I live in Bozeman, Montana. Yes, the same area in Montana that the hit show “Yellowstone” purports to portray. And, yes, it’s a beautiful place especially for people who enjoy outdoor sports like hiking, skiing, snowmobiling, and fishing. In the last few years, it has also become unaffordable for a lot of native Montanans as out-of-state people have moved in loaded with money to buy hobby ranches, second vacation homes, and speculate on the red-hot real estate market. It has become somewhat of a rich man’s playground. It is also a very heterogeneous (white), heavily Christian and bright red political state.
I read an opinion piece this morning in the Bozeman Chronicle that made me realize what is happening in Montana is exactly what will happen to the entire country if Trump gets re-elected, particularly if the Republicans seize control of the House and Senate. Montana has a religious fundamentalist, Republican, and somewhat Trump-like governor, Greg Gianforte, and the Republicans have a super majority in the state legislature. They can pass virtually any piece of legislation they want.
This Republican-controlled state started the last session with a $2.5 BILLION surplus. They could have spent that money on things that benefitted citizens of the state but, instead the money went primarily to benefit the wealthy. They passed a bill to reduce the tax on stock market gains which resulted in about $20 million going into the pockets of the wealthiest Montanans. At the same time, they passed a bill raising taxes on tip income so those who are at the lower rungs of the food chain got a tax increase.
Montana has the distinction of having the lowest starting salaries for teachers of any state in the union. Rather than spending some of the state largess to address this problem, they reduced public school funding and authorized increase tax breaks and state funding for voucher/charter schools. This is in keeping with the push by former Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, and her family to privatize education in order to be able to have schools that push fundamentalist religious principles and libertarian economic philosophy.
The Montana constitution enshrines a woman’s right to seek an abortion if needed. The Republican legislature, in concert with the governor, passed several laws to try to restrict this right, even though they knew and were told they were unconstitutional. As a result of this ill-fated effort and other laws they tried to pass that were also deemed unconstitutional, the State Attorney General has had to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to try to defend these decisions.
Property taxes have soared in Montana as the state gives generous tax breaks to corporations. The property taxes on my personal home increased by almost 50% after the state legislature got done with their handiwork. There is outrage across the state but the odds that the Republicans in the legislature and the governor do anything other than pay lip service to this are about zero.
The bottom line is simply this. If you want to know what will happen to the country if Trump gets elected and the Republicans seize control of both the House and the Senate, just look at Montana. The rich will get richer. The middle class will get priced out of the market. The poor will get poorer. And the government will continue to strip rights away from people. And none of this addresses the irreparable damage that will occur to America’s standing on the world stage.
If you want to live in a country run by a corrupt, egotistical president and a Republican-controlled Congress, look no further than Montana to see what we can expect. It might look beautiful on the surface at first glance, but it’s a lot uglier the closer you look.
