Good morning! Nature has a long article titled “How Trump damaged science — and why it could take decades to recover”, and everyone should read it.
The US president’s actions have exacerbated the pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 people in the United States, rolled back environmental and public-health regulations and undermined science and scientific institutions. Some of the harm could be permanent.
It goes through some of the areas Trump has damaged: climate science has been deeply compromised, the environment has been thrown open to destruction, the pandemic is ravaging the country, and he’s been closing the doors to international collaboration and has been dismantling our international reputation. It doesn’t even touch on the fact that he’s packing the judiciary with science deniers, or his dangerous enabling of racists.
Yet here we are, seriously considering re-electing this corrupt vandal back into office where he can do even more damage. Some of his terrible decisions are going to take decades to repair if they’re reparable at all, if he gets four more years we can just forget about any delusion of leadership in science, or of having any kind of technological edge. It’ll all just be…gone.
Trump is definitely the wrong president for this crucial moment in history but Hansen’s predictions about climate made in the 80s have been shown to be more or less correct meaning that politicians of almost all flavors are to blame. It is just that we have 10 years or so to make significant progress and neither Biden nor, especially, Trump are up to it.
A new administration will have to spend much of its time repairing the damage of the past four year. Then, in 2024, the yahoos will be screaming that everything is (still) so messed up we need to throw them out. Very short memories.
I’ll take a slim chance over no chance any day. Given that, there is only one choice this year. As for 2024, I’ll wait to see what things are like then rather than put on my magic psychic hat to predict the future.
In 2017 The RNC had The House, The Senate, and the White House. They had the power to do whatever they wanted and instead of doing anything to stem climate change, improve education, ease poverty, or make the world a safer place for the average citizen, they passed tax cuts for the rich and partied on as if the world wasn’t on fire. They spent two years using every trick in the book to secure power in the future because power is all they care about. 2020 has proven it’s power they can’t be trusted with.
@2
That’s how conservatives have always ruled in democratic nations (or, like the US, nations with the pretense of democratic institutions). When they’re in power they mess things up so bad that when they’re out of power the replacing leadership can’t fix things, then run on campaigns about how nothing is better under rival leadership.
I agree completely with kome@5. I should start keeping track of how often that happens.
I have been watching this precise game play out since I’ve been paying attention.
That’s the main reason I was a NEVERTRUMPER from the get go! ( aside from the fact that I always thought that he was a selfish abuser of women even in the late 80s when other people still liked him ) . This is despite the fact that I’m both female and Black . Those just gave me additional reasons to think he was too stupid to be in office
One of the ultimate failures of a nation that consistently switches between political ideologies is that working on climate change or racial equity or any of the other myriad issues our nation faces can and will be reversed once power changes hands. After the Iran deal how can any foreign nation expect the US to keep their promises if the next president decides to break them? Covid 19 has been a test of the US, not just the president but of common citizens, and we’ve failed.
Trump is also doing miracles with regards to EU relations. One of the successor candidates for Merkel is on the record stating that EU-US relations won’t survive four more years of Trump.
And how the current crop of EU politicians and diplomats think about Trump is summed up quite succinctly in this editiorial: https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-eu-fear-and-loathing/
some where I get the impression that “we” think it is only this old fool and lier that is responsible for all of the problems, might be from some who are quick to deflect any criticism by finding all the faults with current rivals.
That is a stupid thing to say as far as addressing the problems goes but it does side tract any constructive arguments about the problems however.
none of the current problems are new nor are they at all unexpected. humans have been stumbling on in our ignorance one step ahead of disaster ever since we started farming (maybe even before that). None of them have single simple foolproof solutions either all have multi-pal interconnected causes.
Sure a good start would be to stop pouring gasoline on the fires but it will take more after that to put them all out.
uncle frogy
brightmoon@7 By the 1980s, it was already clear that Trump was a buffoon and shameless self-promoter pretending to be a brilliant businessman. The fact that he rode his flim-flam all the way to the White House is as much an indictment of a large part of the US electorate as it is of him (I mean, what else would he do, given the opportunity?).
It’s also true that he was never all that popular, would have lost the electoral vote in 2016 under only slightly different circumstances (e.g. minus Comey’s last minute interference), and lost the popular vote by a convincing margin. He really had better lose this time around or we’re just done with as a nation. I think it may already be too late, but that doesn’t mean I want to hasten the end.
Both Nature and “Nature” indict Trump.
@12 Nature abhors a vacuum of human decency.
This is going to be an issue. Even if Biden wins and the Senate flips and America steps back from fascism, everybody will be waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sensible people will wait until we see who comes after Biden, before making any commitments.