Trump Is A Wildfire

How did everybody’s ultra-conservative uncle – the one who forwards Snopes-disproven emails and thinks Sean Hannity is an unassailable authority on everything – become the President of the United States? He nakedly displays his ignorance and baseness so regularly that statements that would normally be disqualifying for the presidency have become quotidian. Witness his recent unthinking and unfeeling tweet about the wildfires in California:

California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean.

The President of the United States said this. It would be comically stupid if it weren’t so deadly serious. And not just for the people who have lost their lives and homes – killer conflagrations like these, along with other deadly weather events (heat waves, droughts, hurricanes, floods), not to mention the inundation of our coastlines, displacement of people, pressure on agriculture, conflict, spread of disease, ecosystem degradation, and species extinction will all increase as climate change goes unchecked by a president who is the only leader in the world to pull out of the Paris climate agreement.

Almost everything Trump utters or does is antithetical to creating a more just, prosperous, and peaceful society. It defies all logic and reason. Unless… unless he’s so crafty that he understands that igniting all this fear and anger and hate serves to distract from his nefarious agenda to further consolidate his and his fellow plutocrats’ wealth and power. On some level, especially among his sycophantic acolytes that are now the Republican Party, this is true – he is a means to an end. But I don’t think the president himself is that smart – I think he actually believes in a lot of the vitriol he spews, the regressive policies he promotes.

He is a wildfire. His incendiary nature is spreading division and fiery destruction across The United States, and shooting hot embers into the far reaches of the globe.

Make America Burn Again.

Trump isn’t just a wildfire – he’s a catastrophic wildfire. In nature, many forest ecosystems burn at fairly regular intervals (from every few years to every few decades or more). Occasionally the spark (usually lightning, prior to humans) doesn’t come for decades on end, and litter (branches, brush, dead plant matter) accumulates on the forest floor. When the spark eventually does hit, instead of a mild fire that simply clears out the underbrush and rejuvenates the forest, a catastrophic fire ensues that burns it down, trees and all.

In the past century, fire suppression and other forestry policies in the U.S. have created denser stands of forest and have allowed forest litter to pile up. With temperatures and droughts exacerbated by climate change, huge catastrophic wildfires have become inevitable.

What happens when you have two political parties that have allowed money to so infiltrate our political system? Yes, Republicans and Democrats (from neoliberal Bill Clinton to the cautious and centrist Barack Obama) are responsible for the outsized influence that money has on our politics. Of course, Republicans have been far more fervent perpetrators of this usurpation of democracy, but Democrats have too often acquiesced or at best provided feeble resistance. Thus, in the past few decades we have witnessed Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that allows corporations virtually unfettered spending on political campaigns; deregulation leading to the Great Recession; the decline of workers’ unions; stagnant wages for working folks; rising inequality; and, among middle-aged white people, a surge in deaths of despair (from suicide, drugs, and alcohol).

So what happens when so many people feel they’re being left out of the American dream? A simmering resentment builds like litter on the forest floor. A skillful progressive president might have brought the people together, fostering a sense of cooperation, thus thinning the litter and instead building something with it. This president might have helped people realize that the demons are not people of a different color or religion. That they’re not immigrants or women or the press. The demons are those who would subvert democracy to consolidate their power at the expense of all working Americans, all poor and middle class Americans, all American children, the environment, and the world in general.

Instead, Trump lit a match.

He stoked the flames of racial resentment and xenophobia and misogyny – he fueled the flames with ignorance and hate. And now the majority of his supporters are busy throwing logs from their own houses onto the fire. Meanwhile, Trump continues to set little brushfires here and there, distracting from the torrid inferno in the background. Oh my God, there’s a Stormy Daniels fire… no, look over there, there’s a Putin fire… wait, watch out for that National Anthem fire… Giuliani, Sessions, Trump Jr., Melania, everywhere you look there’s a stupid little fire hissing along. But the inferno is destroying climate and environmental regulations, eroding workers’ and women’s and minorities’ and immigrants’ rights, torching global relationships, singeing human decency, and lapping at the foundations of our democracy.

Trump is a flaming orange Midas, burning all he touches. But there’s good news. In ecology, the intermediate disturbance hypothesis posits that intermediate disturbances in an ecosystem can lead to more species diversity. A wildfire may destroy most life in an area temporarily, but this clears the area for new colonization. Where one or a few species of stodgy old trees may have dominated, fire has cleared the way for multitudes of lichens, mosses, grasses, shrubs, and new trees to grow.

In the charred and seemingly barren wake of Trump’s presidency, we have an opportunity. The seeds of a grassroots resistance, a progressive path to a diverse and thriving ecosystem, are already there, establishing a foothold. But there are weeds, too, which threaten to choke out the grassroots movement, tangling us further in a regressive jungle – we must resist the weeds.

Imagine a country in which all children have equal access to quality education. Health care is an affordable right. All workers are paid fair, living wages. People who can’t work are given opportunities to thrive. Immigration is understood to be necessary and is compassionately regulated. Violent crime continues to drop. Corporations are held to standards that benefit the community, workers, consumers, the environment, and shareholders alike. Taxes are understood to be one’s patriotic dues, an investment in The United States and the world in general. Government runs efficiently and compassionately, by and for the people. Money doesn’t get a vote, people do. The United States uses its considerable might to end poverty, promote health, and foster cooperation around the globe. The United States leads the charge for climate change mitigation, ecosystem and species preservation, and green technology. All people, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, ability, or age, are treated with respect and dignity.

After President Trump’s fire, that is the progressive ecosystem we can and should grow.