A MAGA Crackup Is Good For Climate Action
The Climate Movement Must Become the Greatest Political Force For Good
This post is based on two simple premises: (1) what’s bad for Mr. Trump and MAGA is good for climate action, and; (2) we must never let our climate victories be turned to ash ever again; to do so we must become the greatest political force for good in our lifetimes.
What’s Bad for Trump/MAGA …
So what’s bad for MAGA today? Trump.
Mr. Trump’s disastrous and criminal war against Iran, its economic ramifications, including a 40% jump in gas prices at the pump that are projected to end up costing families $1,000 this year, and his ever more desperate genocidal threats in relation to it, are all leading to growing discontent and criticism within the MAGA movement that, at least on Truth Social, is even stronger than that in relation to the Epstein Files.
An Axios analysis published Wednesday suggested that MAGA’s “most powerful voices are working to keep Trump in check if not bring him down outright, accusing him of betraying the ‘America First’ promises that built the movement.”
For example:
Tucker Carlson delivered a 43-minute monologue Monday [April 6] framing Trump’s Iran rhetoric as morally corrupt and even “evil.” He expressed personal outrage at Trump’s Easter post threatening to bring “hell” to Iran, and urged U.S. officials to defy any orders that could kill civilians.
Clearly such criticisms have landed, because on Thursday Mr. Trump lashed out in a long Truth Social post:
But it’s not just well-known voices that have become negative. A NYTimes analysis of Truth Social posts by Mr. Trump’s true believers have found many who are now disillusioned.
More than half responding to Trump’s threat to wipe out Iran’s whole civilization — which he reiterated he was willing to do — were critical.
To top things off, just last night Mr. Trump posted a picture of him as a Jesus-like figure healing the sick that has outraged prominent MAGA Christians, as well as a post and comments highly critical of Pope Leo, potentially alienating some of his Catholic supporters.
More broadly, recent polling shows that Mr. Trump is the best at being the worst in terms of approval rating at this point in a presidency — 35%, the lowest ever. He even beats Biden.
And the thing that got him elected, perceptions concerning his handling of the economy? His approval here is now at the lowest it’s ever been for him: 31%. Among Republicans, he’s seen a 14 point drop since January, from 85% to 71%.
So, to sum up the Trump presidency thus far: Crazy vindictive tariffs driving up prices and inflation, thug-like behavior from poorly and quickly trained ICE/Border Patrol “agents,” innocent protesters shot dead with no consequences, the Epstein Files cover-up, an unpopular “Big Beautiful Bill” for the wealthy with our kids stuck with the check, rank corruption that stinks to high heaven, attacking Pope Leo and portraying himself like Jesus, treating allies with utter contempt, and the criminal Iran War causing gas prices to go through the roof and making inflation even worse than Trump already has. No wonder then that, as one polling analyst concluded:
Trump will head into the 2026 midterms as the most unpopular president in modern polling history.
… Is Good for The Climate Movement
Anything that weakens Trump/MAGA is good for us, the US, and the world.
Why’s that? Hmmm. Let me see. Well, Mr. Trump’s clean energy policies are totally irrational based on his narcissistic whims. For example, wind energy is bad because of a confrontation years ago concerning one of his golf courses in Scotland.
His stupid, immoral attacks on climate action are literally insane, i.e., not based on reality but on his inflated sense of his own opinions, confusing them with scientific facts — indeed, not understanding the difference between facts and his opinion. For Mr. Trump, climate is a hoax because he says so: he’s the fact-meister.
These characteristics, infused throughout Trump-2, have led some to suggest “The world faces something new and baffling and frightening in Mr. Trump’s second term: a psychotic state.”
As Aaron Rupar, a journalist who has watched Trump more than anyone, put it:
“It’s really difficult to cover him in a way that conveys how unhinged he is. That’s kind of how people are trained to do political journalism. It’s like, ‘OK, what did he say that was newsworthy, what’s new?’ So you kind of pick up those things and convey them to your audience. But in reality, when you actually watch his rallies, you see that they’re full of hatred, he’s lying constantly, and a lot of it is incoherent (emphasis added).”
Already back in February, 30% of Republicans thought Trump was acting “erratically.” Since then things have gotten worse. His mental state is now a legitimate question “among retired generals, diplomats and foreign officials. And most strikingly, it can be heard now on the political right among onetime allies of the president.”
Catching a ride on the Trump/MAGA crazy train are the fossil companies and the anti-climate ideologues. They are having their last hurrah with Mr. Trump and his Administration, a sympathetic Republican Congress, and the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court.
As with all last hurrahs, it won’t last. But untold damage has been done to climate science, clean energy development — in short, anything related to climate action. And, sadly, there’s more to come.
When their bloated, greasy, greedy, pollution-party is over, these agents of destruction want to walk away and leave the mess for the rest of us.
Well, the fossils don’t get off the hook for their accountability for climate consequences or their responsibility to actually help. Like us and every human being on the planet and every one that has ever lived or ever will live, they are called to do the three actions of justice: stop bad stuff, set wrong right, and make things better. Obviously when it comes to justice they’ve got a lot of work to do, and it will be the responsibility of some of us to hold them accountable for past actions. More than that, we hope such opponents will change course and act on their responsibility for helping the rest of us achieve our vision.
Besides the fossils and anti-climate ideologies, we’ve watched as many institutions and businesses have buckled to the pressure by going quiet, or have cut back or dropped climate and clean energy-related initiatives and programs they may have been pushed to do in the first place.
We Must Become The Greatest Political Force For Good in Our Lifetimes
The Biden-era climate action momentum in the US, initially spurred by The Climate Movement, scored significant victories.
But then we’ve had the great climate action reversal with the Trump-2/MAGA climate meltdown and the retreat by fair-weather “friends.”
Both of these together must make one thing crystal clear to The Climate Movement. Our two synergistic forms of power — moral power and people power — are nowhere near what they need to be, and nowhere as stable as they must be to ensure this awful scenario — where many of our victories are turned to ash — is never repeated. We must have staying power that does not wain but gets stronger. We must have the strength to not only protect our accomplishments, but continue to score and achieve even greater victories on our Olympian Fields of Action.
More broadly, our moral and people power must help ensure we never allow someone like Trump and MAGA to hold political power ever again. In the US, our power must simultaneously overcome climate change and keep democracy and the world safe by electing leaders of character who will do both. Climate champions with political power must also be people of character who are seeking the common good — putting the people over the powerful, creating wellbeing for everyone and everything.
In short, The Climate Movement must become the greatest political force for good in our lifetimes. To paraphrase the prophet Isaiah: We must walk and not faint; we must run and not grow weary; we must mount up on wings like Eagles. Join us!
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