An Open Letter to all True Christian Patriots

 Well, we've done it, brothers and sisters.

As True Christian Patriots, our job has been, as we recite in The Lord's Prayer every Sunday, to make Earth as it is in Heaven. And I can think of nothing more Heavenly than the nation we are creating.

I can just imagine it now, when I pass through the Pearly Gates into that White Heaven, the roves of armor-clad angels pulling helpless people out of their cloud-like homes, away from their family members, regardless of their age, putting them all on winged busses and sending them all to Hell, all because they dared be Not White. Oh, I know a vast majority of them did what God said to do and earned their way properly into Heaven, but that's an inconvenient fact that I choose to ignore. How dare they live in Heaven, minding their own business. I'd know they're doing it JUST to upset me.

Granted, Jesus Himself told us to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It's one of the two Golden Commandments, upon which all other commandments are hung. I don't know about you, but I would be hard pressed to say I would want to be treated the way ICE treats immigrants, protesters, libtards, and the random passers-by. I would say that they all deserve it, but there's no need for such platitudes! Why? Because the OTHER Golden Commandment is to love God above all else. And as a White male middle-aged protestant True American Christian Patriot, I believe that our White God and White Jesus would want nothing less than to get rid of all these people from our White nation. Surely that's loving God above all else? How do I know? Because our infallible leader in the White House says it is!

As a True White Male Middle-Aged Protestant American Christian Patriot, I'm proud that the BEST COUNTRY ON EARTH is going to expand and bring Greenland into our fold, whether they like it or not. We need that island for our national security, just like they need us for our Americanism. It's just a bonus that they also have a ton of valuable Rare Earth elements that would make us give up some of our dependence on China, dependence we created because China stole OUR money before we made it. If I was young enough, I would gladly enlist so I could take this land which by all rights is ours, even if it means killing people for it. I mean, Denmark KNEW it was our land when they sent the first White Europeans there 55 years before the United States became a nation. Plus, it's SUCH A HUGE ISLAND! Look at it on the map! And with a name like that, it must be lush and green! A White paradise on Earth!

I fully expect any day now that Heaven will forcefully annex Purgatory. Limbo, you're next.

I'm afraid I must cut this letter short, my True White Male Middle-Aged Protestant Imperialist Trump-Fearing American Christian Patriots. I must decide how many meals my family will need to skip this week in order to afford living in this 1,500 square foot apartment. It's a GOOD THING our very GOOD and SMART and HUMBLE and CHRISTIAN and STRONG and HANDSOME White President stopped all that runaway inflation.

-A Truly Poor White Male Middle-Aged Protestant Imperialist Trump-Fearing American Christian Patriot

A Treatise on Free Actors

Yeah, warning, "politics" ahead. I was told to avoid politics, but the things that are now sorted under that term are things that should very much not be associated with politics.

Free Thinking is a phrase that gets thrown around enough that it is in danger of losing any appreciable meaning. This is a phenomenon called "semantic satiation." There are a lot of words that suffer from this, and, as a writer, I try keep on top of things like that. I tend to avoid superfluous words and phrases, but I seriously doubt anyone can avoid them all. Such phrases are part of the human experience.

Unfortunately, it's not always as benign as this. "Socialism", "Capitalism," "Fascism," "Nazi," and "Freedom of Speech" are examples of terms that have been overused and misused to the point of them losing any real meaning for most people. But in these instances, it's not an accident. There are those who know that saturating the zeitgeist with these terms waters them down, and that's mostly because they're either terms that describe the people who don't like them or terms that threaten their agendas. 

"Free Thinking" is getting there, but it's not there yet. It's hand-in-hand with "Freedom of Speech." There is a difference. Freedom of Speech refers to government censorship, but by misusing and overusing it, people now evoke it whenever anyone disagrees with them or whenever someone says something that is utterly awful and doesn't want to suffer any consequences of their words.

I've noticed people using phrases like, "You're just afraid of free thinkers," to defend their terrible ideas and attack university education. They use words like "nonconformist", "maverick", "individualist", and "iconoclast." The problem is that none of them are, indeed, free thinkers.

Most of the time, "free thinking" refers to religious situations, but it can also apply to political ones. It's supposed to define people who refuse to accept socially accepted terms, boundaries, and ideas. They certainly understand them, but instead of letting themselves be defined by a certain term ("I identify as a democrat, therefore I must be pro-choice"), they use these terms to help describe who they really are, and usually this means they don't fit perfectly into any specific group of people. Right now, I've seen more and more people use this word and words like it to defend their conspiracy nonsense or justify doing terrible things.

