Back when I competed in high school debate, there was one surefire way to lose a round: argue that your opponent’s position somehow leads to Hitler. Everything, it turns out, in the hands of a high school debater, can lead to Hitler.
It takes Archibald and Featherstone only a few paragraphs in their recent op-ed to arrive at their Reductio ad Hitlerum. They claim, as I understand it, that if Utah accepts up to $1 billion in funding from the Trump administration to help save Great Salt Lake, then we are on our way down a slippery slope that weds “racial and environmental purity.” And, yes, they resort to Hitler and the Holocaust.
The Great Salt Lake is in crisis. Its decline threatens us all, regardless of our politics. If federal resources are available to help address the challenge, Utahns should be able to consider them on their merits without being accused of flirting with fascism.
Setting aside Hitler, I’m most struck by the authors’ call for unity – that saving the lake requires working together and avoiding division. Yet, I can imagine few things more divisive than drawing a line in the sand that puts the many dedicated scientists, academics, field ecologists and policy makers who favor desperately needed federal funding, on the side of “eco-fascism.” The unity we need will not come by dividing us into two camps: the good vs. the bad lake advocates.
I work at one end of the Great Salt Lake watershed. Our efforts to conserve water and protect water quality would be lost without the support of deep-red Republican state and federal lawmakers. Yes, Sen. John Curtis has provided significant support, but so have Reps. Owens and Kennedy. They, and all who want to roll up their sleeves and help save our watershed, are welcome in my foxhole any day. The watershed needs heroes in MAGA hats as much as those with rainbow flag-adorned homes in the Avenues. If saving Great Salt Lake becomes the exclusive domain of the ideologically pure, the lake is lost already.
Luke Peterson, executive director, Utah Lake Authority, Provo