forward, who really gets left behind? Let’s dive into the gritty details and the big picture behind this prairie showdown—because sometimes, you’ve gotta pick a side, even if it’s just to cheer for the fluffy cows. LEARN MORE

5 min read

(Optional Musical Accompaniment to This Post)

Let us all begin our blogging week by welcoming Crazy Alice to The Resistance. From The New York Times:

Crazy Alice, a half-ton bison, likes to feast on grass and roll in the dirt, but her deepest attachment might be to a certain corner of the Montana prairie—when her handlers once moved her herd to a different pasture, she tried to break out and go back. Now, the Trump administration wants to evict Crazy Alice and hundreds of other bison from that home on the range, and replace them with cattle. The resulting clash on the prairie has pitted ranchers and Republican leaders against a furry, snorting symbol of the American West. … The conflict centers on 900 bison owned by the group, which was allowed by multiple administrations, including President Trump’s first, to graze on federal lands, much to the consternation of politically conservative ranchers who wanted the land for cattle.

The bison belong to American Prairie, a non-profit dedicated to creating and maintaining grazing land for Crazy Alice and 900 other fluffy cows. (Do Not Pet The Fluffy Cows!) Naturally, the administration wants to fck this all up on behalf of private profit.

This winter, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management reversed course and canceled the bison grazing permits. Citing the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, the agency said the federal grasslands where the animals grazed should go to livestock being raised for food, not bison largely enjoying their right to roam. The agency deemed the bison to be wildlife, not production livestock.

And this as we all mourn the passing of Ted Turner, the man who brought us bison burgers.

“These lands are here for food,” said Ms. Jacobs, whose family has raised cows in northern Montana for nearly 110 years. “We have to understand that progress and time march forward. Bison just don’t fit on the landscape anymore.” Ranchers like Ms. Jacobs could give the Trump administration some sorely needed support in farm country, where Democrats and independents are trying to capitalize on anger over tariffs and the cost of diesel and fertilizer to flip Republican seats in this year’s midterm elections. Phillips County, where the beef over bison centers, is in Montana’s Second Congressional District, a Republican-held seat not on any forecaster’s battlefield map. In the western part of the state, though, Montana’s First District could very much be in play.

Logic is not in play here.

“I don’t think it’s actually about the bison,” said Ryan Busse, a Democrat running in a primary in Montana’s First District. “Gianforte is fine with oil companies doing whatever the hell they want on public lands. But some bison walking around and eating grass is a threat?” The state’s powerful land board—which includes Mr. Gianforte and other high-ranking Republican elected officials—is also taking steps toward kicking bison off Montana state trust lands.

Crazy Alice is our sister. Aux armes, citoyens!

Also in the NYT, his eye is on the septic tanks.

Behind Dana Anderson’s home in central Alabama, a plastic pipe carries waste from her toilet through her backyard, discarding it outdoors. Three or four times a year, a spell of heavy rain forces the excrement back up into the house. It is a plight that has long plagued residents across Alabama’s Black Belt, a stretch of largely rural counties so named for its dark soil and history of slavery. Cotton flourished in the region for the same reasons that conventional septic tanks fail there: The soil is dense and holds onto water. Today there are more than 50,000 people in the region who pipe raw sewage into open trenches and pits.

Three years ago, the Biden administration concluded in its first-ever environmental justice investigation that Alabama officials had failed to adequately address the sanitation crisis disproportionately affecting the Black residents of Lowndes County. The state agreed to an interim agreement that unlocked millions of dollars in federal funding to provide homeowners with septic tanks that could handle the difficult soil.

An aside—pretty good policy decision by a president Jake Tapper assured us was a partly ambulatory ficus.

You’re not going to believe what came next.

(Yes, you will.)

But soon after President Trump returned to office last year, the Justice Department ended the settlement, calling it “illegal DEI.” The administration also scuttled a separate $14 million EPA grant that had been earmarked to install new systems and provide work force training across Lowndes, Hale, and Wilcox Counties.

Of course, this isn’t about race because nothing ever is about race.

But others tied the sanitation struggles to the legacies of slavery and segregation, linking the persistent poverty in the Black Belt to systemic racism. The agreement that Alabama had reached with the Biden administration stopped the state from leveling fines and other penalties against Lowndes County residents who violated sanitation laws. It also ensured that the state would be an active participant in the solution — requiring it to track the number of residents without reliable sanitation, disseminate information about the health risks from raw sewage exposure, and seek funding sources to comply with the agreement.

In a statement, the Alabama Department of Health denied that it had discriminated against Black residents and said that it would continue “to expend grant funds associated with the installation of wastewater systems until funds expire.”

The whole thing smacks of southern fried Calcutta. I expect no better from Alabama. But, until Walker Evans comes back from the dead, it’s worth shining a light on all the little atrocities as windows into the larger atrocities.

Across the Black Belt, circumstances vary. Some homeowners have straight pipes snaking behind their homes, where the untreated waste creeps over their property line onto their neighbor’s land. Others purchased conventional septic tanks decades ago, which have since failed and deteriorated into cesspools and lagoons.The flies and odor can prevent homeowners from spending time in their backyards One day in March, a property owner had a swarm of gnats perched on the walls of his bathtub that appeared to be waiting for waste to rise through the drain. State researchers estimate that up to four million gallons of raw sewage enter the region’s water system per year.

Luckily, the rest of us have better sewage disposal systems. They’re called elections.

And Crazy Alice? Stay strong, my sister.