Forget the Media, Keep Your Eye on Andrew Wheeler

The phrase that keeps running through my mind when I hear all this Trump insanity on the news-- the Iranian posturing, the Russia investigation, the trade war with China, Scott Pruitt's inane corruption, the immigration issues, and the latest and greatest . . . Trump's dismissal of U.S. intelligence about Russian meddling in the election and then his Orwellian reversal of the word "would" to "wouldn't"-- all I keep thinking is "wag the dog . . . wag the dog," because all of these things are smoke and mirrors, barely important, compared to the policy changes happening beneath the 24 hour news cycle veneer: the new EPA administrator, Andrew Wheeler, is a coal lobbyist and was a legislative aid to Senator Jim Inhofe-- who referred to global warming as "the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people" and Wheeler is better politically prepared to wage the attack on our air, water, and land than Pruitt, and so much more scary; National Geographic is keeping a running list of the anti-regulatory changes and agenda of this administration, which seems determined to roll back pollution standards, auto emission standards, car mileage standards, the endangered species act, the clean air and water acts, and a host of other . . . long after all this other bullshit is forgotten-- immigration is an issue that doesn't effect very many people, it's just a great metaphor for bipartisan America; the Russia investigation is going to point to things we already know-- Trump is corrupt and crooked; if you're a true liberal, then the trade war with China is fantastic, because it means people are consuming less stuff; of course Trump is beholden to Putin; we're not going to go to war with Iran; etcetera . . . none of it matters, but it's all making people miss the existential stuff, the stuff that will take years and years to reverse . . . if the damage is reversible at all.