14 newyork| february17–march1, 2020
four more years
The Journal of the American Medical
Association reports, will suffer from
respiratory illness.
Most presidents spend second terms try-
ing to leave a lasting mark on foreign policy,
and it is abroad where Trump’s environmen-
tal cruelty is likely to be felt most intensely.
Thisis notjust aboutthe 2016 Parisaccords,
which technically Trump can only pull
out of on November 5, the day after he’s
reelected. In the meantime,
he’s already fatallyunder-
mined them, along with like-
mindedsadistsPrime Min-
ister Scott Morrison of
Australia and President Jair
Bolsonaro of Brazil—a trio of
world leaders who may come
to be seen much more clearly,
in a second term forTrump,
as a climate axis of evil. In the
latestroundof post-Paris climate negotia-
tions,thethree countries spiked nearlyevery
possibilityofmeaningful progress.Ifyou
addto theaxisVladimir Putin and hispetro-
stateandXiJinping and his have-it-both-
waysapproach (building renewablefarms
alongsidenewcoal fleets), the loosealliance
ofclimateinaction accounts for morethan
halfofallglobal emissions. That’sa very
powerfulveto.
It maysound glib and vacuouslypatri-
oticto saythat the world needs American
le adership,but the path of thelastfew
ye arssuggests, on climate at least,it is
al so distressingly true. That’s notbecause
action within the U.S. is so important—
the country is the second-biggestemitter,
but responsible for only about 15percent
of the global total. It’s because,without
American support, prospects for any
coordinated international programseem
di stressingly dim. In Trump’s firstterm,
th e U.S. has dithered and, in partas a
re sult, the rest of the world has,too—
breaking emissions records in 2017,2018,
and 2019. This is not just becauseof
Trump—or Morrison and Bolsonaro,
Putin and Xi. It’s because even manyself-
styled global leaders on climate(Justin
Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron)have
merely paid lip service to climateaction
(while approving new oil pipelinesand
fa iling to pass carbon taxes, for instance).
It is not just “ecofascists” peddlingdelay
anymore, but climate hypocrites.
These leaders don’t look ortalklike
Trump, but they share a concerning,nation-
Twitter is to him. These companies have
done nothing but help him. And he loves
the stock market, and the first trillion-dollar
companies are all tech stocks. It’s going to
be hard for him to punish them.
At the same time, he has a huge antipa-
thy for people richer than himself and with
moreaccomplishmentsthanhim.He will
continue to go after Jeff Bezos, because it’s
a personal, weird obsession he has with
conflating Amazonandthe
Washington Post. Aslongas
the Washington Postkeeps
pressing on the Trump
administration, Bezoswill
be linked to that andhewill
suffer for that. There’salso
the contention thattheright
has been misrepresentedon
these platforms andthat
they’re trying to quietcon-
servative voices. Thequestionis:Willhe
seek to intervene inhowthey’regoverned,
even though it’s inhisbest interesttolet
them be?
And the companieswillkeeptheirheads
in the sand. Don’t expectthemtobebrave
on immigration oranythingelse.They’re
not showing up ata rallyinamagahat,
that’s for sure, butthey certainlyare not
going to be doing anythingtoopposehim.
Why should they? It’sbeengreatforthem.
KARASWISHER
The Death of Global
Climate Efforts
L
et’s start with a conservative
estimate. Trump’s deregulatory envi-
ronmental rampage completely
stalls—rolling back no more protections
against small-particulate pollutants or toxic
carcinogens and nuking no morepolicies
like the Clean Power Plan or parts of the
Clean Water Act, but merely locking in the
sadistic legacy of his first term—there will
be as many as 80,000 additional American
deaths over the course of the nextdecade.
That’s roughly ten times as many as on
D-Day, more than 20 times as many as on
September 11, and almost 40 times the
number of Japanese citizens who have died
in the aftermath of the Fukushimanuclear
meltdown. One million more Americans,
intelligencer
PHOTOGRAPHS: CAROLINE BREHMAN/GETTY IMAGES (SENATE AND TRUMP BODY); DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES (TRUMP HEAD)
Th e Justice Department
Brought to Heel
F
ormer attorney general Loretta
Lynch often said the Department of
Justice is the only Cabinet agency
named for an ideal. If Trump wins a sec-
ond term, it is not clear whether that ideal
can hold.
Any concerns about criminal activity by
Trump or his campaign in winning the
2020 election? Those will die a quiet death
under Attorney General William Barr’s
new policy that he must approve any inves-
tigation into presidential campaigns
before it may be opened. The Office of
Legal Counsel will continue to issue opin-
ions protecting Trump, such as those that
the president cannot be criminally charged
or investigated and that his aides need not
respond to congressional subpoenas. The
late Roy Cohn will become known as
Joseph McCarthy’s William Barr.
On the civil side, DOJ could be used as a
sword in the name of religious liberty by
filing lawsuits challenging reproductive
and LGBTQ rights. Barr could starve for
resources the divisions of DOJ that protect
civil rights, voting rights, and the environ-
ment and use the Antitrust Division to pro-
mote the business interests of Trump’s
political supporters while fighting mergers
of companies he opposes. DOJ will fail to
prioritize threats to national security by
using a zero-tolerance approach to immi-
gration enforcement, charging every
undocumented grandmother they encoun-
ter instead of focusing resources on sus-
pected terrorists.
Lawyers of integrity will continue to
leave DOJ, replaced by Trump cronies who
disrespect the rule of law and support
authoritarian rule. Another four years of
Trump, and the Department of Justice will
no longer deserve its revered name.
FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY BARBARA MCQUADE
A Big Tech Détente
T
rump understands that what TV
was to John F. Kennedy, what radio
was to Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
The Future,
explained by Vox reporters
Trump is pursuing litigation
that, if successful, would
eliminate health insurance
for approximately 20 million
people overnight, according
to an Urban Institute estimate.
dylan scott
