Biden stoked the fires of political animosity when he labeled Trump a “climate arsonist”
Be honest -- is anyone ever surprised when a politician says something inflammatory?
No matter what the “experts” claim, politics has always been a malicious business. There’s just something about campaigning and getting your way that brings out the beast in people, and in times of economic and social upheaval -- like we have now -- the invective is particularly intense. Many an elected official has lectured that politics isn’t a team sport, but if that’s true, then why does everyone get so honked off when their “team” loses?
The 2020 campaign has been particularly wretched. That said, what Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden uttered the other day was far beyond the pale, venturing into uncharted territory for spiteful hyperbole. Commenting on the tragic wildfire situation in the western United States, Tammy Bruce wrote at The Washington Times:
“Like children who have been caught doing something forbidden, [Democrats’] instinct is to blame everyone else in an effort to cover their tracks. They blame other people, and the ever-useful and ubiquitous ‘climate change.’
“Moving along that narrative, because we can’t have the Democrats admit their idiotic and deadly policy failures, Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden made a statement about the fires and climate change attempting to blame President Trump for the massive fire destruction, bizarrely labeling Mr. Trump a ‘climate arsonist.’
“Mr. Biden then went on to claim that Mr. Trump could control the weather. During the statement in Delaware, not far from his basement, Mr. Biden went on an accusationpalooza, ‘If we have four more years of Trump’s climate denial, how many suburbs will be burned in wildfires? How many suburbs will have been flooded out? How many suburbs will have been blown away in super-storms? If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if more of America is ablaze?’”
I’d already seen the video clip of Biden depicting Trump as the living equivalent of Heat Miser from “The Year Without a Santa Claus” fame, but I didn’t really pause to think about what he’d said until I read Bruce’s take on it. In essence, Biden accused the president of the United States of murdering people because his views of science differ from the accepted liberal orthodoxy on “climate change.”
This -- blaming Trump for deaths -- isn’t exactly new. Democrats spent four nights at their party convention last month essentially thrusting an accusatory finger at Trump for his purported incompetence during the Chinese Communist Party (CCP, or Wuhan, if you prefer) virus pandemic, shamefully insinuating that the commander in chief’s reaction wasn’t “serious” enough and he’d been homicidally negligent by failing to scream “Danger! Danger!” from the White House roof. And he’s a cretin for not wearing a mask all the time.
About the mask thing. Liberals think Trump supporters are stupid and that they’ve scorned face coverings just because their political leader chose not to put one on. Like the “sheep” would’ve instinctively followed the shepherd if only the New Yorker outsider president would’ve donned a mask earlier. The notion is absurd; conservatives are liberty loving as it is, and we don’t always follow anyone’s lead. If we did, we’d all dress like Ronald Reagan as president. Or Trump now.
At any rate, the “climate arsonist” charge is a big one. Wikipedia defines “arson” as,
“[A] crime of willfully and maliciously setting fire to or charring property. Though the act typically involves buildings, the term arson can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, watercraft, or forests. The crime is typically classified as a felony, with instances involving a greater degree of risk to human life or property carrying a stricter penalty…”
It doesn’t take a legal scholar to figure being charged with arson could easily be upgraded to murder if there are deaths involved. And lots of people have lost their lives in the conflagrations on the west coast. Therefore, Biden basically called Trump a murderer this week. Trump didn’t physically stick a torch into ultra-flammable brush on a day with high heat and practically non-existent humidity, but to Joe and his band of Chicken Little climate alarmists, Trump did just the same.
It's easy for the gullible and uniformed lay observer (translation: Democrat) to buy-in to the climate change argument. California, Oregon and Washington (among others) are experiencing higher than average temperatures and this fire season has been brutal even by recent standards. People seeing the soaring flames consuming a structure and being whipped by winds might logically conclude that something natural -- i.e. climate change -- is at fault for the disasters.
But there’s another side to the story that isn’t being considered by the knee-jerk simpleton reactionaries. Bruce lays it out in her piece and Victor Davis Hanson thoroughly addressed the topic in his weekly National Review column -- the notion that poor forest management and neglect has made an already delicate natural balance worse in the above-mentioned states. Blue state governors -- California’s Gavin Newsom, Oregon’s Kate Brown and Washington’s Jay Inslee -- hide behind “settled science” and blame anyone who doesn’t worship at the altar of the nutcase greenies in the Sierra Club.
Think of it this way: What if, at the end of a relatively warm and dry winter you pile the balance of your unburned wood and kindling into the fireplace complete with leftover fire starters and plenty of newspaper. Then you allowed your home’s temperature to match the outside air in the summertime and switch off the HVAC humidifier. Then, some “arsonist” thinks it would be fun to toss a few matches into the waiting fuel. Poof! The house burns down. Is this because of “climate change” or is it your own stupidity?
Even assuming “climate change” is partially to blame for the extreme fire conditions in the affected areas, you still need a human being on a mission -- or in some instances, lightning strikes -- to get the blazes going. Many of the most destructive burns were the result of actual arsonists. Or accidents, such as pyrotechnics at a “gender reveal” party.
