Robert Mueller will eventually deliver the Special Council Office report in the next few months. Heck, might drop in weeks. Democrats everywhere want to know the dirt, but we’re worried that our new Attorney General might not let the full truth come out. If we want the Truth, we might need a legislative crowbar. Either way, though, the truth, we say to ourselves, will make a difference. Once we have real, proven facts, all Americans will have to pay attention.
That’s so quaint. So let’s do this. You know, this ‘truth’ thing? Totally overrated. We talk a good game, but most Americans don’t give the truth that much weight. We don’t care more than a little. There are, apparently, characteristics we consider more important than being correct and true.
Don’t lie to me. And don’t lie to yourself, either. If the truth mattered – if it really, truly made any goddamn difference what was real and what was just pretend – we’d be driving electric cars, insulating our houses, shutting down coal plants, and trying to figure out new technology that won’t, I don’t know, kill most of our children and grandchildren. Right?
Instead, our newest, flashiest leaders swear on their grandfather’s bible that we need to dig and burn more coal as fast as we can. It’s an existential risk NOT to burn it. Somehow. Despite all the evidence against that, I see about a third of Americans nod along. And when they tell us we need to shove aside (‘reform’) all those piddly little rules that are stopping their rich buddies from piling on more cash, what happens? Again, that third of us who are overwhelmingly likely to be hurt nonetheless agree with their conservative leaders. Who knew we needed the rules to help the rich get richer? What does it matter to us if they might poison the air and water? Nothing to a lot of us, apparently.
We used to revere science, but now we listen to a different song, sung by powerful leader-type men who bellow that all this nerdy, science stuff is make-believe. They fall back to the usual attacks: those chrome-dome scientists are all four-eyed girly-men who are just in it for the grant money. They’re not real Americans. Some of them, they hint, aren’t white, and some might be French. Hell, some are even girls! Terrifying. Whatever, they’re not good, honest, ethical, masculine archetypes like Mitch McConnell, Alex Jones, the sacred Rush, and Donald J. Fuckin’ Trump.
Swear to god; they say this kind of crap with a straight face. That’s got to be a kind of victory, right?
Seriously, it’s not like every scientist who isn’t paid by the fossil fuel industry hasn’t been abso-freakin’ clear about what’s coming. And they’ve been consistent for decades. Worse, every week brings us new evidence that they were wrong, but not in a good way. Turns out, the climate is changing faster than they predicted. Oceans are holding heat deeper, and even more Arctic and Antarctic ice is melting away in completely unsurprisingly heat. Who could have seen that coming?
Don’t be too critical of the poor scientists for shooting low on this. Science is harder than most people think, and those of us who do science professionally are super-careful. They’re constitutionally driven toward the least radical conclusions possible. They’re conservative as shit when it comes to change and surprises. Plus, they were trying not to panic the rest of us. They were suggesting, just suggesting, mind you, that big tranches of humanity might, kinda, you know, uh, perish? I mean, if we fuck this up.
But try to stay positive, guys.
Of course, we’ve also had that bunch of loonies on the other side. You know them. They’re those dedicated people who see all those science people dedicating their lives to save us, and call them all liars and mountebanks. The skeptics are a small but surprisingly well-financed bunch of cranks who are careful never to find satisfaction from facts or evidence. Rising water, heat waves, freakishly powerful storms, rising sea temperatures, new high-waves breaking last year’s record highs, and ice calving off Antarctica in Delaware-sized bergs? None of that stuff will sway the true dis-believers! I think there’s a kind of pride in that. And I suspect you can make a decent living at it, too.
What’s up with that? Even now, I still don’t know why we’ve changed climate science into a rigid (frigid?) Republican shibboleth. There’s no upside to the risks. If deniers are wrong, they’ve doomed millions of people to die in miserable squalor. If they’re right, they get… well, uh, nothing. The emotional satisfaction of being right?
Yes, the fossil fuel people will earn more in the short term, but the solar and wind and insulation and geothermal and all the rest will earn tons more in the long term. We’re looking at whole new industries with tons of good, middle-class jobs. Get real: solar already employs more than coal; it’s not like I’m making this up.
Despite that calculation, the right remains remarkably rigid: no swaying, no questions, and no doubts. You’d better not just say the correct words, you damn well better shriek them loudly enough to satisfy the Conservative priests. The requirements for climate denial are way clearer than any possible logic that might justify them.
What I’m saying is that we have a burning, flooding, infesting, bleaching example of clear and imminent danger staring us in the face. It’s demonstrable, repeatable, and consistent across decades. It’s killing millions of acres of forests and a fifth of our coral reefs already. And we’re not only not addressing it; we’re willing to let our leaders lie to us about it and make it worse.
It’s strange to see us accept lies so easily. Anyone who isn’t insane knows that climate change is a severe risk. Any risk analysis would tell a duck that potentially crushing danger warrants a little attention. Even if the odds of substantial temperature rise is only 50/50 (it’s much higher), rational people would look at that possible level of utter fucking devastation and think, “You know, maybe we should have a backup plan, just in case?”
Instead, we’re letting our leaders lie to us. It’s voluntary. They lie because they think it’s what we want. And we do. We know they’re lying, and we welcome it. We like it. Why? I don’t know. Maybe the lies make us feel better. Maybe it’s tribal. All I know is that we do. Watch any Trump rally. At some point, you’d see the whole crowd chanting “Mexico will pay for it!” wallowing in their endorphin rush. And the disturbingly sexual “Lock her up!” chant. I’m also pretty sure they’re all aware that it’ll never, ever happen. And they shriek just as loudly when Trump makes the same lies next week. The ideas are enough for them.
Gotta say, I don’t understand the leaders who regurgitate all this nonsense. As humans, they may be morally compromised and ethically questionable, but Jesus, they’re not totally stupid. I assume that most Republicans are perfectly capable of not stepping in front of a speeding bus.
All right, all right. That’s not completely true. Louie Gohmert remains an impossibly stupid fuck. He’d stand in the street, chewing his cud, staring dully at the rushing bus grill. Steve King and his cantaloupe calves might wander out, too. Republicans have been coddling the wrong end of the gene pool for way the hell too long. Just look at Steve Miller. That said, though, most paid Republicans aren’t clinically morons, and yet they’re willing to push us all – themselves included — toward an end-of-civilization ecological disaster.
So the idea that the truth will matter gives me the giggles. Yeah, there’s a hysterical edge to it, but it’s laugh or gibber. Trump is openly corrupt, and almost every elected Republican allows it without so much as a stern look. Trump end sanctions on Oleg Deripaska, the Russian oligarch who directed the U.S. election hacking? No problem for most Republicans. Thanks for the pro-corruption votes, Sens. McConnell, Graham, Cornyn, Burr, Cruz, Thune, and what, 36 others? Good going, Romney; real Mavericky, there.
So no, I don’t see the truth making much difference. When Mueller reveals that Trump conspired with our enemies to undermine the American system, Trump will declare that he’s the winner. Imagine him smirking at the cameras.
And about a third of us will believe Trump no matter what.
