You can’t be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet.

Borland contrasts the political habit of suspicion—seeing hidden motives, “subversion,” or ideological threat—with the moral neutrality of the natural world. Trees, birds, squirrels, and violets simply exist and follow their natures; they do not participate in human factionalism or propaganda. The line implies that paranoia and ideological policing are uniquely human distortions, and that attention to nature can restore perspective by reminding us what life looks like without accusation and fear. It also suggests a critique of eras when loyalty tests and ideological conformity dominate public life, urging humility and sanity through contact with the nonpolitical, nonjudgmental world.