So much crazy happens with the Trump administration every day that some downright weird but incredibly telling stuff gets lost in the noise. A recent example was the scene on April 8 at the White House where our president decided to sign an executive order to bolster coal mining.
“We’re bringing back an industry that was abandoned,” said President Donald Trump, surrounded by coal miners in hard hats. “We’re going to put the miners back to work.”
It’s commendable that the president honors men and women who work with their hands. But when he singles out coal miners for praise while he tries to zero out development of clean-tech jobs from his budget, it suggests that Trump is trapped in a right-wing woke ideology that doesn’t recognize green manufacturing jobs as “real” jobs.
This whole Trump II administration is a cruel farce. When he returned to the White House, his head still filled with ideas out of the 1970s. He launched a trade war with no allies and no serious preparation, and no understanding of how much the global economy is now a complex ecosystem in which products are assembled from components from multiple countries.
But this farce is about to touch every American. By attacking our closest allies and our biggest rival, China, at the same time, Trump makes clear he favors Russia over Ukraine and prefers climate-destroying energy industries over future-oriented ones, the planet be damned.