Free thinking is fine and all. I think everyone should practice it; I'm concerned that very few people actually are. But it is secondary to what I feel is a problem that is plaguing this country, and in fact, the world.

What happens when you turn thoughts into actions?

Such "free actors" can change the world. They become inventors, innovators, writers, artists, activists. But they also can become despots, behind-the-scenes manipulators.

Why am I bringing any of this up?

Because someone with a conscience, a working mind, who does not limit themselves by certain concepts, and who is willing to act on their morals, is rare and is needed now more than ever.

I've come to this conclusion by watching what's happening in Venezuela, Israel, Russia, and the USA. Some manipulative, narcissistic monster is given power and starts giving orders, orders which are objectively evil and frequently illegal. And the result? People do it. 

I thought that, when the military was sent as a police force against its own people based on an obvious and provable lie, the military would refuse this order. It's a clearly illegal order and members of our military are required to disobey illegal orders. But it happened.

I thought that, when hired to demolish part of the White House, no contractor would touch the job until it was handed down to them by congress. It takes seconds of research to find that the president does not own the White House and has no say in such projects. But contractors were all too happy to demolish a part of our history, no questions asked.

Trump has been ordering and doing things that still make me sick to my stomach and surprise me in their audacity and wickedness. And yet, no one is stopping him. 

In an ideal world, there would be enough free actors around that they would, at the very least, provide substantial roadblocks to things like this. I understand that dictators fill their government with cronies and yes men who enable this shit, but at some point down the line, it comes to normal people to do these things. Considering how unpopular the current administration is, you'd think there would be pushback, that ordinary people would realize how much they outnumber these sycophants and monsters. 

This is OUR government, OUR people, OUR country. A random announcement or tweet should not be enough for us to surrender a little bit more of it to a felonious child rapist. We need more people willing to act in defiance of this burgeoning fascist state.

A word on words

 I remember when we entered “The Information Age.” It was around the late 90s. The internet was booming and data was the new big influence on the economy.

Then we entered “The Disinformation Age.” That started somewhere around 2010 or so, maybe earlier. We started seeing websites promoting conspiracy theories and actual “fake news.” Certain news agencies ramped up their political bias and began spreading outright lies or not reporting news that their political party did not like. There were a few major bad actors that most of this came from which were then spread far and wide. We began seeing “deep fakes” and photoshopped images. Over time, it became harder and harder to tell what was true, what was a reliable source.

And too many people don’t want the truth. They want comfort. They will believe anything so long as it aligns with their politics and makes them feel good about themselves. They’ll allow, ignore, or outright defend heinous acts because of some lie they read or watched. Hatred and bigotry became commonplace.

Then, in 2016, we entered “The post-Truth Era.” We are still there. Truth has become subjective to an absurd degree. If you repeat a lie loud enough and often enough, it “becomes” the truth in the eyes of those willing to listen. Little lies won’t cut the mustard; lies must be big and ridiculous. I have listened to conversations where otherwise intelligent people take some piece of untrue propaganda as obvious truth so they can vilify others. It is not commonplace for politicians to completely lie through their teeth and then get supported by their party’s media outlet to further spread the lies.

But words matter. Truth matters. You can’t make something true by simply repeating it constantly. It is high time we entered “The Consequences Age.” We need to know that telling lies is not acceptable, that you can’t just get away with lying because it sounds good.

If we don’t tell the truth, then words have lost their meanings.

Is This How We Should Judge Society?

   by: Spencer Hixon

 "U-S-A! U-S-A! We're number 1! We're number 1!"

    It's a pretty common thing to hear nowadays. Has been for decades, and I can't exactly blame people for believing that the United States is the best country in the world. Americans have made so many advances in technology and science and have controlled the flow of culture that the world would be an indistinguishable place otherwise. From literature, movies, and fashion to feats of industry, business, and medicine (and so much more), this country has made an indelible mark on nearly every life.

    But we are not without our problems.

    The United States is indeed number 1 in terms of money (1), Olympic medals (2), and military spending (3). But we are also number 1 in incarcerations AND incarceration rates (4), mass shootings in developed countries (5), guns, guns per capita (6), and school shootings (7). We appear to be a very violent people. But believe it or not, I'm not here to talk about guns.

    We have other problems, such as the 582,000 US citizens who are homeless (8), the 37.9 million US citizens who are in poverty (9), and fact that 6.7% of US citizens use illegal drugs (10). We are the most prodigious consumers of drugs in the entire world.

