Trump Delivers Knockout Punch to Wimpering Schoolgirl -- Woo Hoo!

Friends, our fearless President showed his mettle again this week: he took on none other than Time magazine's Doofus of the Year for 2019: little Miss. Greta Thunberg, climate nag extraordinaire.  All kidding aside, I found the clash of ideologies between Trump and Thunberg at the Davos World Economic Forum highly instructive.  My latest article, soon to appear in American Greatness, tells the story.  See if you and I interpret it the same way...

A Tale of Two Planet Earths: Donald Trump vs. Greta Thunberg at Davos

In some ways, it hardly seems like a fair fight: the leader of the free world and the ultimate alpha male, Donald J. Trump, versus a slim, awkward 17-year-old Swedish schoolgirl, Greta Thunberg. Both swaggered into the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland with equal self-confidence, though. Their messages could not have been more distinct.

Miss. Thunberg delivered her usual tirade to the assembled business and political luminaries. The “world...is currently on fire,” she declared, and it is well beyond time to “panic” because of the looming “climate chaos.” What's more, the grandees of global capitalism, who had gathered to congratulate themselves for taking climate change so seriously, are, in fact, according to Thunberg, part of the problem. Their much-ballyhooed targets for achieving “net zero” carbon emissions by 2030, or 2040, or 2050, are mere number-fiddling. Only an immediate cessation in all fossil fuel investment would mollify Greta, and she isn't holding her breath. “Act as if you loved your children above all else,” Thunberg intoned icily — strongly implying that the Davos elite loves money a great deal more.

President Trump struck a very different tone. Instead of berating his listeners and scaring the wits out of them, Trump cataloged a long list of indicators in the United States that are pointing in a positive direction. A 50% gain in the stock market since November 2016, and rising wealth for low-income families. Rising wages, especially for those without college degrees. Eight burdensome federal regulations scrapped for each one added. The cleanest and healthiest air and water in decades. Energy independence. A quarter of all foreign direct investment pouring into the U.S. 12,000 new factories. Millions of Americans liberated from food stamps and welfare. And, just recently, two important new trade agreements signed with China and our North American partners.

Trump, in short, painted a picture of a world in which living standards are rising, free enterprise is thriving, and technology is breaking through old boundaries and solving entrenched problems. The sky's the limit, if one buys this Trumpian spin. These are literally the best of times, and they're about to get even better.

What are we to make of these alternate realities, presented to the captains of industry, economic experts, and political opinion leaders gathered in the Swiss Alps?

First, it's worth observing that Trump's version of Planet Earth, as opposed to the Earth/Hell which Miss. Thunberg inhabits, is rooted in reality. The economic, environmental, and technological gains that Trump cited were, without exception, historically and statistically verifiable, even if they won't make the evening news because, well, good news is no news at all. People really are living “longer, happier, healthier” lives on a global scale, and standards of living have never been higher. Famine has been virtually abolished. The upward trends also show no sign of dissipating, except insofar as self-inflicted wounds, like depression and drug addiction, are taking a toll in the West. But humanity, in terms of its objective, material circumstances, has never had less reason to complain.

Trump also rightly points out the abysmal record that radical environmental activists — the “perennial prophets of doom” — have accumulated in terms of accurately predicting future environmental challenges. They are constantly declaring that “time is running out” and only extreme, massively expensive, bureaucratic, anti-market reforms can save us. How many times will the gullible swallow this bill of goods?

It's instructive how devoid of any factual or scientific basis Thunberg's remarks were. Her appeals to mass hysteria invariably take the imminence of doom as a given. Like so many environmental extremists, she posits a hypothetical global temperature increase of anything more than 1.5 degrees Celsius as the harbinger of the apocalypse. Why? Presumably, because the old figure, 2 degrees, wasn't approaching fast enough. The 1.5 degree figure allows Thunberg and her allies to argue that we have only 12, or 10, or 8 (do I hear 6?) years left before — pow! — the world will explode, or implode, or turn into molten lava, or something similarly bad. 

 

In the meantime, credulous minds can be won over with brazen emotional manipulation (why not weaponize the children?), combined with the cynical exploitation of every negative weather-related news story. The goal? To create the impression that, every time it rains, or doesn't rain enough, or every time the sun shines, or doesn't shine enough, “climate change” is out to get us! Even many committed climate activists balk at this armchair meteorological soothsaying, but no matter.

The truth is that, because of humankind's unprecedented prosperity and technological prowess, fewer and fewer people are suffering and dying at the mercy of the weather than ever before in history. The only rational perspective on humanity's relationship with our ever-changing climate, therefore, would be one infused with quiet satisfaction because of the tremendous progress already made — but don't tell Miss. Thunberg, who would surely be apoplectic at the good news.

In sum, Donald Trump and Greta Thunberg came to Davos to promote two wildly divergent impressions of the state of Planet Earth and its human denizens — one was positive, and one was negative; one was affirming, and one was accusatory; and one was true, while the other was a dark and sinister fantasy. 

As usual, it was Donald Trump who summoned the courage to tell the world's elite what much of it didn't want to hear: that capitalism, freedom, and good old Yankee ingenuity, which have brought us so very far, are still the answer to our problems and the path to a better world.

Hear hear!

Dr. Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com. He appears weekly on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480.

And here it is at American Greatness:

https://amgreatness.com/2020/01/26/a-tale-of-two-planet-earths-donald-trump-vs-greta-thunberg-at-davos/ 

You may also wish to give this article a read.  It discusses a subtext to the impeachment brouhaha that few in the mainstream media are bothering to notice: the Dems are just as likely to bleed votes when all is said and done as Republicans are.  I believe that not a single Republican in the Senate will vote to convict Trump on a single article of impeachment.  Moreover, there's a very good chance that one or more Democrats will vote to acquit on one or more articles.  Once again, therefore, it could be the GOP standing firm, and the Dems showing weakness and indecision.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/23/6-democratic-senators-to-watch-in-impeachment-trial/ 

And, in case you needed a little more evidence that the Dems' case for impeachment and removal is falling flat in the heartland, here it is:

https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-impeachment-ratings-soap-operas