The DR has commented extensively on the inclination by millions of Americans to view Trump’s election and subsequent demeanor as no more or less than his predecessors. This mindset relegates all of the various fires this President starts and pours gasoline on as simply his unique skill set, and accuses those who call out Trump as a wholly abnormal and even existential threat to the national interest of divisive, even seditious partisan hysterics.
As the mid-term national elections approach it has become clear the GOP will rely heavily on this outlook, with words like “mob“ and “arsonists” being bandied about in ads and debates against Democrats. The notion that, despite a historically strong economy, unhinged sufferers of “Trump derangement syndrome” respect no bounds in their obsession to bring down a duly elected POTUS, appears to be what the GOP will hang it’s hopes on to maintain majorities in both chambers. Nothing to see here, ignore the man behind the curtain. They are simply anarchical haters bent on avenging Hillary’s defeat. Sour grapes on steroids!
One of the breathtaking tendencies of Trump’s GOP, buoyed hourly by Fox /AM, are full-throated declarations that established facts are actually controversial debates, or even worse, myths cultivated by a partisan media. Nowhere is this more on display than with Climate Change. It’s a certainty that, were one to ask 1000 people whether or not the sun rises in the east, 60 respondents would aver our star actually comes up in the west, roughly the same percentage of scientists who doubt man-made Climate Change, but more than enough for the Fox-fueled Republican base to grab ahold of.
Mad Hurricane Michael was super charged within 18 hours by a simmering Gulf of Mexico, the DC area experienced a record number of 80 degree days this year, historic wildfires are destroying swaths of western America, and record flooding is literally ending towns, but US policies now aim to kill previously established ways to address the crisis, labeling already inadequate initiatives job killing regulations any reasonable flat earther should want killed. Concern for preventing Waterworld is for the mob, common sense nihilists know it’s all a scam, which will be clearly confirmed with the next big snowstorm or cold spell.
Much of this denial, of course, caters to the overt corruption of monstrous dark money donors. However, it’s also option A when you desire a wretched core of support keep their eyes on the fear and grievance ball necessary to imbibe the divisions your political survival has always depended on. Diminishing thickness of polar ice masses doesn’t stand a chance against jailing Hillary or abasing Pocahontas.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports the world has 12 years to limit carbon emissions enough to prevent a point-of-no-return temperature rise which will seal our children’s fate, creating a weather purgatory that will reshape coasts everywhere, while dooming entire regions to drought and famine, spreading disease and general human misery on a dystopian scale. Needless to say, such a world will not exactly be fertile soil for freedom and democracy. Fox/AM, when it has mentioned the report, has been inanely derisive, merely lumping it with other aspects of the mob’s agenda, which is to say efforts to diminish Trump’s emerging status quo against constructive governance. Yet in the scheme of all things Trump, climate change denial rates less than a blink of the news cycle’s eye, such is the seemingly limitless spread of MAGA outrages competing for our attention.
Asked about the IPCC report, Trump dismissed it as part of an “agenda”. Boasting about how he courageously isolated the US from the rest of the globe by withdrawing from the Paris Accords has become a “promise kept” item routinely cited in Trump rally monologues. From Hugh Hewitt to Mark Levin, Mitch McConnell to GOP Governors of states decimated by hurricanes and wildfires alike, Republicans view disdain for established climate science as synonymous with profiles in courage, a stand against environmental kooks, mob members in good standing.
Of course, Mother Nature is nonpartisan, and does not tolerate being snubbed. Indeed, she has been demonstrating how tough life can become if her requirements are not met. It’s hard to see how any responsible public servant can ignore their duty to do all possible to lessen the wrath we have suffered through recently. Yet the entire GOP is doing just that. Worse, it attacks any sort of activism on the issue as radical impulses, part and parcel of the mob mentality opponents of Trumpie candidates nationwide share and promise to impose on MAGAites everywhere should they prevail in November. The clock is ticking, but America is consumed with many other fronts, not the least of all its survival as a democratic concern. Mobs are easily distracted that way.