We know from experience that Democrats are wont to blame Trump for everything, including the CCP virus’s death toll and the rioting and looting in many of the nation’s large blue cities. They even use a fire-like term to describe his culpability in such places, too, saying Trump uses “incendiary rhetoric” which triggers something within the confined skulls of the miscreant class to go out and burn, break or steal things.
If words truly do have that kind of profound significance and fire-starting magic quality, then what Biden said should be given its due consideration -- and rebuke.
Modern day politics isn’t necessarily meaner than the old days; news just travels faster
Granted, today’s mainstream establishment media doesn’t have much else to do except to constantly peck at Donald Trump, but they advance the impression that the “tone” of discourse is significantly worse than it used to be. Pardon the expression, but social media does “fan the flames” of acrimony, though politicians of yesteryear could be just as vile and wicked as the current crop.
That’s true even if you’re talking about Joe Biden.
The Founding Fathers came together to devise and adopt the Declaration of Independence, formulate the Articles of Confederation and then, when it appeared the great American experiment might not survive, to unite the country (more or less) with the Constitution. “We the People”, the famous governing charter began, made plain who was sovereign in this new government. Then the great men elected George Washington as the first president, a man without a party who basically agreed to serve because it was his “duty” to the rest of his compatriots.
Washington absolutely abhorred factions and spoke on the subject numerous times. To have organized parties, the first president believed, would motivate men to place the interests of their own clique above the greater common good of the nation. Almost immediately members of his Cabinet and “friends” in Congress began organizing into ideological subgroups roughly divided between those who advocated for a powerful federal authority to keep the peace and resolve disputes and those who believed a decentralized, states rights supremacy was preferable.
For his part, Washington didn’t outwardly side with either faction, though most historians believe he was closer aligned with the Federalist party and acted accordingly. A sort of inane distrust and animosity developed between the Thomas Jefferson/James Madison adherents and the John Adams/(Alexander) Hamiltonian followers. They weren’t friendly. They schemed behind the president’s back to gain the upper hand, all the while assuring him everything was on the up and up. Washington recognized they were actively working to undermine him.
It’s often said that Washington enjoyed the most thoroughly talented and capable cabinet ever in his first term and the worst and least distinguished in his second term. There were serious differences of opinion, and it threatened to rip the young nation apart.
The relationships and comity forged during the pre-Revolution and post-war periods evaporated within the span of a couple years. Washington himself wouldn’t forgive the slights and passed on as perhaps the most beloved man in America, but with few friends among those with which he’d served the nation, a fact largely ignored by those who’ve always speculated that politics has continued on a downward slide ever since those opening moments in United States history.
What we’re seeing today is perhaps the high ebb of disunity and acrimony between Republicans and Democrats. The relentless name calling won’t help the nation heal after an election winner is declared (or should I say, if it happens). Biden will pretend like he never said anything (he probably wouldn’t remember anyway) and Trump will call for people to come together to solve the nation’s challenges. But will Nancy Pelosi come to the table? How about Chucky Schumer?
I wouldn’t bet on it. The victors will pretty much govern alone. It’s human nature.
What does Biden hope to gain by blaming Trump for “climate change”?
Pundits and pollsters love dissecting the American electorate to determine which candidate is doing better with which group as though such huge collections of human beings could ever be broken down and characterized at such a basic level. While surveys show Trump’s standing has significantly improved with Hispanics and black male voters, the tallies also suggest he’s lagging with white suburbanites… and working class whites as well. Really?
“President Trump has work to do to ensure he can replicate his strong 2016 showing among working-class white voters, crucial to his Electoral College victory, this fall. While Trump remains the heavy favorite among this voting bloc, public polling suggests his margins are smaller, and turnout, especially in the battleground states, will be key…
“[S]uburban white voters may have turned sharply enough against Trump to balance these gains [with minority voters], and his numbers among white people without college degrees are below the landslide margins that helped propel him into the White House last time around.
“A recent Fox News poll found Trump winning 41% of Hispanics nationally, up considerably from the 28% he won according to the 2016 exit polls. The same survey showed him carrying 55% of noncollege white voters, down significantly from the 66% he captured on Election Day four years ago.”
Polling is what it is, but it’s extremely difficult to imagine any of these staunch 2016 Trump voters abandoning him at this point. Trump has made good on his campaign promises to rework trade agreements and place greater emphasis on manufacturing in America. Pre COVID-19, the economy was humming along, median incomes were way up and poverty declined. Trump constantly highlighted the Opioid epidemic as well.
These voters will not have wholesale jumped off the Trump train this year. The mask fascists are elites, not working-class people. And it’s not like Biden’s going all-in on “climate change” is destined to attract large numbers of working-class folks who stereotypically favor inexpensive energy and enjoy firearms and the great outdoors.
I also don’t see these people sympathizing with Black Lives Matter.
In other words, I just don’t see it. Republican consultants quoted in Antle’s piece don’t see it either. It may be true that the president continues to struggle with suburbanites, but the others? Who has time to worry about “climate change”? Like Biden, do they consider Trump a “climate arsonist”?
Moving into late September, it seems clear polls and pundits will continue seeing Joe Biden as enjoying a comfortable lead in the 2020 horserace. Common sense and experience indicate otherwise, and the more Democrats blame President Trump for wildfires and COVID-19 deaths, the more they stand to lose. American voters aren’t dumb; they’ll show it on Election Day.
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