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Trump Announces US Withdrawal From Paris Climate Accord (reuters.com)
It's official. President Donald Trump announced today that the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, following through on a pledge he made during the presidential campaign. Trump said the Paris agreement "front loads costs on American people. In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris accord or an entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States," the president said. "We are getting out. But we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that's fair. And if we can, that's great." Trump said that the United States will immediately "cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris accord" and what he said were "draconian financial" and other burdens imposed on the country by the accord.
This means that Elon Musk will leave Trump's Business Advisory Council. On Wednesday, Musk said he did "all he could to advise directly to Trump." (Update: Elon Musk is staying true to his words. Following the announcement, Musk tweeted, "Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.")
Twenty-five companies, including Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google, HP, Microsoft, Salesforce, Morgan Stanley, Intel signed on to a letter which was published on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal today arguing in favor of climate pact.
Update: Former president Barack Obama said the U.S. "joins a small handful of nations that reject the future."
Also, the New York Times points out that despite Trump's public statements, the U.S. can't officially leave the Paris climate agreement until 2020.
This means that Elon Musk will leave Trump's Business Advisory Council. On Wednesday, Musk said he did "all he could to advise directly to Trump." (Update: Elon Musk is staying true to his words. Following the announcement, Musk tweeted, "Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.")
Twenty-five companies, including Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google, HP, Microsoft, Salesforce, Morgan Stanley, Intel signed on to a letter which was published on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal today arguing in favor of climate pact.
Update: Former president Barack Obama said the U.S. "joins a small handful of nations that reject the future."
Also, the New York Times points out that despite Trump's public statements, the U.S. can't officially leave the Paris climate agreement until 2020.
Between California regulations, consumer-driven conservation, the increasing market for electric cars, and the price drop in renewable energy, aren't Americans on track to seriously cut CO2 emissions anyway?
Finding God in a Dog
Blue states should get together and promise internationally to try to keep the spirit of the agreement alive in their respective states. While it may not be constitutional to make formal agreements, at least token pledges can be given.
Time to leave the troglodytes in the dust; they will drag us backward if we let them set the agenda. And they are an embarrassment to the USA.
Table-ized A.I.
There's some analysis suggesting that the US being out of any agreements like this will allow the other 194 countries that "believe" in science to be more aggressive on emission targets, and that on net might be a positive result. The US could then get its act together if and when we stop electing Republican idiots, which could happen as early as 2020.
God, to think DT makes GWB look intelligent and wise....
Can't really blame a guy for following through with his campaign promises.
You can blame all the people that voted for him though. When climate change costs your nation money, you ought to sue the US and others for damages. I suspect international courts in 20 years will be really receptive to the idea when willful ignorance played such a big part in the US's choices around climate change denial.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Yeah, fuck the future! Fuck the planet! Fuck humanity! Our industrial corporate overlords need moar profits now! Management level and the politicians sucking up to them can build their bunkers with drugs and hookers to be safe in while the rest of the world goes to shit!
Kind regards,
the GOP, represented by the Donald who just Trumped your ass.
Put up sanctions against us. Seriously. It would be entirely justified and then some. The world puts sanctions on countries for merely looking at certain countries the wrong way, and we're basically attacking all of you, and all your children, and all your children's children.
The areas of the country that realize climate change will be hurt by such sanctions, sure, but we didn't do enough to prevent this. Plus, it'll punish the red states that gleefully thumb their noses at the rest of you more. Deserved.
If you put sanctions on us and refuse to buy shit from us or trade with us, that drives down the amount of carbon we put in the air. It'll hurt us now, but that's better than letting us ruin shit.
Sanctions didn't really stop the spread of communism, despite many decades of trying, but I'm willing to bet that it could be effective in trying to prevent the spread of climate change.
Please, fuck us up economically. It's the only way we'll change and we deserve it now.
Can't really blame a guy for following through with his campaign promises.
