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The Candidate from Hell
The Man of the Moment (And What a Moment It Is!)
Donald Trump is all too literally the candidate from hell and, yes, he's threatening to take the United States and the world to -- no place else! -- hell and back. He's the greatest danger to this planet imaginable. And I'm not even thinking about what else he'd do, were he to win election 2024 and return to the Oval Office, having reassured his religious voters that, should they opt for him this November, they'll never have to do so again. ("Get out and vote, just this time" You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what? It'll be fixed, it'll be fine, you won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.")
Forget all of that, including the racism, the madness, the urge to transform this country into the all-American equivalent of an autocracy. Forget every last bit of it -- even if, yes, that's one hell of a lot to forget! Instead, focus on just one thing: Donald Trump and his crew, including that gem J.D. Vance, who attacked what he called "the Green New Scam" at the Republican convention, are determined to fossil-fuelize our future in a fashion never before seen, not at least under these circumstances.
And unfortunately, Donald Trump is anything but alone. (Do you hear me, Vladimir Putin?) In fact, according to a recent Guardian report, almost one-quarter of this country's congressional representatives (100 members of the House and 23 senators) deny the very existence of climate change -- and be shocked, very shocked, but every last one of them is a Republican! In what now passes for the mainstream, The Donald and his vice-presidential buddy, the very opposite of "cat ladies," are extreme but all too common examples of the urge to heat this planet to the boiling point or beyond. Admittedly, the competition is fierce. After all, whatever steps President Joe Biden took in relation to climate change -- and he did take them and they will make a difference -- American oil production and oil and natural gas exports all set staggering new global records during his term in office.
Still, there's no question about one thing: Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and crew are determined to fully reject that Green New Scam (as Republicans now love to call it), which means the two of them are intent on making you, me, and everyone else on this planet sweat, sweat, sweat. I say that given the fact that, only recently, humanity experienced the hottest day ever recorded and the very next day set an even more feverish daily global record. And that, mind you, was after 13 straight months each of which (including two Junes) set new heat records for human history (and probably far beyond it), and all of that, in turn (if you don't mind the longest, hottest sentence imaginable), came after 2023 set a global record as the hottest year ever -- and count on this: I'm undoubtedly leaving all sorts of things out.
Yikes, I'm already sweating!
A Green New Scam President?
Given the recent withdrawal of 81-year-old Joe Biden from the presidential race, 78-year-old Donald Trump is now the oldest American presidential candidate ever (yes, ever!), so why should he give a damn about how hot our future could become? Admittedly, there are his kids and grandkids to consider, but it's not clear that, even when it comes to them (and despite his recent family-ization of the Republican convention), he gives a damn about anyone other than" yes, Donald Trump. Based on the last few years of him, I doubt it. In the most literal sense possible, as far as he's concerned, he's always the man of the moment. Any moment. And if the moment isn't his, then to hell with it and everything else!
And believe me, under the circumstances, I'm not just using "hell" figuratively.
After all, this planet and this country are both growing hotter all too quickly. This was already one hell of a summer in the United States. State after state, city after city simply broiled, while records were regularly set across the globe. (Hey, Las Vegas hit a new city high of 120 degrees Fahrenheit in July and, in breaking local heat records, it was anything but atypical.) After all, June, as I mentioned, was the 13th straight hottest month of its kind ever. And while later in the summer, we might get a slight break from such record-setting temperatures, the future looks all too grim. While you're at it, consider yourself lucky that you don't live in someplace like Dubai, where on one recent anything-but-atypical July day the temperature hit 113 and the heat index 144. In fact, the Washington Post now suggests that the Persian Gulf region may be the "most likely to regularly exceed life-threatening heat thresholds during the next 30 to 50 years."
Of course, only this summer, Donald Trump held a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, where the temperature hit" go ahead, just for hell of it, take a guess!
Yes, 113 degrees! Eleven of his listeners were treated right there for heat exhaustion on "stretchers hooked to IV bags," while The Donald continued to "rail against wind turbines and electric vehicles." And mind you, unlike the acts of the assassin whose bullet hit Trump's ear at that rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the former president's statements in Arizona blasting any efforts to deal with this overheating globe of ours weren't considered acts of violence.
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