005 – Trump’s Gutless Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord (an editorial)

So despite his supposed waffling during these past 24 hours, Trump has now officially pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord.  Well, at least Steve Bannon can check an item off of his Presidential to do list besides the theft of the Supreme Court seat.

First, let me say that in the long run, I see Trump’s move to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord as a positive on a number of fronts.

• It clearly demonstrates Trump’s (not the United States’ as a whole) ignorance when it comes to climate change. Actually, I doubt that ignorance is even the issue.  I believe even Trump knows that climate change is real, but he is playing to his base as usual and ignoring the future for what are supposedly short-term economic benefits.
• It is only a temporary change, and mostly symbolic in my opinion. Every other nation in the world, except for Nicaragua and Syria, are signators of this accord.  If anything, I would suspect that this will harden the commitment of all other nations on this issue … and that should be a very good, albeit unintended result.
• I would suspect that under the next administration, our country’s commitment to the Climate Accord will even be stronger and will never again be seriously threatened.
• Given how Trump and most Republicans view climate change, to remain a part of the Climate Accord, and very likely do everything they could to undermine it, and certainly not to comply with it, would be worse than clearly showing their intent by leaving the accord.
• This may, in fact, turn out to be one of the most positive things that could have happened when it comes to discrediting those who deny the existence of climate change.

So, there I go again – trying to put silver linings on what otherwise seems to be a completely defenseless position.  But the tendency is too easy to simply be depressed and negative about all that is happening.  We have to see this as a temporary situation that we must endure and that will hopefully make us stronger as a nation going forward – post Trump.

But now back to Trump.  Just how completely gutless was it for him to meet with the G7 nations last week and, instead of just telling them that he was going to pull out of the accord, he said he would make his decision the following week after he returned home? Well, what a complete shock.  The consummate bully does not have the stones to tell them to their faces.  No, he’d rather set up one of his phony pep rallies somewhere and tell his cheering crowds about how everyone else in the world is wrong about climate change (except for Assad) and that only Trump, our savior, knows that climate change is a hoax designed to decimate the U.S. economy.

His recent meetings with NATO were disgusting.  His boorish behaviors, both physically and rhetorically, were unfortunately what we should simply come to expect.  In yet another gutless effort, he chose specifically not to endorse Article 5 – the heart of the NATO agreement.  He left it unspoken, regardless of what his multiple spokesmen said later about how “of course, we support Article 5”.  Trump deliberately gave NATO the threat that he was in fact very open to NOT supporting Article 5.  Of course, NATO deserved that because they did not come to our support after 9/11, right?  Oh, wait.  They DID.  A section of the Twin Towers was even standing right next to Trump when he delivered his speech to NATO.

His whole foreign trip was such an embarrassment.  Where was he most comfortable, and with whom, and whom did he treat with the most respect?  Why, Saudi Arabia of course – the ridiculously entitled royal family of one of the most fundamentally human rights oppressive countries on this planet.  Just another of the autocratic “governments” that he so clearly admires … and aspires to create himself.

Who have been the other beneficiaries of his praise since taking office – Putin, Erdogan, Duterte and, even to some degree, the “smart cookie” Kim Jong Un.

On the other hand, who has he treated with the least respect – the G7, NATO as a whole, and specifically the countries that should be our strongest allies, Germany and the U.K.  The only reason he seemed to support the U.K. at all was when it fit right in to his own personal self-interests – when Theresa May chastised the leaking of the name of the Manchester bomber.  Oh THAT is something he can relate to.  After all, the main problem is all the leaking that is going on over here – certainly not the content of the leaks.  Jail all those damned journalists – the fake media.

The problem with Watergate was certainly not the behavior of Nixon and his staff to cover up and obstruct justice.  Of course not.  The problem was Mark Felt, aka Deep Throat.

The more Donald Trump, and also by association and by their lack of action, the enabling members of the Republican party, show their true selves, and continue to promote Trump’s wholly cruel and indefensible agenda, the more it will become apparent just how wrong is the direction Trump is trying to take this country. As a nation, we need to show our total rejection of Trump – not just to ourselves, but to the rest of the world as well.