Why not? He said "piss off" to his constituents on plenty of other topics, such as Nafta or his hard stance on China. This is simply the willful ignorance of a single man. Individual voters can at least say they voted for him for other reasons and climate change wasn't a litmus test for them, but Trump has no excuse.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Trump Will Announce US Withdrawal From Paris Climate Accord
I'm not surprised, It's the one big thing he can do quickly to fulfil a campaign promise and stick it to the 'libruls' where he does not have to deal with congress, the constitution or the judicial system. He can just pull out of the Paris Accord and declare a glorious victory, temporary balm for a bruised ego. Meanwhile China stands by on the sidelines with plans for a $900 billion fund to invest in overseas energy and infrastructure projects and watches approvingly as the US shoots it self in the foot by abandoning any leading role it may have in the development of clean energy tech. Same for Germany which is in the middle of doing the exact opposite of what Trump plans to do and will along with China probably be a world leader in renewable energy tech if by the time Trump is done takign a machete to the US clean energy tech sector. So, folks! It's amateur hour at the White House for the 132nd day in a row!
you have to admit that he generally tries to do what he promises...
Not ... particularly. I voted for neither Trump nor Clinton. But I would hardly call Trump one who "does what he promises." Or even "tries."
How many times did he say he was going to drain the swamp, again?
Then again, he promises so much that I suppose almost anything he does is "trying" to fulfill a promise. :)
Let's be honest: the next time a Democrat is president they will probably either join the Paris accords, or adopt policies that align with the accords anyway. This is what American has turned into: our politics are so partisan that pretty much the first thing a new party administration does when they take office is to overrule or counteract policies of the previous administration (except of course for policies that erode away our rights in the name of "national security"). America is running around in circles (and wasting trillions of dollars in the process) while the rest of the world passes us by. And the sad thing is a lot of Americans are cheering as it happens.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Trump desperately needs to hand the nationalists that put him in the White House a victory. Any victory. This is it.
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And if a President doesn't follow through on his campaign promises? He's still attacked.
I'm glad I'm not President, half the [unreasonable] people would be pissed off one way or another.
But in cases like this, you will piss off half the unreasonable people and 100% of the reasonable people.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
In this case, though, it'd be reasonable to actually make it cost them. Pollution does cause significant monetary expenses, so what about imposing an import duty on every country that doesn't at least try to fix the problem? It also causes a massive number of deaths worldwide -- estimates wary wildly as it's hard to define how directly a death must be related to be blamed on pollution, but by a rough calculation I get around one death per coal plant per two days. It's a gross oversimplification (no account for the power plant's size, merely count of them), but if you want a sort-of plausible sound bite:
By keeping a coal plant open two days, you are a murderer!
Thus, if the US refuses to sign at least an agreement of good will, it is reasonable to put them to account for all these deaths. A war to topple a bloody dictator might be arguable, using coal is not.
On the other hand, people are insanely unreasonable when comparing sources of energy. For example, all the "Greens" call nuclear (even fission) the devil, when it's the very least harmful energy source, even compared to those holiest of holy "renewables".
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
"Draining the swamp" means 5 specific promises related to lobbying, and he's enacted them for the executive branch (no lobbying after executive branch service for 5 years, no lobbying for a foreign power ever). The rest require the legislature, and they're working on that.
You can't just make up whatever you want "Draining the swamp" to mean and then say he's not doing it. "Trump didn't appoint only lesbian eskimo transmidgets to the Supreme Court! So much for 'Draining the Swamp,' huh?!?!"
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
All Trump is managing to do is alienate our allies. If he is dismantling anything it is America. The rest of the world, which is 96 % of the world's population will go on without us if necessary.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Sanctions against US, that will inevitably will lead to retaliation, will be God's gift to Russia and China. There won't be Western Civilization left standing when this all plays out.
Here's another idea, why not keep our money and spend it on developing natural gas and reducing the cost and danger of nuclear by undoing the regulations that prohibit fuel rod recycling. That would do more for reducing CO2 emissions than throwing our dollars into a U.N. black hole ever will.
You unveil your intense ignorance with each sentence. There are no costs mandated by the Paris Climate Agreement. It was non-binding and had no ramifications if we didn't uphold our end of the bargain. It is hard to not just spout expletives when responding to your comment since it shows such an immense lack of knowledge and the belief your ignorance should be considered in public policy.
No part of the US Climate Action Plan included sending money overseas. It was about investing in industries and technologies so we could reduce our damage to the planet while being leading innovators in the fastest growing energy sector in the world. Stop reading Breitbart and get your head out of your ass.
