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OPINION
East Oregonian
Saturday, November 18, 2017
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
MARISSA WILLIAMS
Regional Advertising Director
MARCY ROSENBERG
Circulation Manager
JANNA HEIMGARTNER
Business Office Manager
MIKE JENSEN
Production Manager
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OUR VIEW
How far will Trump
backlash reach?
As we publish this, some polls
mark in Eastern Oregon, we will
show a Democratic candidate ahead keep an eye on the upcoming U.S.
by 12 points in an Alabama Senate
House race. Greg Walden (R-Hood
race. Yes, that Alabama.
River), has held the seat for 18 years
Sure, it’s hard to imagine a
and is running for a tenth term.
worse Republican candidate — Roy
A cadre of Democratic
Moore is a well-documented sexual
challengers have lined up to oppose
predator who was banned from his
him, though right now none have
local mall as an adult because of
the name recognition or financial
persistent sexual advances on local
backing to put up much of a fight.
teens. But it’s also hard to imagine
Remember District 2 went for
a Democrat representing Alabama.
Donald Trump by 21 points in 2016,
It’s almost as difficult as picturing
and Walden defeated Jim Crary with
someone from the Democratic Party 71 percent of the vote in 2016. Crary
representing Eastern Oregon.
is looking for a rematch — he’s
Our region is solid Republican
one of the challengers hoping to
territory. Even if
secure the Democratic
Democratic candidates
nomination.
Is Eastern
are making major
Each of those
inroads in red areas
challengers
who
Oregon safely have made their
nationwide due to
way
the unpopularity of
Republican? through Umatilla
President Donald
County have talked
Trump, it’s still a
to us about a palpable
long shot to imagine anyone solely
energy at their events that they didn’t
representing Eastern Oregon without feel in previous campaigns.
an R beside their name. It hasn’t
The media was clearly wrong
happened in decades.
leading up to the 2016 election, and
they may very well be wrong to
In the U.S. Senate, we
are outvoted by our western
consider an anti-Trump turn in the
counterparts, who vote as reliably
electorate. Consider us unconvinced
Democratic as we vote reliably
right now that Democrats will take
Republican. Ron Wyden and Jeff
back the U.S. Senate and the House,
Merkley won despite being outvoted and even more skeptical that they
stand a chance in District 2.
in each Eastern Oregon county.
But the tables are turned in the
But there is no way to look past
U.S. House, where District 2 sheds
this month’s results, where red and
those overwhelming blue votes in
purple districts swung heavily blue
in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia,
the Willamette Valley. Republican
Washington State and elsewhere.
Greg Walden has skated through
It’s worth watching. In 2016,
each election since 1999 and only
the Democratic Party hit the depths
two Democrats have ever held the
seat in its 200-plus year history. The of its long-term deep unpopularity
in rural America — a fact that put
last was Al Ulhman of Baker City,
Donald Trump into the White House
who represented the district from
despite losing the popular vote.
1957 until 1981.
But if President Trump continues
To our statehouse, we send an
all-red ticket of Greg Barreto, Bill
to be ineffective, there is the
possibility that voters who oppose
Hansell and Greg Smith from our
him will come out in full force in
readership area.
the next few elections while those
Will it be that way forever? Just
how high, and how powerful, will
who voted Trump in 2016 become
the anti-Trump wave be in 2018 and jaded and stay home. If that’s the
2020?
case, anything is possible — even in
Eastern Oregon.
To look for a possible high water
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of publisher
Kathryn Brown, managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, and opinion page editor Tim Trainor.
Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
OTHER VIEWS
Walden’s forest thinning
bill unlikely to limit fires
Medford Mail Tribune
U
.S. Rep. Greg Walden says a
forest-thinning bill that passed the
House Nov. 1 will dramatically
reduce the severe wildfires that choked
the region in smoke this past summer. If
the legislation would accomplish that, it
would be worth supporting. But there is
plenty of evidence that it would not.
