The Harris Trump “Debate”

A big zero for stopping climate change and halting genocide

I have never been a one issue voter. I know those who have been, people I like or love, looking the other way on bad ideas and bad policies over a single issue that burns in their mind.

I watched the “debate” last night without much hope of getting substance. In that, I was not disappointed. Harris, to her credit, took jabs at Trump as he told ludicrous lies including an ongoing attempt to disassociate himself from the fascist Project 2025, and claiming illegal Haitian immigrants are eating our pets. WTF? Really?

At 62 years old, I have learned that my revulsion with the ever lower standard of politics has no bottom.

For some, nothing has changed since this grotesque cartoon. This is Trump’s base.

Trump’s attempts to distance himself from Project 2025 are utterly laughable. His ties to the ultra conservative think tank Heritage Foundation and its president Kevin Roberts are indelibly established. In April 2022, the foundation provided a jet when Trump’s was being refurbished to fly him to a Heritage Foundation speaking engagement in which he approved of Project 2025 (video clip). He and Roberts shared that flight from his Palm Beach “home,” the deplorably tacky clown castle known as Mar-a-Lago, which I yearn to see swept into the Atlantic by a climate change fueled hurricane, preferably with fellow wannabe fascist Ron DeSantis aboard as well. Maybe this season. My hope is eternal. Mar-a-Lago is, of course, where the Raging Orange Dunce stashed boxes of classified documents he stole in the safety of a bathroom after being voted out and stoking insurrection, that resulted in deaths.

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts with ex-president Donald Trump on a private jet in April 2022, provided by the foundation. Photo: Washington Post.

“I just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

— Kevin Roberts

At the Heritage Foundation event, Trump delivered his remarks lauding the then soon-to-be published Project 2025 dystopian handbook, which calls for a complete authoritarian takeover of American government. Further incriminating Trump is the fact that the foundation is filled with his current and former political allies, at least 140 people who helped craft this dystopian handbook who worked for Trump in the past, including some who espouse white suprematism. Nice. So proud.

Among Project 2025 goals are replacing all government workers with loyal sycophants who do the bidding of the Dear Leader without question. Trump promised to be dictator on day one of his new administration. A few of the goals of Project 2025 are the dismantling of public education, elimination of environmental protections, and to finish women’s bodily autonomy at any level, state or national. Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian vision, The Handmaid’s Tale, is eerily relevant.

What about Harris?

I listened to Harris in her primary bid in the 2000 campaigns. She dropped out early, but gave me a positive impression as intelligent and articulate. However, her role as VP in the Biden administration has been under the radar, typical of the role of vice presidents. I have to assume she learned much about the levers of government and the lobbyists who determine policy. Knowing the game is important.

Harris, of course, cast the tie breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which I wrote about here, a piece of legislation that fell well short in a world destined for the impending reality of The End of Oil. Without oil, there are no renewables.

Climate change is reality, and will dictate the future, not promises about jobs or boosting the middle class with tax cuts, and childcare support. I am for these things, of course, supporting a strong middle class, and a path out of poverty, is typical pablum of every election, but they fail the reality test.

The reality test is that the greater workings of the planet dictate the future now, not pseudo debates or campaign pledges. We have one candidate who calls climate change a hoax, and one who spoke of it at one time, but no more, reversing her position on fracking, which is a continuation of oil extraction and burning destined to end in the next few decades anyhow. Burning more to prop up a system bound to fail will just lead to a much more devastating crash.

I am also unsure of Harris’ stance on the horrifying genocide in Gaza. I am not an antisemite for saying that, thank you, one of my grandparents a Jew fled Russia as a child during the Russian Revolution. I have had Jewish friends. But genocide so obvious and supported by our arms support to Israel is unconscionable.

Renewables, which have their own devastating consequences, cannot be built or maintained without fossil fuels. This is the reality politicians are either blind to, or unable to speak about for fear of losing elections. Harris is well aware she needs to win Pennsylvania, a big fracking state. People understandably fear for their jobs. Yet jobs in oil will destroy agriculture, and in turn the economy, and security and as the planet heats up. That is the big and immediate future. It’s no longer decades away.

I hope Kamala wins. I will be voting for her. However, I am unsure if she sees the bigger picture or if she does will have any ability to change our trajectory in the face of an onerous political system where many are at least as hateful and ignorant as Trump and his base. We need a galvanized direction at this point that should have been built years or decades ago.