If any of your proposed solutions could reduce carbon emissions while not damaging the environment even more in other ways, then sure they should be considered. The Paris Climate Agreement didn't stop us from building nuclear plants or developing natural gas.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
The US is basically surrendering its global leadership. It will probably rejoin any climate accords within the decade, but it will cease to have the ability to negotiate their terms. Trump is the harbinger of the US's eclipse. The EU and China will take over the global leadership, for better, and sadly, for worse.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The Paris Accord is non-binding. Agreeing to a binding resolution would have required the approval of the Senate, which the Obama administration knew wasn't going to happen with Republicans in control. Meanwhile, the U.S is abandoning coal and using more natural gas, pursuing more electric cars, more wind and solar energy, etc.
Pulling out of the Paris Accord is nothing more than a meaningless gesture to appease the hard-core rightwing factions who are opposed to anything and everything that might actually be good.
reasonable = people who agree with me
When 100% of the countries invited to be part of the Paris Climate Agreement felt the agreement was either worth signing or didn't go far enough to curb emissions, its safe to say you can objectively say what the reasonable opinion is. There are no other world leaders ignorant enough to do what Trump did, we have the worst one. Even North Korea ratified it.
You are objectively wrong on this one.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
It's hardly good will. China sees the US retreating into populist stupidity, and sees its chance to reach for the brass ring of major power status. Russia, no matter how much Putin puffs his chest, is a power in a long decline, and now the US, under possibly the stupidest man to ever inhabit the White House, abandons leadership. China and the EU both now have a path to basically running the world.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You mean like hiring Goldman Sachs alumni as economic advisors, into the Treasury department, and into the SEC?
Yep. Let's let the wolves watch the sheep....
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
This treaty was never a treaty. It was an agreement between Obama and the other countries. If he wanted anything he did to last he should have gone through the Senate as the constitution dictates. I realize there would have been pushback to say the least by the GOP but you don't get to ignore the constitution just because it is inconvenient.
Their bad pollution is why they are starting to take leadership on this. It's that, or riots.
Someone had to do it.
And remember: The leaders of some of those countries have degrees in Science
(unlike King Stupid).
No sig today...
Here's hoping...
We know what will happen though, King Stupid will simply slap a double-tax on the rest of the world.
Let him try it, I say. I'd love to see the next generation of Americans working in shoe factories for $1 a day while the rest of the world makes their own machinery.
(America's biggest export right now is machinery).
No sig today...
And what do you imagine Canada and Mexico are thinking right now? Canada already has a free trade agreement with the EU, and is seriously looking at a trade agreement with China. Mexico certainly can't be far behind. In the short term both countries will likely suffer from any trade reductions with the US, but both have known for some time that they need to look further afield for trade agreements. And all future trade agreements are going to have much more rigorous climate and environment components. By the time the US regains its senses, it will be a follower, and will have little choice but to abide by what the EU and China decide, and what they will be deciding is that if you want any favorable market access, you're going to have to demonstrate emissions reductions.
In the short term, I'm thinking a number of major states, in particular California (the sixth largest economy in the world) will have to try to make up for Washington's stupidity. If the US is lucky, the "unofficial" climate agreements California manages to push through may be enough to make up for what will be at least four years of simpering morons running the country, but there's only so much US states can do, and they cannot enter any major international agreements. In the end, states like California will basically have to abide by whatever Paris or future agreements require, with no formal ability to negotiate future agreements. In essence, California will cease to be a strong economy that can use the muscle of the United States of America to gain some sort of preferential treatment, and will simply have to abide by whatever the climate bloc decides.
The EU-China bloc represents 2 billion people and a GDP of over 31 trillion dollars, as compared to the US's roughly 321 million people and 18 trillion per annum. Simply put, the US, rather than being a significant player in future economic agreements (because, as I said, climate change will be part of all future agreements), will end up having no international voice. It's phenomenal to imagine that anyone in Washington, even if they somehow believe God makes CO2's physical properties different because Jesus loves oil and coal, believes this is a good idea. It's absolutely phenomenal that the fossil fuel industry, with the value of its products steadily declining, could have such a strong hold over the US government. It really does appear that the US is run by a mentally retarded person, enabled not necessarily sociopaths, but by pure idiots. If they impeach that halfwit, they will have to replace him with a man just as equally shortsighted. The Republican Party surely must know at this point just what ruin they are wreaking on the country they claim to love. They are either utterly impotent, or utter fools.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Nuclear is almost the expensive way to produce power there is. What is this obsession with nuclear? It only makes sense when you're prepared for massive amounts of taxpayer subsidy.
