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What The Buffalo Can Teach Us About Facing Down Fascism
This uniquely American animal has behaviors that we can emulate in trying times
The American buffalo is endemic to North America having been observed in all 50 states at one time or another. It has two subspecies, the plains bison and the wood bison, the latter of which is one of the largest wild species of extant bovid in the world.
By the end of the 19th century, the buffalo had been culled from 60 million wild individuals to just 541 total across North America. Through a vast number of successful programs to revitalize it, the population has recovered to over 500,000 today.
The buffalo has several curious behaviors that have been observed though the centuries, some of which have become nearly mythical. One such is that buffalo herds run towards storms to minimize the amount of time they spend within them.
While this is largely unsupported by science, the buffalo does face storms when they encounter them. Other bovid herding animals, cows especially, run away from storms. This maximizes the amount of time they spend within rough conditions.
In an email to Snopes, Paul Story a professor of agriculture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison theorizes:
"A more plausible explanation is that they may face a storm more often than other animals because their heads and shoulders tend to be very well covered by fur."
This brings us to what happened this morning as Americans brace for a Trump administration which seems hell-bent on enforcing a fascist regime upon us.
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski from Morning Joe on MSNBC, who were extremely critical of Trump during the election, confirmed they went to Mar-a-Lago over the weekend to “do something different” in regards to their former sentiment:
“For those asking why we would speak to the president-elect during such fraught times, I would ask back: Why wouldn’t we?” Brzezinski asked viewers Monday morning, adding that the hosts realized “it’s time to do something different, and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump, but talking with him."
Trump also confirmed the meeting to Fox News:
"I received a call from Joe Scarborough requesting a meeting for him and Mika, and I agreed that it would be a good thing if such meeting took place," Trump said. "We met at Mar-a-Lago on Friday morning at 8:00."
Trump said the meeting was "extremely cordial."
"Many things were discussed, and I very much appreciated the fact that they wanted to have open communication," he said. "In many ways, it’s too bad that it wasn’t done long ago."
Keep in mind this is the same man who said press is “truly the enemy of the people”, “the enemy of the people”, and an “enemy of the American people”, so it’s not really surprising that pundits like Joe and Mika were critical of Trump in an effort to showcase how dangerous another 4 years with him as President could be to them and the country as a whole.
Their justification, that open lines of communication are necessary now that he’s elected, unfortunately rings rather hollow.
Professor John Murphy from the University of Illinois offered some insight to Politifact about how the Greeks regarded such rhetoric:
He said the phrase hints at someone "usually hidden, but always dangerous, dangerous in fact because they're hidden and sneaky."
"The ancient Greeks called phrases like this an ‘enthymeme’ or an argument completed by the audience," Murphy said. "If speakers can create participation, if we as the audience fill in parts of their argument, we're far more likely to be persuaded. … So, lots of different audiences can fill in lots of different enemies and therefore find many different reasons to vote Trump."
That vagueness also leaves room for Trump and other Republicans to "allow for denials when needed," he said.
So Trump can use this rhetoric sometimes in reference to the press, sometimes to his political opponents, sometimes to Democrats at large, and keep his followers galvanized against any and all perceived threats so there is always an “other” or dangerous foe they can rally against.
To his credit, Trump told Fox this morning that a free and open press is “vital” to Making America Great Again:
"In order to Make America Great Again, it is very important, if not vital, to have a free, fair and open media or press," Trump said.
However, when I read that my eyes rolled so hard I think I sprained something.
After spending the last decade doing all he can to attack, intimidate, and break the media machine, and with Elon Musk weaponizing his social media platform to limit the ability of people to view or share links to media at all, it’s clear that the Fourth Estate’s ability to hold Trump and his ilk to account is seen as a threat to Trump’s efforts.
Pair that with who Trump is choosing to surround himself in his Cabinet and it’s quite obvious that he doesn’t actually value a “free and fair” media, he values one that will suck up and defend him when things turn sour for Americans.
While this meeting between Mike, Joe and Trump is being presented, by them, as a meeting of the minds between opponents to introduce better dialogue between opposed viewpoints, it looks a lot like obeying in advance:
I do believe in open lines of communication and I do believe that a meeting of the minds between opponents is key to preventing a fall towards full-on fascism, we must still remember the ability to compromise that has been taken from us by an American political behemoth that has been super-charged with violent rhetoric and safeguarded by torrential disinformation is the direct result of Donald Trump and the people around him.
What’s coming is not simply a political administration that will cut taxes for the rich and dismantle the ACA (which would already be horrific). This group of people wants to completely and utterly change the underlying infrastructure of American institutions in ways that would take generations to recover from.
This brings us back to the buffalo.
The Snopes article I linked earlier offers some deeper insight into buffalo behavior during blizzards:
Whereas other ungulates, like cattle and horses, usually expose their backs to the direction wind is coming from, bison will face the storm to prevent "snow, ice, and cold air from blowing under their coats and thus becoming chilled," according to the Canadian Bison Association.
"When bison face into the storm (whether lying down, standing, or walking), they use the forward-facing, more dense part of their hair and hide for insulation against the cold. Those long guard hairs help to wick away any moisture from their skin and help to limit the effect of wind chill," Martin explained to Snopes.
That is from Jeff Martin a buffalo specialist and professor at South Dakota State University.
The point is, buffalo use their strength to face storms head on because they are uniquely built to do so. When things get bad, really bad, they lean on what they’re built to do in order to survive and thrive.
Our free press is similarly uniquely built to call out, rail against, and shout down those who would abuse their power to harm Americans. The Constitution begins with these unique powers for a reason: it’s meant to be used, especially in trying times like the ones we face right now.
If former critics of Trump want to now open lines of communication? I think that’s a fine idea. We must heal this divide between us in order to progress. But when that action also results in a softening of the rhetoric and a reluctance to call out abuses of power? That’s when we have a problem.
We’ll see how Joe and Mika behave moving forward, but for me I’m going to face this blizzard head on.
I hope you’ll join me.