    But this article isn't about those things either. Then again, it is about all of them.

    When we are trying to determine how well a country is doing, perhaps the best place to look is to its foster care.

    The foster system in the US is, to put it mildly, broken (11). It's something no one seems to want to deal with. "Adopt, don't abort" is a nice sentiment, but if you do nothing to improve the adoption system then you are contributing to a host of problems in a feeble effort to deflect blame and claim some higher moral ground. Dumping kids in foster care is a terrible thing to be doing when the system seems designed to put them out on the street.

    Few people, it seems, are aware of the facts. I would like to change that a little.

• Over 50% of the homeless in the US were once fostered
• 40-50% of kids in foster care end up homeless within 18 months of aging out
• 65% of foster kids don't have a place to stay when they age out (12)
• Almost 20% of our inmates were once fostered
• 70% of foster kids who age out are arrested before they turn 26 (13)
• Foster kids are 3 times more likely to drop out of High School. Only half finish school
• Only 3-4% of fostered kids graduate from college with a 4-year degree. (14) This is in contrast to 36% of the general population
• Foster kids are 42% more likely to die than non-fostered kids (20)

    These do not equal a working foster system. What's worse, a disproportionate number of foster kids are black (15). Children of color in the fostering system wait longer to find a home than white kids do (16). They are more often abused.(17)

    So let's follow the conveyor belt of the fostering system.

    A child, through no fault of their own, ends up in foster care. In the first year, she lives in 4 different homes. (18)The child suffers abuse at the hands of their foster families and even other foster kids, but she isn't believed and nothing is done about it. Due to ever-changing family situations, neglect, or the fact that she ends up getting pregnant as a teen, she drops out of high school. After 15 or 20 homes (19), the child is too old for the foster system and is put out on the street. With no shelter, no money, no skills, no GED, and no family, she becomes homeless. In order to survive, she steals, turns to crime, turns to drugs and is subsequently arrested. Her child is born, but taken by the state due to neglect and put into the foster system. Chances are high that she will die young.

    The foster system is self-perpetuating. It is often poorly regulated. It contributes to many other problems in society. Yet we ignore the plight of these kids. Why?

    There are under 400,000 kids in our foster system right now. The government spends only about $15 billion on them, coming out to around $15,000 per foster kid per year. That is more than the US government claims makes someone poor (21) in most states. Yet that money clearly isn't being used well.

    This is a problem we can solve. It might take time, but increasing our spending on foster care, decreasing the amount of money lost by the system, adopting federal regulations, and providing housing and education for a certain number of years after aging out would do amazing things for these kids. In an ideal world, healthcare would be free for them for life, they would have a universal basic income, and a college education wouldn't cost them a dime. We obviously do not live in an ideal world.

    By this rubric, how we are handling our kids in foster care, the US is far from number 1. Yet, if we bothered to care and tried to solve this problem, it would improve the lives of every citizen and make this country stronger and better. We're the USA. We can do this.

    The catch is, do we want to?

Age after Age

Yes yes, I'm still alive and all that jazz.
And I'm sure I've lost all my readership.

I've been trying to write, but it has been a slow thing.  I don't want to make excuses.  Suffice it to say, getting overwhelmed with work is a vicious circle.
I plan on getting back into the grind of things this week.

So I thought I would make this post today to bring to light some news on one of the passions my wife and I share - the environment.
Call me a tree hugger if that's what floats your boat, but in this day and age, it would be remiss of you to ignore the overwhelming evidence that the environment is changing, and we are the cause.

But this post isn't about trying to convince you that the environment is changing.  If you want to argue it, I point you to this resource.  Just look up whatever argument you have, and see how it has been thoroughly and completely debunked by actual science.

No, the point of this post is actually names.  In particularly, the name of the age.
Some of you might know that Mesozoic Era, that of the dinosaurs (another subject I am very passionate about), consisted of the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods (which are also split into numerous stages).  A few of you might know that after the Mesozoic came the Cenozoic, the current era, and that we are currently in the Quaternary Period.  But, as I said earlier, these periods are broken into small stages, or "epochs."  A very select few of you may say that we are currently in the Holocene Epoch, or even the smaller subdivision of the Meghalayan Age (did I mention I'm a nerd?). If you are one of those people, I commend you!

But you might be wrong.