Nuclear is expensive in a large part due to the cost of fuel and waste handling. Both costs can be reduced dramatically by implementing fuel rod recycling like is done in most other countries. Currently we take the "spent" rods (which are still 95% fissible material) and dissolve them in giant acid vats, vitrified, and must be treated as highly radioactive waste for 1000's of years. Instead, we could be recycling them and producing only low-grade non-radioactive waste. We don't because of nonproliferation treaties, not a lack of capability. France uses nuclear as it's primary power source and already recycles its fuel.
This change, combined with safer and more efficient modern reactor designs could make nuclear far cheaper than it is today. Good luck reaching high penetration of wind/solar without a baseload power source. Nuclear seems like a good option given it doesn't directly emit CO2.
http://www.anl.gov/articles/nuclear-fuel-recycling-could-offer-plentiful-energy
Oh fuck off.
LOL sad. Also, not an argument.
massive amounts of taxpayer subsidy
Taxpayer subsidies are bad? Every significant form of renewable energy has been and/or is being supported by all manner of subsidy. Somehow it's only a problem for nuclear/fossil fuels...
And you're badly wrong about the cost of nuclear power. France, for instance, pays less for electricity than every other major European economy because of it's large and well operated nuclear energy system [1]. France also emits far less carbon than its neighbors; have a look at the live map: https://www.electricitymap.org...
[1] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/s... c/KWh 2016: France: 0.089 Germany: 0.149 UK: 0.128
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
By keeping a coal plant open two days, you are a murderer!
And you wonder why there's an anti-environmental, anti-science backlash? How about we stop with the hyperbole and present the facts as is, without embellishment or absurd scare tactics? How many ridiculous now-provably-false doomsday scenarios were proclaimed over the past 40 years? Did you not think this would undermine public opinion at some point? Well, congratulations. People no longer trust scientists!
A few articles down, some undoubtedly well-meaning activist wrote about how we're "scorching the planet". I swear, many environmentalists are their own worst enemy. They could turn the public against a "be kind to kittens and puppies" campaign. Maybe if we acted like adults and engaged people with reason, rather than lashing out at them for being a basket of deniers, we could make some progress. Trump is simply a reaction to nonsense like this.
Want to know how to appeal to Republicans and conservatives? Focus on the economics of a home-grown energy industry with long-term sustainability. Highlight the usefulness of energy independence, and the national security implications of reducing oil imports from countries who really don't have the US interests at heart. Argue that conserving our own valuable oil reserves for strategic emergencies or critical infrastructure makes more long term sense than burning it unnecessarily, and how more electric vehicles will help to further reduce smog and particulate emissions in major cities. Point out how this will be a long-term investment in our national infrastructure and create economic opportunities for technological exports. Remind them of the successful reduction in smog levels despite more cars on the road than ever, thanks to improved technology and tougher regulations.
What not to do: focus on punitive carbon taxes as a magic solution, belittle your opponents, and make insane doomsday predictions with beyond-worst-case-scenario projected data that will inevitably not come to pass. Some of you are advocating outright economic warfare against the US. Yeah, that'll go over well with average folks.
There are lots of upsides to transitioning to carbon-neutral power technologies even without considering climate change, but realistically, it's going to take time to move our entire grid over to those. Rushing into things without lots of prototypes and refinement is just asking for economic disaster. At the same time, pushing too hard on the public creates a lot of unnecessary resistance to otherwise sound and reasonable policies. You can see that we're now moving backwards thanks to a populist backlash.
We're going to need broad support and consensus of not just scientists, but *everybody*, if we're going to make some real progress in this area.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Your point is that we should have honored the agreement by ignoring the agreement?
No, but no where in the agreement does it show which countries pay the $100 billion. If the US really didn't want to fulfill its obligations it could make other guesters, such as spending $100 billion ourselves in clean energy per year. Still kind of shitty that we wouldn't directly help developing nations not pollute as much as we did when we were growing, but at least we could say we are doing something.
By pulling out we are simply saying we don't care at all.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
that's what we're worried about. Yes, it has no force of law or actual requirements. It's a feel good treaty all around. That's what makes pulling out so bad. There's only one reason to pull out, and it's to say: Fuck You World. By pulling out we send a message that we're not willing to even consider working with the rest of the world.
