You may have noticed a lack of DR yesterday. On Friday we knew that whatever we would have written would be out of date by Tuesday, since Saturday would bring some sort of Paris indication. And boy did it… then this morning’s Axios scoop that Trump’s decided to pull out only throws another wrench in the works.
So while all we really want is to talk about this amazing Intercept investigation into how Dakota Access protesters were treated like terrorists by a private security firm working in tandem with government law enforcement, instead it’s time for yet another round of Paris pontification.
And of course the pontification pun is intentional, given the Pope’s attempt to convert Trump by giving him a copy of the Papal Encyclical on the environment. But since the tract is full of eloquent writing and not graphs and maps, it’s probably not going to make much of an impact.
Fortunately, the same goes for the Paris pull-out crowd, who’s busy drumming up pieces like this WSJ op-ed attempting to debunk the business case for Paris. But as you oughta know, and a handy Axios chart demonstrates, “most major corporations” are on the pro-Paris side.
Others opposed include a small cadre of GOP senators, like Ted Cruz. The Senate’s most beloved colleague writes in CNN that Trump should pull out, but since it’s not a tabloid conspiracy theory about JFK’s assassination, Trump’s probably not going to pay Cruz any mind.
Nor should he, as the senators’ push is far from perfect. As InsideClimate News reports, the 22-senator letter to Trump imploring pull-out is “fundamentally flawed”, according to the experts cited by the letter itself. The senators argue Trump could face legal action for pulling out based on the Clean Power Plan’s authority granted by section 115 of the Clean Air Act. But the Clean Power Plan doesn’t mention section 115 at all so it’s unclear why the letter cites it. The letter also points to Sierra Club’s David Bookbinder, quoted as saying Paris and section 115 are a “silver bullet.” But he clarifies his full remarks: “silver bullets are magical thinking. You want to have them, but they don't really exist, and the only thing they kill are werewolves."
So if you haven’t really got it figured out just yet, the reasons for leaving are nonsense, and the pull-out camp’s financial connections to the fossil fuel industry are all too obvious. (That’s right pull-out crowd, we see right through you.)
But we all need something to cling to, so what’s the bright side of a pull-out? Well, it would be less than ideal, but perhaps the pain would be beneficial. So let’s swallow it down, this jagged little pill, and think about what it would mean. After all, it could be for the best, reports Robinson Meyer at the Atlantic.
By abandoning the Clean Power Plan and other climate policies, Trump has already effectively canceled the US commitment. By pulling out,Trump will catalyze a reaction from the 71 percent of Americans who support the deal--whereas staying in but renegotiating and paying lip service to the deal makes for a slow and tedious process that isn’t going to engender a massive and immediate public blowback.
So yes, pulling out of Paris would be bad for Americans, sending us full speed in the wrong direction. And yes, we know it’s ironic, but that might actually be for the best. Because in addition to the public blowback, it will be yet another piece of evidence that the glue that holds the pieces of Trump together is none other than Vladimir Putin.
Although it seems like what goes around never comes around to Trump, the increasing Russian trouble combined with the idea that Putin would likely love to see the US pullout and abdicate our global leadership position could be used as evidence to suggest that Putin is the real puppet master pulling Trump’s strings.
And we all know how Trump feels about being called Putin’s puppet...
(Today’s DR inspired by the news that Alanis Morisette’s “Jagged Little Pill” is getting turned into a musical. Here’s her Woodstock ‘99 performance.)
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