10/16/2018

Trump Goes to See Hurricane Michael's Wreckage, Deny Climate Change

Our goddamn president, a highway garbage bag filled with live rats, took his hostage-wife down to Florida and Georgia to survey the catastrophic damage left behind by Hurricane Michael, a storm that moved incredibly quickly and grew in strength incredibly quickly before slamming into the Florida panhandle like a runaway dump truck.

Its strength and speed boggled and amazed Donald Trump, something he felt compelled to mention at every fucking stop on his little disaster tour. "You know, this hurricane happened very quickly," he said at a briefing in Macon, Georgia.  "In fact, it was a storm.  Nobody thought it was a big deal, and then all of a sudden, it started and then became a Category 4.  It happened very quickly."

Yes, imagine. What could make it develop so fast? If only there were, I don't know, science-type persons who searched for cause thingies. Oh, wait, we totally have scientists who can explain this because that's what the fuck scientists do. See, the water was warmer than usual for this time of year due to climate change and that caused the rapid intensification of the storm. The good news? "A warmer climate makes rapid intensification more likely." Nah. There's no good news unless "Oh, thank god, we'll all be dead soon" is good news to you.

Of course, for our goddamn president, climate change is merely part of the ephemeral circle of life, man. When he was asked if he thought climate change was a hoax, he bebopped, "No, there’s something there.  There’s no question.  There is something there — man-made or not.  I mean, there’s something there.  And it’s going to go, and it’s going to go back and forth.  But there is something there." Seriously, that's some "This is the way the world ends" shit right there.

And then Trump had to reveal that someone had told him something that he now will repeat on an endless loop: "They say the worst hurricanes were 50 years ago, if you can believe it.  In fact, the one that they say was worse — so two or three worse — one was in 1890s, and one was exactly 50 years ago.  The winds were 200 miles an hour.  So who knows?  But that’s what the — that’s what the numbers are."

Three things:
1. Exactly 50 years ago was 1968, one of the mildest hurricane seasons ever. Yes, Hurricane Gladys did some damage, but nothing massive and mostly in Cuba.
2. No hurricane with 200 mph winds ever hit the United States.
3. Yes, there were some bad storms in the 1890s. And the damage was worse because it was the fucking 1890s. But Trump mentioned the Naughty Nineties a couple more times, and I promise you it will be repeated like a record skipping in his brain for the rest of time. (Look up "records skipping," kids.)

Several reporters referred to his 60 Minutes interview where Bumblefuck the Clown President blamed reports about human activities contributing to the warming of the earth on sinister-ass scientists. He said to Lesley Stahl, "You'd have to show me the scientists because they have a very big political agenda." Climate change deniers use this line all the time: scientists have agendas, they're greedy for that sweet, sweet grant money, and more. Putting aside the outrageous bullshittery there, who has more money on the line here? A couple hundred professors and researchers? Or the entire fucking fossil fuel industry? It's not that Trump doesn't know this. It's that his yahoo brigade doesn't seem to understand it.

(Side note: Any time Trump says you need to prove something to him, the immediate follow-up should be, "Fine, show me your fuckin' taxes and prove you're a billionaire and not a liar and criminal, Thievin' Donald.")

Look, as usual, Trump said a bunch of stupid shit while staring dumbly at everything in Florida and Georgia. "Nobody has seen anything like this," he claimed, when a lot of people have seen things like this. When the governor of Georgia mentioned the damage to the peanut crop there, some combination of neurons and jabbering hamsters in Trump's idiot skull clicked and he said, really, "Jimmy Carter, peanut farmer, and a nice man.  He is a nice man.  Met him on numerous occasions.  And if you think about it, that’s what he did, right?  Peanuts.  So it’s great." No one had fucking brought up Jimmy Carter.

That's all painful and hilarious and hilariously painful and painfully hilarious. But the real issue here is for people who plan on living past the next couple of decades. One of the key issues for the midterm election is if we're going to stop Trump from degrading the environment further. Nothing can be done to reverse things unless Democrats have far more power than just the House. But the House can stop funding for all kinds of shit, like coal subsidies and the like.

This is your choice, young voters and millennials. There are things that are never gonna go back to the way they were. We've fucked it up permanently. But it doesn't have to get more fucked.

Right now, think of the earth as a man who has lost a few fingers doing stupid shit to himself, like, I dunno, skateboarding over a crocodile pit or something. If that man stops skateboarding over a crocodile pit, he'll get to keep the rest of his fingers and not risk losing a limb or his head. Your vote will decide his fate.

And if you don't vote, President Thunderdumb will cheer on that skater until the crocs tear him apart.

(Note: Please don't skateboard over a crocodile pit. A snake pit, fine.)