A Mistaken Idea of Freedom

The assault on America’s national monuments is part of a deeper war to erase FDR’s vision and return to an age when nothing was protected from the rich and powerful.

They’ve got their maps out. They’re looking for cracks. And they’re coming for the monuments again.

This morning the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration is quietly moving to open at least six national monuments to mining, oil, and gas development. This is not a review. This is not a trial balloon. It’s the latest move in a calculated campaign to dismantle public land protections at scale, using a fabricated “national energy emergency” as legal cover.

Among the targets: Baaj Nwaavjo near the Grand Canyon, Chuckwalla in California, Organ Mountains in New Mexico, Ironwood Forest in Arizona, and, of course, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase in Utah — the two monuments Trump already tried to carve up last time he was in office.

It’s a rerun with higher stakes. Because this time, they’ve got a real strategy.

The Interior Department is analyzing geological surveys right now to see which pieces of protected land contain uranium, lithium, oil, or rare earths. Once they find enough of a resource, they’ll redraw the boundaries of the monument around it — cut out the core of the thing, and tell the courts it was all perfectly legal.

And here’s the sick genius of it: they’re counting on environmental groups to sue. And who could blame them? This is theft in broad daylight. Of course people will fight back. Of course they’ll go to court to stop it. But that’s the trap.

Because every lawsuit becomes an opportunity, not just to delay the impending damage, but to hand this administration exactly what it wants. A clean shot at the Supreme Court and the death knell for the Antiquities Act.

The Case They’ve Been Waiting For

Chief Justice John Roberts has all but begged for a case like this to reach the Supreme Court. He and his conservative allies are itching to kill the most powerful conservation law in American history.

The Antiquities Act is how Theodore Roosevelt saved the Grand Canyon from mining. It’s how Jimmy Carter protected much of Alaska, forcing the passage of ANILCA, perhaps the single greatest act of conservation in human history. It’s how Bill Clinton gave us places like Grand Staircase, which millions now visit as a recreation paradise. Over and over, it’s safeguarded sacred Indigenous lands, fragile wildlife habitat, and landscapes that later became full-fledged national parks. This law is the reason we still have so many of the places we love.

And if the court gets what it wants, that era is over. No more large-scale designations. No more desperately needed protections. No more future national parks. Only postage stamps, if that.

This is Not About Oil or Minerals

Let me be clear: his isn’t really about oil or mining. Many of these lands don’t have deposits worth developing. Trump and some of his cabinet may themselves believe this is about jobs, or righting some imagined wrong of federal “overreach,” or enriching their donors. But the truth is darker, older, and far more strategic.

This is the result of a decades-long campaign by people like the Koch Brothers, by the oil lobby, by billionaire ideologues like Harlan Crow and their network of think tanks, judges, and policy shops. Their goal is to erase the government’s ability to stand in the way of corporate plunder.

This didn’t start with Trump or Reagan. It started the moment Franklin Roosevelt pulled the country out of the Great Depression, passed the New Deal, and rewrote the social contract, not just in America, but for much of the democratic world. Europe's postwar safety nets, labor protections, and environmental laws owe their DNA to FDR. And the ultra-wealthy never forgave him for it. They saw him as a traitor to his class. And they’ve spent generations trying to dismantle everything he built.

This isn’t just about shrinking government. It’s about reversing the entire postwar liberal order. It’s about rolling back the idea that government has any obligation to protect the public good – or the public lands.

And the Antiquities Act is just another obstacle in their way. Because it reminds us that not everything is for sale. That some things belong to all of us. That some places should endure, unspoiled, for generations we’ll never meet.

They want to destroy that idea. They want to make sure no president can ever again stand up to the fossil fuel industry or the land barons or the billionaire class. That no future leader can ever say, “this place stays wild.” And they’ll do it under the banner of “freedom.”

But as Jimmy Carter so aptly warned in his Crisis of Confidence speech, that kind of freedom is a lie. “Down that road,” he said, “lies a mistaken idea of freedom: the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others.” That’s what this is. Not policy. Not energy. Just the raw, predatory instinct to dominate. The same instinct behind Elon Musk’s depraved attacks on public servants, not because they’re corrupt, but because they aren’t. Because they serve without greed. Because they can’t be bought and bent to his will.

But where Musk is loud and brash, this deeper movement, the one now unfolding across our public lands, doesn’t shout. It creeps. No press release. No public debate. Just leaked memos, boundary maps, and backdoor legal maneuvers. A well-planned campaign of theft, moving fast before anyone can stop it, dismantling protections we once thought untouchable, and removing obstacles we never imagined could fall.

A Race Against Time

Environmental groups will sue. They have to. And if they’re very smart, and just a little lucky, they might succeed in running out the clock. They might keep some of these boundary revisions tied up in court long enough to delay the worst outcomes. In the best-case scenario, they might block a few of them outright, or keep the whole scheme from ever reaching the Supreme Court.

But even that might not be enough.

Just this week, the Interior Department quietly issued an emergency permitting order designed to fast-track drilling and development on public lands. No real environmental review. No waiting. No warning. The goal is to bulldoze ahead before the lower courts have a chance to stop them from clearly violating NEPA, the ESA, and other longstanding federal laws. The goal is to make the destruction irreversible.

What Can We Do?

There are no easy victories here. Only the painful truth that battles will be won and lost and real damage will be done. But that doesn’t absolve us of our responsibility to bear witness. To speak clearly. To stand for something, even when the system is tilted, even when the odds are long.

As Lincoln once said:

“The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.”

This has never just been about winning. It’s about refusing to surrender the idea that some things belong to all of us. That the land, and the laws that protect it, aren’t just relics of the past, but promises to the future.

No, we won’t stop all of this. But we can make sure the country sees it for what it is. We can strip away the lies. We can push the truth into the light.

And we can remember, and remind one another, that the real spirit of America was never the right to take whatever you can. It was the responsibility to protect what cannot be replaced. To build a better life for our kids and theirs.

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