Trump’s Destructive March to the Sea
This title is an analogy to Sherman’s March to the Sea. It wasn’t enough to defeat the Confederate Army. Sherman marched through Georgia from Atlanta to Savannah, and destroyed all along his way.
We expected that after Trump lost the election, he would spend November, December and half of January issuing Executive Orders and Destroying Rules and Regulations that protect this Nation and Americans. Trump had the audacity to start this early (or is being pressured by his industry backers based on his poor polls). Nobody can keep track of the destruction of the thousand political appointees that he has installed. Many are not even installed by Congress, but are acting and unqualified administrators (and not even registered with the actor’s union). Here are just a few of the most damaging ones.
Trump has removed regulations on methane emissions in fracking and natural gas production. These are now easy to detect, and very inexpensive to fix. Even some in the industry were opposed to this move, since it gives an advantage to the worst polluters, and removes a key selling point for natural gas over coal. Depending on the time scale, methane is 30 to 40 to 80 times more polluting than carbon dioxide.
Trump has sold out on ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a key seaside pathway for Arctic wildlife. He is about to sell leases for oil exploration.
We have detected the hidden and politically motivated destruction of the postal system, instead of fixing it. It is largely being pursued because Trump sees Amazon’s founder and owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, as his political enemy. Bezos does not control the editorial policy of the Washington Post. Apparently, Amazon is more saving the post office than running it into the red.
Despite the worst pandemic in a hundred years, Trump is still trying to end Obamacare. Healthcare for 22 million is at stake. The underlying conditions that make the Coronavirus deadly are ones that have to be prevented or treated by regular health care, like obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure.
The denigration and removal of science from the government continues. Trump has replaced Dr. Fauchi and Dr. Birx at his press conferences by Dr. Scott Atlas, who pushes for reopening. Dr. Atlas is not an expert on pandemics and viruses as are Drs. Fauci and Birx. His association with Stanford was as a doctor and faculty, as Chief of Neuroradiology from 1998 to 2012. Now, he is a conservative member of the conservative Hoover Institute, which is political, and just happens to be located at Stanford. He writes in news media and speaks on news networks, and advises politicians.
Dr. Atlas jokes about people having to even wear masks at home, which actually is recommended for people who are quarantining with vulnerable family. He immediately appeared on Tucker Carlson at Fox News. He said there that the data on masks is very controversial. He said masks are okay next to a high-risk individual. Apparently, passing to as many other low risk people is okay, forgetting that they can pass it on to high risk individuals without even knowing that they are passing it on.
Trump has made no progress on Nuclear Disarmament, but instead, has taken several steps backward. He backed out of the Iran non-proliferation treaty, saying that he would negotiate a better one. No progress. He claimed that he would halt North Korea’s development and deployment of nuclear weapons. No progress. By next year, the intermediate range nuclear ban agreement with Russia will expire. No progress.
At Trump’s photo op of the obsequious praise session for Israel and the UAE establishing diplomatic relations, Trump made several false claims on oil He again stated that the US was now energy independent. Yet we still import half of our oil, even though we export about the same amount. It is a geographic trade off. This year, Trump had to boost world and US oil prices to allow production of expensive US fracked oil. Trump then stated that we no longer have to protect the Strait of Hormuz, yet 15% of US oil goes through it. Protecting the Strait is something that we do for the world’s economy, and to limit the power of Iran. Everybody in the Administration dealing with the Middle East was in the room, and could easily have corrected him. None did.
Sherman’s March to the Sea took place starting with the burning of Atlanta, Georgia on Nov. 15, 1864 to Dec. 21 at Savannah. It was a scorched earth campaign. They fed themselves off of local farms and livestock, and destroyed railroads, bridges, manufacturing and agricultural infrastructure. Fortunately, Savannah surrendered, and was saved. A decline in agriculture persisted until 1920. After that, Sherman went through South Carolina to Charleston.
