Come West, Mr. President.

I mean the real west. Way west of the Mississippi River, to the Middle of the West. Not the Mid-west, that’s what the people back East call everything from Ohio to Iowa, Illinois to Missouri.

I’m talking about the real interior west, from Eastern Oregon to West Texas, North Dakota and Kansas to Arizona and Eastern California. Many interesting towns and cities are there, like Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Denver, Flagstaff, Helena, Boise, Las Vegas, Barstow, Bishop, but more importantly, the vast beautiful distances in between. Great natural places, National Parks, enormous protected lands, and private property with cities, towns, villages, ranches, and farms where hardy, independent, highly diverse people working hard, raising and educating families, building lives for themselves by farming, ranching, and growing businesses that employ their families, neighbors and friends, and where they gather together to help family, friends and strangers when disasters and hardship come.

Look West. Stop looking back to the tired old ideas from European culture. Stop the cramped myopic thinking that life in the Northeast seems to breed. Come west and breathe in the fresh clean air. Clear your mind and look forward to new and powerful possibilities. Where individuals earn their own dream, not take an unearned part of someone else’s.

You and your staff would be wise to learn as much as you can about this region during the next two years. If I were you I would make many listening and learning trips to the many beautiful places and diverse peoples of the true West.

I’ve noticed that your administrations policies, practices and behavior exhibit a complete lack of understanding of this forty percent of our country. Not just the needs, wants and dreams of its people, but the joy of the wide open spaces, the peace and solitude of natural wonders, the self-esteem and personal satisfaction that comes from making what you need by forethought, quick wits, good sense, ingenuity and your own resources.

The shear space between places may frighten you big city folks in the beginning. In many places towns are a hundred miles apart. Some counties are nearly as large as eastern seaboard states, with the county seats nearly 200 miles away. I’ve been all over the very crowded Northeast through the Megapolitan from Boston to DC by roads. There’s never a place where you can’t see a home, or a business, or government facilities or a human planted tree, unlike the West. I’ve also driven to and around in all fifty states, and have walk around in every major city. Nothing in the Northeast or Chicago is anything like the real west.

You will see that the people of the inland west have almost no interest in the programs you, your administration and your congress seem to think are emergencies, or at least, so critically important they must be enacted without reasonable review, thoughtful discussion or even brief reflection upon unintended consequences. Frankly Sir, the only thing you’ve authorized so far that I support, is the shooting of pirates.

Mr. President, you should get to know the hopes, dreams, values, and experiences of the people of the interior west. You should listen to them tell there stories, see the things they’ve built, walk with them on their lands, feel the warmth of their homes and hearts, taste the aromas of their foods and hospitality, witness important events in their lives and cultures, and drink in the freedom of the vastness of their space, and their sense of place and purpose.

Then perhaps you will understand why some people seem to like you, but strongly disagree with your vision of our future.