The scientific community is currently debating on the first change of epochs since, well, science.  From what I can tell, the only thing stopping them is determining the exact year of the change, which is currently likely to be somewhere between 1945 and 1964.  That means a good portion of you may have been born in a different age and epoch, as we may now be in the Anthropocene Epoch and the Homogenocene Age (though I may be wrong about that second one).

Why this change?  Anthropos is Greek for "man."  This is the Epoch where man has changed the environment to the point where every part of it has been influenced by our actions.  Since the mid-twentieth century, more than half of all wildlife on the planet has died, and 90% of all large fish have died.  The cause?  Pollution, climate change, and over-hunting.  We, humans, have affected the Earth so much that we now have an Epoch.  Most of these epochs are marked by extinctions, and this one is no different.  We are, indeed, in the middle of the 6th major extinction-event of the planet, and we are the cause of it.  If we aren't careful, we'll be marking the end of the Cenozoic as well, but let's hope it doesn't get that bad.

Which leads me to a final point.  There is another "age" we are in, supposedly.  We live in the "Information Age."  This is a 20th and 21st century historic age defined by a rapid shift from an economy based on industry to one based on information (computers and the like).  At this point, I'm sure I've bored you and you've moved on, so now I can get to the real point of this blog post - a secret letter to my wife.

The macarons are good.  Take some with you to work.

Now, back to the blog post, just in case someone really was paying attention.

I propose that we have left the Information Age, as of 2016.  I propose that we are entering the Misinformation Age - an age where truth has become harder and harder to determine, where news is formed by lies and social media, where governments make entire entities dedicated to influencing people through fake news and propaganda (such as the Russian-based Internet Research Agency).
There is a new Artificial Intelligence software that has been implemented to write simple news stories with language that makes it indistinguishable from human writing.  I worry about this because I am trying to make it as a writer, and I don't want some computer muscling me out of the market.  Experts worry about this, because it could be used to flood the internet, and even news shows, with entirely made up news that would be almost indistinguishable from real news - lies that you couldn't tell were lies.  This could topple governments.  For now they are trying to keep this AI under guard.

The problem is, history tells us that attempts to prevent progress always fail.  It will happen.  Combine this with the increasing levels of complexity in photo- and video-manipulation, with the computer programs that can put any words you like into anyone else's mouth (yes, these are real), and I fear for the future.  We know there are agents out there whose sole purpose is to sew discord, to fan the fires on both sides of any argument they can.  This sort of thing should scare all of us.  And it both follows the model of Orwell's classic 1984 as well as puts it to shame.

The victor may write history, but the anarchist writes the future.

Fear and Loathing in DC

Congratulations, America, on your purchase of a Trump!  Trump will be a good addition to your home if you remember three simple rules.
1) Do not feed your Trump's ego after midnight
2) Do not let your Trump near camera or TV lights
3) Do not let your Trump get wet.

In all seriousness, however, we, as a nation, are going to be led by this man who may very well be the least qualified person not currently in jail.  That is not to say he is not qualified.  He does meet the requirements: He was born in the US, he is over 35, and he has lived here for the last 14 years.  But that's where his qualifications for this job cease.

I have my fair share of friends who voted for Trump, and I asked many of them what they saw in him and why they were voting for him.  The answers were mostly nonsense.  They want change.  They don't like Obamacare.  They feel he is a party-man.  They like his ideas.  Hillary is guilty of x crime.  Hillary is a liar.  Hillary laughed at rape.  EMAILS!
When asked about the crap Trump says he wants to do, the answers were all-too-familiar.  The checks and balances will stop him.  These are actually good ideas.  It's just politic/locker room talk.  He didn't say/mean that.

Before I delve into this rant any further, I want to make my observation.  Stephen Colbert pointed out a poll that said 4 out of 10 Americans feel the other party (than their own) is dangerous.  That is to say, 40% of republicans think the democrats are a danger to the country, and 40% of democrats think the republicans are a danger to the country. An article claimed that this was an election "of fear." I also read a comment on twitter that, unlike previous elections, the losing side is not simply depressed, angry, and sad.  They are in real fear.  This fear sets this election apart from all others, and is not a good start to what promises to be an eventful presidency.
My observation is this:

The republicans are afraid of Hillary because of what the GOP claims she might do.  The democrats are afraid of Trump because of what he says he will do.

This is not an "us vs them" argument.  Trump's words are on tape, video, twitter, etc.  You can look them up yourself.  These are not fear-mongering attempts to control the undecided voter; these are the actual hopes and promises of the presidential candidate himself. We are afraid because he makes us afraid, not because our party wants us to fear him.