The bill calls for thinning overgrown
forests and logging burned trees left after
fires, and limits environmental review of
proposed timber harvests.
Walden says “we can reduce the size
and intensity of fire up to 70 percent, if
we do the kinds of projects that thin out
the forests and allow us to better manage
and be better stewards of our federal
forests.”
The “70 percent” figure may be
wishful thinking, but there is truth in
what Walden says — if the thinning
is limited to small-diameter trees and
overgrown brush that fuel destructive
fires, and especially when the work is
done near populated areas. The problem,
as Rep. Peter DeFazio says, is how to
pay for it.
Without logging larger, commercially
valuable trees, thinning projects must be
subsidized. And research has shown that
removing larger, more fire-resistant trees
makes destructive wildfires more likely,
not less.
The House bill proposes to generate
money to pay for thinning by salvage
logging large burned trees and
replanting. But researchers who studied
the Biscuit fire of 2005 found that fire
burned more severely in forests that were
logged and replanted after previous fires
than in areas that were left to regenerate
naturally.
There’s another common sense
point to be made — fires can start up
anywhere among the 16 million acres
of public and private forest lands in the
state. And they won’t necessarily start
in the vicinity of where the thinning
occurred.
The House bill does address the issue
of “fire borrowing,” the prohibition on
spending federal disaster funds to fight
wildfires. Under existing rules, the Forest
Service must raid parts of its budget set
aside for forest health projects to cover
firefighting costs. Under the legislation,
Federal Emergency Management
Agency funds could be tapped to pay
for fighting catastrophic fires. The White
House, however, has indicated it does
not support the bill as written because
it would force competition for funding
between wildfires and other disasters
such as hurricanes.
Other legislation, with bipartisan
support, would fix the fire borrowing
problem without expanded logging
and without removing environmental
safeguards.
Projects to improve forest health
and lessen the severity of wildfires are
important and necessary. Allowing the
Forest Service to stop spending money
it had budgeted for restoration work on
fighting fires instead should be the top
priority.
OTHER VIEWS
Our elites still don’t get it
J
ohn Bowlby is the father of
secure base, but if you take away
attachment theory, which explains
covenantal attachments they become
how humans are formed by
fragile. Moreover, if you rob people
relationships early in life, and are
of their good covenantal attachments,
given the tools to go out and lead
they will grab bad ones.
their lives. The most famous Bowlby
First, they will identify themselves
sentence is this one: “All of us, from
according to race. They will become
cradle to grave, are happiest when life
the racial essentialists you see on left
is organized as a series of excursions,
and right: The only people who can
David
long or short, from the secure base
know me are in my race. Life is
Brooks really
provided by our attachment figures.”
a zero-sum contest between my race
Comment
Attachment theory nicely
and your race, so get out.
distinguishes between the attachments
Then they resort to tribalism. This
that form you and the things you then do for
is what Donald Trump provides. As Mark S.
yourself. The relationships that form you are
Weiner writes on the Niskanen Center’s blog,
mostly things you didn’t choose: your family,
Trump is constantly making friend/enemy
hometown, ethnic group, religion, nation and
distinctions, exploiting liberalism’s thin
genes. The things you do with your life are
conception of community and creating toxic
mostly chosen: your job, spouse and hobbies.
communities based on in-group/out-group
Through most of American
rivalry.
history, our society was
Trump offers people
built on this same sort of
cultural solutions to their
unchosen/chosen distinction.
alienation problem. As
At our foundation, we were a
history clearly demonstrates,
society with strong covenantal
people will prefer fascism to
attachments — to family,
isolation, authoritarianism to
community, creed and faith.
moral anarchy.
Then on top of them we built
If we are going to have a
democracy and capitalism
decent society we’re going
that celebrated liberty and
to have to save liberalism
individual rights.
from itself. We’re going to
The deep covenantal
have to restore and re-enchant
institutions gave people the
the covenantal relationships
capacity to use their freedom
that are the foundation for
well. The liberal institutions
the whole deal. The crucial
gave them that freedom.
battleground is cultural and prepolitical.
