Yet The Post reported Thursday that Ryan Zinke, Trump’s Interior secretary, formally recommended that the president adjust — but not abolish — these national monuments. Zinke released almost no details, so it is unclear how much he proposed scaling back these preservation zones. It is also unclear whether Trump will take his Interior secretary’s advice. But if he does, even a shrunken monument is better than none at all. On net, the region would still end up better protected.

AD

AD

Declining to end is equivalent to approving — except in the way the two actions are perceived. Rational or not, the question of whether a piece of land should be preserved changes after it has been cordoned off, even for just a few months, as in the case of Bears Ears. Facts on the ground change the way the public, the courts that will review Trump’s decision and perhaps even Zinke himself each approach the monuments question. This effect appears to have constrained Trump.

Republicans anticipated a similar effect as they fought the passage of the Affordable Care Act nearly a decade ago. Once extended, they warned, government benefits are very difficult to withdraw. They were right, and Trump, who insisted that repealing and replacing Obamacare would be “so easy,” was wrong. The Congressional Budget Office projected that GOP repeal-and-replace bills would toss millions of people off health-care coverage. The effort failed in the Senate. Those millions were just as deserving of health-care coverage before they had it as after they got it. Yet their coverage was hard both to advance and to rescind.

Trump has occasionally used inertia, too. For example, polls show public sympathy for his defense of Confederate monuments. As cities such as Charlottesville and New Orleans have removed statues of anti-American leaders such as Robert E. Lee, a Reuters/Ipsos survey released last week showed that twice as many Americans favor keeping such monuments as want them taken down. It is mind-boggling that Baltimore declined to remove monuments to Lee and Stonewall Jackson until a couple weeks ago. A statue of Roger Taney, the man responsible for the reprehensible Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, remained on the lawn of the Democrat-dominated Maryland Statehouse until just this month.

AD

AD

On the other hand, it seems inconceivable that the countless cities and towns across the nation hosting such monuments would all choose to establish them now, rather than merely preserving what they already have. By the same token, now that some have been removed, it will be very hard to ever put them back up.

Human beings have a distinct bias toward the status quo. We fear loss more than we seek an equivalent gain. This can stifle needed change. Monuments that can stand for nothing but slavery or secession should have been removed years ago. It should not have taken more than a half-century to create a (near) universal health-care system. Wasteful subsidies, tax breaks and duplicative programs should not remain entrenched in law.