The Most Dangerous Faction on the Planet

Millions of Americans agree with what four-star general of the Army, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, has said about former President Donald Trump — that he’s “a total fascist” and “now is the most dangerous person in the country.”

Given Trump’s hysterical threats of revenge against his “enemies,” his calling for a mass deportation of immigrants both “illegal” and “legal,” his deference to Vladimir Putin and his effusive praise for other autocrats and tyrants, it turns out that General Milley has had the raw courage to speak truth to corrupted power.

It’s not just Trump, though, as a younger colleague has reminded me many times. It’s the Republican Party. If they seize power again, they could well become among the most dangerous forces on the planet.

I can hear it now, “VB, that’s just wretched hyperbole.” I wish it were. Given that the United States continues to produce the second largest amount of greenhouse gas emission in the world — more than five billion metric tons in 2020 alone, second only to China — the GOP’s dismissal of climate change and its efforts to sabotage every effort to slow it down could well prove to be implicated in the deaths or chronic illness of millions of people around the globe.

During the dozen years of the Bush and Trump administrations, in which reputable hard science was derided and regulation demonized, the United States did as little as it could, which was next to nothing, to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. The Republican denial of climate change has been so successful that global warming remediation, the hottest issue in the world today, is hardly even mentioned during this presidential campaign. With a Trump victory, the U.S. will surely continue to play a shameful role in what the World Economic Forum predicts for the next quarter century, which includes the deaths of some 14.5 million people from climate-related injuries and disorders, along with “over two billion healthy life years lost” by 2050. And who can count the deaths and ill health related to the projected $12.5 trillion in economic loses over the same period?

So why is the Republican party more at fault than the Democrats? All you need to do is consult the 2024 GOP Platform, it’s all right there. Or more accurately, nothing’s there at all. The GOP Platform says absolutely nothing about climate change, the most dire reality of our time that for the last three weeks has revved up hurricanes so gigantic and powerful that they are considered by many experts as 1,000-year events, with rains and winds that have devastated Florida, the Carolinas and other states in the South.

How could it be that the GOP platform says nothing about climate? Can that be true? Granted, political platforms don’t mean much anymore, but they do convey in a dramatic way what’s important to a party and what’s not. I’ve searched the GOP platform four times now, and I cannot find a single word about anything relating to greenhouse gas pollution and the resulting changes in climate that many of us have already been suffering from for years.

So, what’s in the GOP platform?  Mostly, it’s lots of dark promises, such as “to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history”; “to end the weaponization of government against the American people” (better tell that to vengeful Donald who wants to weaponize the U.S. military against his political enemies); a pricey Reagan-era Star Wars project described as “a great iron dome missile defense shield over our entire country”; “cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children”; “deport Pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again”; “cancel the electric vehicle mandate and cut costly and burdensome regulations” (mostly environmental regs, I assume); among others.

The Democratic platform, in contrast, devotes an entire chapter to clean energy, “global climate leadership,” and “reducing pollution and making polluters pay.” Not only do the Democrats want to “eliminate tens of billions of dollars in … unfair oil and subsidies,” they stress “environmental justice.” “For too long in this country, too many communities have been denied the basic security and dignity that comes from having clean air, clean water and functioning infrastructure. Too many parents still lay[sic] awake at night worrying what the rain or soil or water or air is doing to their kids. That kind of inequity goes against everything we stand for as a nation.”

Democrats also back something called the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund with some $21 billion in federal financing. Their platform says that the fund will “ensure communities across the country have access to the capital they need to … benefit from a cleaner, more sustainable economy as we slash harmful climate pollution, improve air quality, lower energy costs and create good-paying jobs.”

Just from these brief glimpses into both party’s platforms, we can get a good idea of what matters to the GOP and what matters to the rest of us.

*Nullius in verba: take nobody’s word for it