This delicate balance — liberal institutions
In my experience, most people under 40
built atop illiberal ones — is giving way. The
get this. They sense the social and moral void
big social movements of the past half century
at the core and that change has to come at
were about maximizing freedom of choice.
the communal, emotional and moral level.
Right-wingers wanted to maximize economic
They understand that populism is a broad
choice and left-wingers lifestyle choice.
social movement, including but stretching far
Anything that smacked of restraint came to
beyond just policy. To address it, we’re going
seem like a bad thing to be eliminated.
to need to confront it with another broad social
We’ll call this worldview — which is all
movement.
freedom and no covenant — naked liberalism
Many people my age and older seem
(liberalism in the classic Lockean sense, not
clueless. Our elected leaders were raised in
the modern progressive sense). The problem
the heyday of naked liberalism and still talk
with naked liberalism is that it relies on
as if it were 1994. Many public intellectuals
individuals it cannot create.
were trained in the social sciences and take
This is the point Yuval Levin made in
the choosing individual as their mental
a brilliant essay published in First Things
starting point. They have trouble thinking
back in 2014. Naked liberals of right and left
about our shared social and moral formative
assume that if you give people freedom they
institutions and how such institutions could be
will use it to care for their neighbors, to have
reconstituted.
civil conversations, to form opinions after
Congressional Republicans think a
examining the evidence. But if you weaken
successful tax bill will thwart populism.
family, faith, community and any sense of
Mainstream Democrats think the alienation
national obligation, where is that social,
problem will go away if we redistribute the
emotional and moral formation supposed
crumbs a bit more widely. Washington policy
to come from? How will the virtuous habits
wonks build technocratic sand castles that
form?
keep getting swept away in the cultural tides.
Naked liberalism has made our society
History is full of examples of nations
an unsteady tree. The branches of individual
that built new national narratives, revived
rights are sprawling, but the roots of common
family life, restored community bonds and
obligation are withering away.
shared moral culture: Britain in the early
Freedom without covenant becomes
19th century, Germany after World War II,
selfishness. And that’s what we see at the top
America in the Progressive Era. The first step
of society, in our politics and the financial
in launching our own revival is understanding
crisis. Freedom without connection becomes
that the problem is down in the roots.
alienation. And that’s what we see at the
■
bottom of society — frayed communities,
David Brooks became a New York Times
broken families, opiate addiction. Freedom
Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. He
without a unifying national narrative becomes has been a senior editor at The Weekly
distrust, polarization and permanent political
Standard, a contributing editor at Newsweek
war.
and the Atlantic Monthly, and is currently a
People can endure a lot if they have a
commentator on PBS.
The delicate
balance
— liberal
institutions built
atop illiberal
ones — is
giving way.
YOUR VIEWS
Megafires caused by climate
change, not fire suppression
The remedy for an alcoholic is not more
alcohol. It was surprising, therefore, that a
recent gathering to consider forest issues in
Medford was informed that fire suppression
has caused an over-dense forest susceptible
to further wildfire and then focused on
suppressing wildfire as the solution.
Here we had self-proclaimed forest experts
telling us that the solution to fire suppression
is more fire suppression. This is worse than
simplistic, it’s insane!
There is ample reason to control fire
around human dwellings, but our forests are
fire adapted, it’s an essential component to
maintaining their health.
We can, however, address the primary
reason for the fires, namely the warming and
drying that results from our emissions of
climate pollution. Anyone who is concerned
about the smoke would have to support the
Clean Energy Jobs Bill, since this is the best
vehicle for Oregon to step up to the plate and
control its climate pollution.
It would be pure anti-science hypocrisy to
pretend concern about forest fires and oppose
that legislation. Let’s all get on board — now!
Trisha Vigil
Medford
LETTERS POLICY
The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues
and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper
reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and
products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must
be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number.
The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send
letters to managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801
or email editor@eastoregonian.com.