President Trump announced Thursday that he will withdraw the United States from participation in the Paris climate accordThe asshole did it.
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I bet his 63 million voters, including two frequent commenters in the pre-election years, are orgasmic with this premature withdrawal.
It is not only the global climate change, about which I have blogged enough, that worries me. This decision by the worst ever human being will mean that in the international politics of give and take, well, most of the rest of world will begin to work around the US. And when we go knocking on their doors, they will flash their middle fingers to reciprocate trump's gesture.
The US as the "leader of the free world" no more.
Fareed Zakaria on Trump and climate accord: This could be the day the US resigns as leader of the free world https://t.co/TTwMoMjqEn— CNN (@CNN) June 1, 2017
I wish people would understand something that many serious people, and the insignificant me, have been saying ever since trump became a candidate: most of his policies are in tune with what most of the GOP is all about. In this context, it is not merely trump who denies global climate change and the human causation of it--that is pretty much the mainstream GOP position. trump just happens to speak crudely and plainly, whereas the "establishment" leaders use appropriate euphemisms!
Oh well ... I feel so exhausted. It is not even five months into the asshole's presidency.
2 comments:
Zakaria is right. You are relinquishing the leadership position. More importantly, the USW is being seen as completely untrustworthy, simply because one President can overturn agreements reached with previous President. Its a little bit like how the British declined as a global leader.
I actually believe that on purely the climate issue, this isn't a big deal. Companies and states in the US will do their own thing and many will follow cleaner policies simply because there will be a market for it. Its highly unlikely that the coal belt in the US will come back again. Other countries are unlikely to abandon the cause. Even India, the most shaky member will stay and carry on whatever it committed to do because a) in the rest of the world its now the done thing to say screw America and b) everybody is realising in their self interest that its the wise thing to do.
The greater danger as you have rightly observed is the standing of the US. Nobody of any standing - read Europe and China and one day India will do anymore any deals with the US.
I am not sure Trump's policies are GOP policies. Firstly he hardly has a coherent policy. Secondly, on many fronts his policies are directly against GOP orthodoxy - schmoozing with Russia, spending on infrastructure, etc . On climate change however, the whole of the GOP is at fault.
Most of what trump says is pretty much what most of what the GOP says. Or, in case of infrastructure or trade, for instance, it is a minor tradeoff that most will live with. The Russia angle is the only real thing that troubles many Republicans.
And, yes, when it comes to climate change and how to respond to it, the GOP has been on this exact path for ever.
Even a few years ago, I worried that the US was losing its shine--I even wrote op-eds on that topic. With trump, it is pretty much the beginning of the fall of the empire. The only hope is for a combination of things: impeachment before the year ends, then midterm sweeping away of GOP, and then a further Democratic consolidation in 2020. But, I am not sure if those will happen :(
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