Tag Archives: Critical thinking

Eco-Awareness with Larry Speight: Trump and not joining the dots

Larry Speight brings us his monthly column –

The economic power and cultural influence of the United States gives it global reach which means that the outcome of the country’s presidential elections affect people across the world including everyone on this small island. While the polls suggested there would be a close outcome in this year’s election the scale of Donald Trump’s win astounded many. He secured more votes than his contender Kamala Harris in almost every demographic and received a sizeable number of votes in constituencies he offended. One such was the Puerto Rican community whose country a comedian at Trump’s Madison Square rally described as a “floating island of garbage”.

What accounts for Trump’s clear win? The polls indicate that the majority of people who voted for him did so because they thought that the economy was not serving them well in terms of the price of groceries and other day-to-day items. The intriguing thing is why did his supporters not realize that to put up tariffs on imported goods, as Trump has pledged he will, can only but lead to a steep rise in the cost of living. (*1)

Why did so many people from Central and South America vote for Trump when he was adamant that he was going to summarily deport undocumented immigrants who he said are not people but “animals” who were “poisoning the blood” of the country. (*2) Most of the undocumented he was referring to come from south of the US border which means that people originating from there will be continually asked by government officials and law enforcement officers to verify their status. This can only mean a life of anxiety and harassment and grief when family and friends are deported.

Voters troubled about the cost of living should not only have been concerned about Trump’s pledge to raise tariffs but his intention to deport undocumented immigrants as it is these people, thought to number between 11 and 20 million, who make up more than half the workforce in agriculture and food processing. (*3) Their removal will lead to deprivations and higher prices.

In other words, whatever the demographic, including millionaires, to vote for Trump was to vote against one’s interests which is a form of self-harm. This is counter to one of the cardinal views held about humans since the Age of the Enlightenment and is central to the capitalist construct which is that we are primarily creatures of self-interest. The reason why the wealthy won’t, in the long term, benefit from the triumph of Trumpism is because they, like every living entity on the planet, are dependent on the climatic conditions we have enjoyed since the end of the last ice age.

A reliable indicator of what Donald Trump’s second presidential term will be like can be gauged from his first term when he annulled over 100 rules and regulations that had been enacted to protect the country’s web of ecosystems from coast to coast, desert to forest. The rules and regulations included ones governing clear air, water, wildlife and toxic chemicals all critical to the health and wellbeing not only of people in the United States but the entire planet as global warming emissions affect us all. A special report by the New York School of Law, March 2019, found that annulling these rules and regulations caused thousands of premature deaths in the United States and a significant increase in chronic illnesses, the majority occurring among those on low incomes.

Akin to the double-think of the ruling elite in George Orwell’s novel 1984 this roll back of rules designed to protect nonhuman life, the integrity of ecosystems and the health of the nation was carried out by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The evidence suggests that during his second presidential term Trump will wage war against nonhuman nature with a vengeance as the person he has nominated as Administrator of the EPA is former New York Republican congressman Lee Zeldin. It is expected that top of Zeldin’s to do list will be to rescind the EPA’s most effective measures to reduce global warming emissions from vehicle exhaust pipes, power stations, oil and gas wells. Further, he will likely make many of the agency’s scientific advisors and researchers redundant.

As to be expected other Trump nominations share his worldview. Notable among these is Chris Wright who has been nominated as Energy Secretary. Wright is a fossil fuel executive who is an evangelist for the oil and gas industry and a vocal critic of efforts to reduce global warming emissions.

Given that Trump regards the United States as an extension of himself and made it clear that he would align the country with his imperialist paradigm if elected why did he receive the broad mandate he did? The answer, to quote William Shakespeare in his play Julius Caesar, is that “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves ..”

Simply put Trump is not the problem as his second term as president is the will of the electorate. The fault, as in many countries including this archipelago, is that those who voted for him passively ingested what they were told by someone who presented themselves as their Saviour who could create Heaven on Earth, or in secular terms, Make America Great Again. As Trump told his audience and the world in his victory speech:

Many people have told me that God saved my life for a reason. The reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness.” (*4)

Leaving aside the question of when the United States could be said to have been great the fact that neither the electorate or media questioned the meaning of the term underscores the body politics’ unwillingness or inability to analyse competing paradigms. A plausible reason is that many peoples’ beliefs are enmeshed in their sense of identity and intuitively know that if the former is undermined or invalidated so is the latter. I suspect that for many of Trump’s fervent supporters invalidation would result in them feeling existentially lost and/or socially ostracised and that their dread of both is on a par with their dread of their or a loved one’s death. Sadly, this means that for this cohort of supporters arguments about the folly of voting for Trump are likely to result in reinforcing their support for him in an attempt to prevent themselves being lost in an existential wilderness.

This defensive if not passive disposition likely originates in educational, media and ecclesiastic cultures that discourage people from critically examining ideas, scrutinising orthodoxy and questioning taboos. Clearly those who voted for Trump never joined the dots and were not cognisant that we live in an interconnected, interdependent, consequential world in which it is healthy and astute to continually review one’s ideas towards the end of being a thoughtful neighbour and a good ancestor.

References:

(*1) Trumponomics tees off, The Economist, 16th-22nd November 2024

(*2) Maggie Astor, New York Times, 17 March 2024.

(*3) Trumponomics tees off, The Economist, 16th-22nd November 2024.

(*4) Harvest Prude, Donald Trump Takes the White House Again, Christianity Today, 6 November 2024.

– – – – –