CNN has an article describing how this could lead to a trade war. TLDR: Frustrated nations slap carbon taxes on imported goods because they're building with clean energy while we shamelessly pollute (which is much cheaper) and then Trump responds with his own tarriffs. Then it escalates from there and badda bing badda boom, recession/depression.
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Don't get to comfortable. According to the Constitution, you're #637 in the order of presidential succession. You may yet find yourself in the Oval Office.
I wish I could commit some felonies in order to keep myself out of the Oval Office, but that strategy appears to no longer work.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Not only is everyone else going to remain in your supposedly "bad deal" but China in particular is soon going to use it to turn the screws on the US. You fail to see the big picture here, that the "deal" isn't just about future emissions targets, it's about who gets to call the shots going forward, and the EU-China climate pact represents the largest trading and population group on the planet.
This idea that some people, like you, apparently have that Paris will fall part because the US backs out is not only just wrong, but utterly delusional. China, and likely now that Trump has gone out of his way to show his contempt for Europe, the EU as well, are going to use Paris and successor agreements to pummel the US.
And then you still have to factor in the ever-mounting costs to the US having to actual deal with the physical effects of AGW. Oil isn't dying fast enough to keep emissions, and consequently temperature increases, from royally fucking things over, so if China, the EU and everyone else that signs aboard has to pay a large proportion of the bill, then they are going to use the overwhelming economic clout of this new pact to make the US pay in every other conceivable way.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Sometimes I wonder whether some of Trump's actions are doing things that are what he believes are good for the country or whether he has just has a hard-on for destroying anything Obama enacted?
I can almost imagine Trump in a mental asylum scrawling 'I hate you Obama' on the walls, like a crazy man.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
All centers of power decline over time and replacements fill the void.
America has voted to be isolationist, anti-globalist, anti-science, pro-white supremacist, Islamophobic, batshit crazy Evangelical Christian, anti-immigration, anti-refugee and anti-business.
Blaming Trump is vacuous. We the People have spoken and it is what it is.
HRC had too much baggage; was Obama 2.0, and ignored the undereducated poor white trash voters.
As America continues to peg the meter to the right, she'll get what she deserves.
Power will now shift to China and India.
God rest (in peace) America.
It was a great ride.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
The whole planet was set to benefit, just like when we all banned CFCs which fixed the hole in the ozone layer.
Climate change is real, we have damaged the ozone layer and suffered for it. That's fixed now because of agreements like this.
Congrats. You've risen to a new height of being a complete fucking idiot.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
By keeping a coal plant open two days, you are a murderer!
And you wonder why there's an anti-environmental, anti-science backlash? How about we stop with the hyperbole and present the facts as is, without embellishment or absurd scare tactics? How many ridiculous now-provably-false doomsday scenarios were proclaimed over the past 40 years? Did you not think this would undermine public opinion at some point? Well, congratulations. People no longer trust scientists!
And somehow you got modded up to +5, even thought you did nothing to counter the argument other than emotional claims about "hyperbole". Did you even bother to do some back-of-the-envelope calculations? The facts seem to be actually as scary. Coal is this bad.
150000 people die daily. There's 6683 operating coal plants above 30MW worldwide. It is strongly debatable how many deaths can be attributed to pollution -- in China big cities there are claims it's 1/3 total deaths! China makes a good part of world's population and is about 50% urbanized, same as world's average. I don't know the methodology of the source I took the data from (or even remember the place), but their figure of 1/20 sounds like an underestimation to me. But let's take it at face value. Coal power plants have a massive share of pollution compared to other sources, not sure what's the share: for electricity generation it's 44% but I'd guess it's more for heating, steel production, etc. Let's round it to 1/2. That results in 1/40 deaths being attributable to coal, which is more than 1/44 required for the figure of one per two days per power plant.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
And it's beyond stupid, he took America away from the negotiating table. For a claimed deal maker not sitting at the table is about the stupidest deal you can make! Without the US at the table the rest of the world could decide to impose carbon tariffs on the US exports. You gain absolutely NOTHING by not participating, you can only lose.
Not being signed up to a treaty which (was signed illegally by the last President[1]) does not in any way mean that the US is doing nothing. Not only do we still have a fully functional EPA, but some of the toughest regulations in the world for clean air and water. Better still, if you listened to the whole speech by the President, you would have heard that he was already starting to negotiate a new treaty which is more fair for Americans. Specifically, US Tax payers were mentioned in the speech.
