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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[–] ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 9 points 21 hours 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.

[–] hamid@crazypeople.online 1 points 15 hours ago

Shithole country strikes again

[–] DylanMc6@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

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

[–] neuromorph@lemmy.world 33 points 1 day ago (3 children)

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

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 9 points 23 hours 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.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

I also voted against the other guy because harmful stereotypes reinforced by my echo chamber, and without learning any actual facts

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago

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

[–] 1995ToyotaCorolla@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago

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

[–] jenesaisquoi@feddit.org 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Hey, everyone. I enjoy the schadenfreude as much as everyone, but don't blame the conned. Blame the con men

[–] AntiBullyRanger@ani.social 3 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

like comfy replied: how do you get conned twice by the same man?

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 15 hours ago

Three times, really

[–] jenesaisquoi@feddit.org 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

How the con worked is worthy of a sociological study. To massively simplify: they play into the hopes and fears of the uneducated.

[–] AntiBullyRanger@ani.social 1 points 11 hours ago

Some even want a third con!

[–] veniasilente@lemmy.dbzer0.com 61 points 2 days ago

Yes you did.

[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 284 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 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 140 points 2 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 31 points 2 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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[–] Typhoon@lemmy.ca 86 points 2 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 21 points 2 days ago

this time it hurt you in a way that you noticed

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[–] kboos1@lemmy.world 173 points 2 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????

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 114 points 2 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 56 points 2 days ago

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

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[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

"Dog ate my homework" ass motherfuckers

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

trump ate your home and job.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago

Thanks obama

[–] mysticpickle@lemmy.ca 44 points 2 days ago

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

[–] Jaysyn@lemmy.world 43 points 2 days ago

You did vote for this & you were also warned.

You're just a sucker.

[–] Bubbaonthebeach@lemmy.ca 42 points 2 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.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 11 points 1 day ago

thats why they fall for scams quite easily, they trump is just kidding or he suddenly reverses what he does, nope he doesnt. only the 1st term he had people preventing him from doing too much damage, this time no one is going to stop trump and his cronies, conservatives also want to blame democrats, but dems arnt in power anymore.

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

[–] ignirtoq@feddit.online 82 points 2 days ago (5 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.

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[–] SillyGooseQuacked@lemmy.world 97 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 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 63 points 2 days ago

"WHAT DID YOU VOTE FOR THEN"

Conservatives: "We voted for the child rapist."

[–] U7826391786239@lemmy.zip 47 points 2 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 42 points 2 days ago (13 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.

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[–] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 26 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 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?

[–] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago

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

[–] ProfThadBach@lemmy.world 37 points 2 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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[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 26 points 2 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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[–] MisterOwl@lemmy.world 31 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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

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[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 41 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I didn’t vote for this

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

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[–] BigMacHole@sopuli.xyz 39 points 2 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!

[–] WanderWisley@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago
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