Resistance Rangers at Effigy Mounds National Monument

"We, the people, need to stand up."

Mar 25, 2025

Photo by Van Garmon.

(note: Spencer Dirks and I will host our Iowa Revolution Subtack Live event at Deep Midwest; Politics and Culture, Wednesday, March 26, at Noon CT. If you are a subscriber you will get an email notification when we go live).

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk laid off approximately 1,000 staff who worked for the National Park Service and 2,000 new hires for the National Forest Service on February 14, 2025, in what some called the “Valentine’s Day Massacre.” Many other federal agencies were similarly impacted.

This is part of Trump and Musk's effort to downsize government by taking a chainsaw to governmental employees and private contractors, except for where they and their friends profit (e.g., Tesla and SpaceX).

Defenders of our national parks and public lands “warn that the layoffs will negatively impact the parks' ability to serve visitors and protect resources, especially during the busy season.”

Two district judges ordered the employees at at least 18 agencies to be reinstated, and some have been, yet their jobs are still at risk. The Trump administration is appealing.

NBC News reports if the jobs are lost, the result will be “chaos”:

NBC News spoke with 18 current and former employees from national parks and forests across the country. They described working on public lands as a dream job and joked that their low pay was offset by beautiful sunsets.

As their ranks diminish, park rangers say fewer employees could mean long entry lines, dirty bathrooms, and potentially unsafe conditions for hikers and campers during the busy tourist season.

“The lands are all still there, but there won’t be anybody to manage them. I’m afraid people will lose access if there’s no staff to maintain and operate the campgrounds, service the cabins, clean the bathroom,” said former forestry technician Kevin Farrell. “The public isn’t going to get served.”

Tall conical mounds at Effigy Mounds National Monument from the National Park Service Gallery.

May be an image of 2 people and text that says '개이에 EFFIGY EFFIGYMOUNDS MOUNDS NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL MONUMENT Headquarters eadquarters-VisitorCenter- Visitor Center Museum'

Brian Gibbs was fired along with thousands of other Federal employees from his “dream job” as an education park ranger at Effigy Mounds National Monument, as reported by my friend and fellow Iowa Writers’ Collaborative member Larry Stone in his coverage of a March 1, 2025 protest of the firings.

Brian’s Facebook post about his firing went viral. As of Monday afternoon, it had 15.6K comments and 236K shares. Here it is:

I am absolutely heartbroken and completely devastated to have lost my dream job of an Education Park Ranger with the National Park Service this Valentine’s Day.

Access to my government email was denied mid-afternoon and my position was ripped out from out under my feet after my shift was over at 3:45pm on a cold snowy Friday. Additionally, before I could fully print off my government records , I was also locked out of my electronic personal file that contained my secure professional records.

Please know and share this truth widely:

I am a father, a loving husband, and dedicated civil servant.

I am an oath of office to defend and protect the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic.

I am a work evaluation that reads “exceeds expectations."

I am the "fat on the bone."

I am being trimmed as a consequence of the popular vote

I am a United States flag raiser and folder

I am my son's "Junior Ranger" idol

I am of the place where I first told my spouse I loved her

I am a college kid’s dream job

I am the smiling face that greets you at the front door

I am your family vacation planner

I am a voice for 19 American Indian cultures

I am the protector of 2500 year old American Indian burial and ceremonial mounds

I am the defender of your public lands and waters

I am the motivation to make it up the hill

I am a generational cycle breaker

I am the toilet scrubber and soap dispenser

I am the open trail hiked by people from all walks of life

I am the highlight of your child’s school day

I am the band aid for a skinned knee

I am the lesson that showed your children that we live in a world of gifts- not commodities, that gratitude and reciprocity are the doorway to true abundance, not power, money, or fear.

I am the one who taught your kid the thrush’s song and the hawk’s cry.

I am the wildflower that brought your student joy

I am the one who told your child that they belong on this planet. That their unique gifts and existence matters.

I am an invocation for peace

I am gone from the office

I am the resistance

But mostly I'm just tired.

I am tired from weeks of being bullied and censored by billionaires

I am tired of waking up every morning at 2am wondering how I am going to provide for my family if I lose my job

I am tired of wiping away my wife’s tears and reassuring her that things will be ok for us and our growing little family that she's carrying.

Things are not ok. I am not ok. (This is the second time in under five years a dream job I worked has been eliminated. Now I may need to uproot my FAMILY again.)

Stay present, don't avert your gaze.

Until our paths cross down the trail,

Fare thee well.

Ranger Brian

On March 22, the Des Moines Register reported that Brian is back to work.

But we can’t relax. This is just the beginning and supporters of our public lands know our resistance must grow stronger.

Above is a video created by Van Garmon of the rally at Effigy Mounds on March 22. I first met Van at a protest in Des Moines called Veterans Against the Coup. His video of that event made my story more powerful, and I wouldn’t even have this story you are reading without his video here. Thanks, Van!

Van had a transcript, but I’m not going to post it here because the video is more powerful and I would love for you to watch it.

Scott Boylen and Birgitta Meade were the primary organizers. Scott is a 6th-grade science teacher at Decorah Middle School finishing his 19th year as a public educator. He speaks first in the video. Birgitta produced postcards and provided representative contacts and other support material. Brigitta is a retired science teacher.

I apologize that I don’t know the names of all of the dedicated people at the protest, but I thank you.

I did see Democratic State Representative Chuck Isenhart speak in the video. Thanks, Chuck.

Listen to the speakers. They are the helpers, the educators, and our mentors. They are fighting for our public lands as well as fighting for us, our children, and our grandchildren. Let’s join them.

The Trump assault on our public lands is just beginning, and we need to prepare for the worst-case scenario. If we prepare for the worst-case scenario and are wrong we will have still built community, and maybe stopped some of the atrocities. If we don’t prepare for the worst-case scenario, and it happens, it will be too late to do anything. Let’s join those who protest the Trump administration whenever we can and prepare.

Trump will use the deceitful Republican playbook that fools much of the American public by first saying government doesn’t work, over and over. They then say the private sector can do better, over and over. They then underfund the government, breaking it, and using the underfunding of government that Republicans made happen as a call to privatize it, which ultimately puts public resources in private hands.

It’s a scam that hurts us all placing corporations over people and the environment.

What’s the worst-case scenario?

Trump tries to privatize as much of our public lands as possible. There is an anti-public lands movement here in Iowa and across the nation. Iowa Republican leaders and the Farm Bureau see public lands as impediments to farming and oppose the acquisition of more public lands. For example, a bill was introduced this legislative session by Republicans that would prohibit the DNR from accepting land donations from not-for-profit organizations that obtained the land at auction.

Out west, there is considerable anti-public land sentiment that seeks to put public land into private hands for oil and gas production, ranching, mining, and logging purposes, among others.

And not coincidentally, on March 12, the Environmental Protection Agency announced: EPA Launches Biggest Deregulatory Action in U.S. History.

What could go wrong?

It will be a catastrophe where private corporations profit off of what were once public lands—our lands—in order to extract resources from them with little or no environmental regulation or consideration of the human impacts.

But there is hope. While Republican leadership cowardly follows every Trump command, our Republican friends, neighbors, and relatives don’t. They enjoy and use public lands as much as the rest of us, and out west people who hunt and fish are leading in protecting our public lands, regardless of party.

Which means that protecting our public lands should be a grassroots bipartisan effort. By environmentalists, hunters, birdwatchers, fishermen and women, and more.

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