Why so many people believe it is so much easier to listen to hours of CNN and MSNBC interpreting the Presidents few minute speech than to listen to the source is astounding. Listen to or read the transcript for all you need to know, instead of relying on propagandists for their "opinion" of something instead of deciding for yourself based on actual facts.
[1] The President does not have the authority to sign treaties with foreign Governments. This is the job of the House and Senate. President Obama bypassed his legal authority by claiming this was not a treating and calling it an "accord". Wording in the agreement is exactly that of a treaty with multiple foreign Governments. If a Republican President had signed a similar agreement, Democrats would have yelled for impeachment (rightly so).
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Trump is just a narcissistic con-man who thinks he's a great deal-maker. He hasn't closed one single deal since he took office because running a country and managing foreign policy isn't like greasing a local zoning board so you can build a golf course. He's completely incompetent as a leader.
all empires eventually recede, Greek, Roman, Ottoman, UK - all got to a point where they thought they were safe and solid then an upstart came along and took the reigns. The US is just another economic power experiencing a start to its downturn in influence with certain individuals thinking it doesn't need anyone else.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
I hate to burst your bubble, but Democrats aren't going to take back Congress in 2018. Hell, Trump will probably be re-elected in 2020. And I am most emphatically not saying that because that's what I want. I hate Trump and the Republican party with a purple passion you cannot measure.
But the sad fact is that collectively, American voters are dumb as dirt. I mean, we're really, really stupid. Sure, there are a lot of good, smart people out there, but not nearly as many as idiots. I used to be hopeful and optimistic, but the 2016 election irrevocably changed that. We had a man running who literally said that he could get away with anything, including sexual assault, and who was a cultural icon of the greed and excess of our most decadent decade of greed and excess. People lined up in droves to vote for him.
And on the left? We still have a contingent of people, our own version of the Tea Party, who insist that Hillary Clinton is "just as bad," embracing weird conspiracy theories posited by the crazy branch of the right-wing, such as her "rigging" the primaries or deleting thousands of incriminating emails, things there has never been any evidence of her doing.
Some people (including Clinton herself) chalk all of these woes up to misogyny or Russian interference. Yeah, that had some impact. But personally, I chalk it up to a more basic truth: We Americans are collectively as stupid as they come. While most of the world praises intelligence and experience, we have an active disdain for it. When someone excels at something, we look for ways to take them down a peg because they're "elitist." Instead, we bow to the cult of Trump, where you don't have to be smart, motivated, and have a proven track record of getting worthwhile things done. You just have to have a larger-than-life personality and willing to say literally anything, even if it contradicts something you said two minutes ago. We'd prefer electing someone who's openly lying to our face because the person who's telling the truth must be hiding something nefarious.
I know, you're probably thinking that now that Trump has steered our boat straight down shit creek, people are finally waking up. I'll remind you that just a week ago, the people of Montana elected a man who literally physically and deliberately harmed another person because he was "sick and tired" of being asked questions about health care, the most important domestic issue facing America today. We pay lip service to teaching our kids to play nice, share, and be good people, but then we turn right around and reward people like Gianforte with being elected to what used to be an esteemed office. Which lesson do you think they're learning?
And before that, when Democrats lost a mayoral election in Omaha, Nebraska, the Sandersesque contingent came out of the woodwork yet again to point fingers at the national Democratic party for somehow failing to win the seat, even though that election was much closer than the one four years ago. And why? Because the DNC leadership criticized the Democratic candidate for being anti-abortion. Gasp! Democrats had the audacity to vocally support women's rights? No wonder they lost!
I always get amused at people who want term limits for Congresspeople, or who say things like, "Throw them all out!" What exactly makes you think that anything would be any different? I mean, the idiots in Kentucky who keep electing Mitch McConnell, the man who plainly stated that his number one political goal was to make Barack Obama a one-term president (and, incidentally, who spectacularly failed at even that number one goal) would just find some other jackass to line up behind in the following election. Maybe even someone worse.
So yeah, I'd like to think that Democrats are going to make a resurgence in 2018. I'd like to think that 2020 will see a wave of blue overtake the country and finally sweep out the assholes and villains of the right-wing that have been holding this country back for decades. I can't help but roll my e