Now for the boring part I'm sure you'll skip. Yes, it's a rant.  I pride myself on being able to look at both sides, and usually I am pretty fastidious about where I get my sources, how truthful I am being, and how honest I am being with myself.  Like everyone, I slip, but unlike everyone, I have the time and training to actually research.  I want to attack these things one by one.
- When I heard someone claim that they are voting for Trump because they want change, they tell me that they don't care if it is positive or negative change... or they deflect.  Change for the sake of change is not a good thing.  Change must be productive, and well-thought-out for it to be beneficial.  If you are working on the bottom rung of a company and hear that there are going to be "staff changes," you would be smart to start looking for a new job in your free time.
- They don't like Obamacare.  Well fine.  It is not perfect.  I've seen people who have been burned by it, though far more people depend on it.  Removing Obamacare is going to cost us a lot, all of us.  But what are you going to replace it with?  The current plan is to get a plan.  This is irresponsible.  You are willing to put millions of people's insurance at jeopardy without knowing what is going to replace it?  Last I hard, Trump said everyone will have to pay their own way.  That is a death sentence to tens of thousands.  That is a step backwards.  We, as a society, should be beyond that.
- Trump represents the party.  If this were true, wouldn't GOP members be flocking to him, instead of bailing out left and right?  He has never represented the party - and that is part of his appeal.  He is the outsider, the man of his own ideals and ideas, however flawed they may be.  The PARTY is bending to HIS will, not the other way around.
- I don't know how anyone can like his ideas and consider themselves a normal human being.  The wall is pointless (it will not work), expensive as hell (trillions, plus maintenance costs), and paying for it is a debacle (Mexico will not pay for it, but Trump has *said* he wants to put SANCTIONS on them, our ally, until they do.  International bullying?  What the Hell!?).  His economic plan is, essentially, to bankrupt America and then "work out a deal."  His plan to end abortion is to punish the women.  He has no healthcare plan.  He wants to deport every illegal immigrant AND THEIR LEGAL FAMILIES en masse. He wants to end the 1st Amendment to make it easier for him to sue the media (and who knows what other crap that will cause...).  His gun plan is to have more of them. His plan to deal with terrorists is to waterboard them (or worse) and then "go after" their wives and children. These are actually things he has said.
- Out of every crime people like to accuse Hillary of, from murder to rape to controlling Bill's accusers to being a security risk, she has been investigated by competent, real people who would like nothing more than to put her away for a long time and in every case it turns out there either isn't enough evidence to even present it to court or it was made up.  People are hypocrites when it comes to her automatic guilt in crimes, but Trump's automatic innocence.  He has been embroiled in far more lawsuits, including 3 rape cases, charity fraud, racist rental policies, and racketeering.  There's still a chance he will be in jail - as a felon - on inauguration day.  No, Hillary is not nice or likable, and there really is some shady stuff in her past, but none of the stuff she is actually guilty of holds a candle to what Trump has been found actually guilty of.
- I have to laugh when people tell me Hillary is a liar.  But it's true.  She is a liar.  She has lied quite a bit.  According to politifact.com, as well as every other reputable fact checker out there, she has lied between 13% and 17% of the time.  Here's where more of the hypocrisy comes into play.  These fact checkers have determined that Trump is also a liar.  About 53% of the garbage he spews from his mouth is a lie.  That means he lies more than 3 times as frequently as Hillary does... and his lies tend to be worse.  He has more "pants on fire" ratings.  They aren't even imaginative lies; half the time he's simply saying that he didn't do or say something that he definitely did or said (on tape, in front of thousands of people, or on twitter).  I cannot abide lying, and I hate it every time I heard one from Hillary, but Trump?  The very thought of him makes the pit of my stomach give out.
- Hillary did once defend a rapist because that was her job and she was appointed to it.  It would have been remiss of her (and possibly illegal of her) not to do so.  And she won, like a good lawyer should.  Had it been Trump, the GOP would be praising him.  Years later, she was in an interviewing laughing about not trusting polygraphs anymore after that case.  No, she never, not once, laughed at a rape victim.  Listen to the audio.  It's online.
- The emails, GOD THE EMAILS!  How often has she been exonerated, and how much the people blew this out of proportion.  When Comey decided to show his colors (turns out the FBI is heavily Trump-leaning) and announce that he was simply investigating emails that mentioned Hillary, an announcement that is highly unethical and simply not done, its timing could not have been more suspicious, and its impact could not have been more auspicious.  Although she was again exonerated, the damage was done, and most analysts agree that Comey single-handedly handed the election to Trump.  If there is a God, Comey should spend the rest of his life behind bars. I'm more worried about the fact that he will turn the FBI into some sort of secret service.  Oh... I'm not bragging or being hyperbolic.  Under Hoover's command, that's exactly what many politicians and agents thought of the agency.  It has happened before, and it may well happen again.
-The checks and balances or other politicians will stop him?  What, like they were supposed to stop him from being the nominee?  Right now he has the majority in both sides of Congress, the GOP will refuse Obama's final Supreme Court Justice nominee and give the SC to the GOP.  ALL he is lacking is a supermajority.  He has executive orders now.  The checks and balances will mean shit.  The other members of his party would crawl backwards to attend to his every whim, just as they have ever since he was their nominee.  Besides, shouldn't you NOT be trusting in the checks and balances to stop a madman?  Shouldn't you INSTEAD not VOTE for the madman?
- These are good ideas only if you are a terrible person.  If you have any sense, you should see them for the crap that they are. Every bit of progress our country, perhaps the world, has made is in danger of being undone.
- No.  Shame on you.  This isn't locker room talk.  I would never say that in a locker room.  I would not be friends with someone who would say that in a locker room.  I would never even THINK the shit that comes out of Trump's diseased mind. And I hate him all the more for implanting such horrific thoughts.  No, this isn't politics as normal.  Trump is not a politician.  Yes, he lies when he thinks it will get him his way.  But these promises? Even if half of them are lies, the other half would still be true.  You all need to take the things he says seriously.  Chances are, he means them.

