Sunday's postcard, and the world of our children, for sale

May 19 2024

May 19, 2024

Twilight at Sheep Lake

A billion for the biosphere

There are scenes from Donald Trump’s ascendancy that are almost too surreal to re-visit. The theatrics tend to be garish, and his statements bizarrely comedic, as when he rendered his coronavirus advisers speechless by musing on live TV about shining light inside the bodies of infected people, or injecting “disinfectant” into their lungs.

On the more menacing side of the scale was the day in June 2020 when he responded to a police violence protest at the Capitol by unsuccessfully prodding a horrified Gen. Mark Milley—then the nation’s top military leader—to open fire on peaceful demonstrators. This was the same day he compelled Gen. Milley and other top advisors to join a hectic walk from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal church just so he could be photographed holding a bible in front of the church. You may recall he held the bible upside down. You may also recall that the Episcopal bishop said she was “outraged” by Trump’s use of the church as a political prop.

The prelude to these and other presidential antics borrowed a page from a 19th century medicine show. It was his July 21, 2016 speech accepting the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidency.

“I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people who cannot defend themselves,” Trump said. “Nobody knows the system better than me.” Here Trump paused for a few seconds to mug a mischievous smile for the cameras, and make a ‘what can I say’ gesture with his upraised hands. Then he finished the moment with this promise:

“Which is why I alone can fix it.” The delegates erupted with cheers.

It was all a tease, of course: a bombastic hustler—known for the easy grease of Trump University and other corruptions—was promising that his vast experience as a grifter would uniquely qualify him to crack down on cheaters and law-breakers. He would build a wall; he would lock up Hillary. Because he was wealthy, he wouldn’t need to beg others for money; wouldn’t have to be beholden to donors big or small. Millions of Trump voters bought into this notion—that Trump, because he was rich, was actually free to be an incorruptible champion for common people.

Time and bad behavior have eroded Trump’s fortune. The former president owes hundreds of millions of dollars in legal sanctions and attorneys fees. He also has a presidential campaign to fund, now that he’s secured the Republican nomination for 2024. He’s pushing the merchandise, including $200 Trump sneakers, and $100 Trump bibles.

But now he’s also trying to sell off our futures; more specifically our children’s future.

We know this from the Washington Post, and investigative reporters Josh Dawsey and Maxine Joselow, from a May 9th story under the headline: “What Trump promised oil CEOs as he asked them to steer $1 billion to his campaign” The substance of the story is that Trump hosted several of the the nation’s top oil company executives at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida last month. During the meeting one of the executives complained about “burdensome” federal environmental regulations, even though they’d spent $400 million lobbying the Biden Administration to cut the green tape so to speak.

From the Washington Post, 5/9/24

“Trump’s response stunned several of the executives in the room overlooking the ocean: You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House. At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.”

The Post’s reporting was independently corroborated, two days later, by POLITICO’s Ben Lefebvre who added important details, including the not-so-surprising development that the oil companies were already drafting executive orders for Trump to issue, assuming he wins the election and takes office, again, next January.