WHEW!  You made it through the rant.  Now if you are a rabid Trump supporter, you are either ready to (or currently?) write up a scathing rebuttal full of things you believe to be true, but, given time, I will gladly show you are false.  I'd ask that you save us both some time and just don't.  Because this next little bit is the important bit.

Trump lost.

Trump lost the same as Bush lost.  Neither man should (have) serve(d) in the White House.  Neither man was elected by the people.  They were elected by the electoral college, an outdated and extremely flawed system that is susceptible to gerrymandering (which the republicans have done in spades) and corruption.  There is some old and misguided idea that rural areas need to be protected, so their votes are worth more.  That very thought is anti-democratic.  It is anti-American.  But that's one of the reasons the last two republican "presidents" were not voted in by the people.  And look at them.  Bush was a laughing stock.  He had an abysmal approval rating.  He plunged us into debt.  He had negative job growth.  He started endless wars that he didn't pay for, predicated on a lie.  By any agreeable measure, he is one of, if not THE worst president in the history of the United States.  And now he's about to get Trumped.  No, I am not giving Trump his fair chance.  I do not think he deserves one.
And if you want to defend the electoral college, try me.  But I guarantee you that if Hillary had won on electoral votes and Trump on popular votes, you would also be decrying the idiocy of this backwards system.

A final thought.
This election was important for a lot of reasons, and failed in them all.  One reason, however, remains of vital importance and could well make this the single most important, and worst, election in history.  In other elections, in other years, no matter how bad it got, there was also the promise that in 4 years, we'd get a chance to boot the "bad" guy out and put another guy in who can undo all that damage.
We don't have that promise this time.  I'm not saying Trump will do something like declare himself president for life (but I wouldn't put it past him).  No, I'm saying that the damage his policies could have on our environment are not something that will go away, that we will recover from.  Ever.  There likely will be another president after him, and then another...  but they won't be able to undo the damage to our eco-system.  This is a man who believes that climate change, which is now confirmed as real AND as human-made, is a hoax invented by the Chinese.  This is a man who said that he wanted to ABOLISH the EPA to make it easier for businesses.  Now he wants to put the world's leading Climate Skeptic into position over THE EPA. He has said that he wants to destroy the Paris Climate Agreements. I cannot imagine a scenario worse than this. At this time we are experiencing an unprecedented level of extinctions (1,000 to 10,000 times higher than natural rates). In the last 40 years, we've lost HALF of all wild animals.  75% will be gone within three lifetimes.  And by 2070, the coral reefs may be beyond repair.  To you, these might seem like numbers.  But what they mean is that, unless we act *NOW* to mitigate the damage, we may well have triggered events that will see the end of our species.  After all, you can't eat money.
Trump may be our president.  But if he follows through on what HE IS SAYING HE WILL DO, he will also be our downfall.