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It is a tale of two worlds. In Real World, the COVID scourge continues to inflict massive human suffering and economic costs on the American people. More than 177,000 Americans have died. More than 5.7 million have been infected. These are by far the largest tolls in the world. No wonder the U.S. economy is now a basket case.
More than 22 million jobs were lost in April alone, and many more in March and May, yet only 42% of those jobs have returned. Even with so many jobless Americans waiting to go back to work, job growth has slowed with July employment less than half that of June, and August looking weaker still.
This is the worst job market since the Great Depression. Yet after more than almost nine months, the Trump administration still does not have a coherent or effective national COVID-19 strategy, and Senate Republicans went on vacation rather than pass unemployment extensions for millions of jobless Americans.
But as his convention continues, the president seems to reside in Trump World, a land of alternative facts where everything appears fine. Late last week, Trump called his presidency the “most successful period of time in the history of our country, from every standard” and said his administration has “demonstrated over the last four years the extraordinary gains that are possible.”
Meanwhile, this week heatwaves, wildfires and hurricanes, all made much worse by climate change, are devastating communities and making life unbearable for tens of millions of Americans across the country.
In California, a massive heatwave scientists say is exacerbated by climate change has led to 600 separate fires, including the second and third largest in state history, which have killed seven people thus far. More than one million acres have burned, three times the annual average, just in the last nine days. More than 100,000 people have been evacuated. Even as the coronavirus pandemic increases respiratory illness, air quality has been fouled for tens of millions across the West.
Wildfires now consume twice the acreage they did in 1984, according to a study by the University of Idaho and Columbia University, which found the main cause was higher temperatures and drier conditions due to climate change. These trends are increasing as the frequency of large fires on public lands has grown 500% in the last 40 years and average forest temperatures have risen by 2.5 degrees.
And on the Gulf Coast this week, not one but two hurricanes made fiercer by climate change are bearing down on residents of Louisiana, Texas and other Gulf States. Hurricane Marco will be the first to hit, with parts of Louisiana feeling gale-force winds as early as Monday. Hurricane Laura, the second storm, is forecast to pack 105-mph winds beginning Wednesday, and may well become a Category 3 or higher hurricane by later this week. Both storms are expected to dump dozens of inches of rain on inundated coastal communities and create devastating storm surge.
These hurricanes are more destructive because Gulf, Caribbean and Atlantic water temperatures in most years are now two to four degrees Fahrenheit higher than in the 20th century because of global warming. For every degree of water temperature increase, there is at least a 4% increase in atmospheric moisture that makes storms larger and more intense. This year the Gulf water is more than three degrees higher than normal, and forecasters anticipate a near-record hurricane season.
There is a deep connection between battling COVID and addressing climate change — both require government to understand and act on science. But Trump and his Republican allies have repeatedly proven themselves incapable of meeting this requirement. They have denied proven science for decades, called climate change a hoax and claimed that the coronavirus will “just disappear.”
Since Trump was first alerted by national security officials in January about the COVID threat (and for weeks failed to alert the American public), Trump stunningly suggested that ingesting disinfectant might kill the virus, and falsely claimed hydroxychloroquine is the answer. Just this week, Trump’s newest foray is forcing FDA to approve an anti-body rich blood plasma treatment without randomized trials.
Meanwhile, Trump has not only denied all climate science, but purposefully eliminated every possible climate change protection he can, including many that have had broad bipartisan support for decades. Soberingly, Bill Gates drew these connections in a recent article, noting that “as bad as COVID is, climate change could be worse.”
Yet back in Trump World, all is rosy. On Sunday, the president spent yet another press briefing trying to find something to crow about, real or imagined. “In everything we do, my administration is fighting for the American people and delivering one victory after another,” he said.
This is the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a storm that devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,800 people and costing $125 billion. President George W. Bush mishandled Katrina badly in 2005, and his poll numbers plummeted in its wake, never to recover. In the subsequent 2006 election, Democrats took back the House for the first time in 12 years.
As election day looms, the gross mishandling of COVID, the economy and climate change is likely to exact a high political price on Donald Trump and his science-denying allies. The pandemic and climate change will then finally yield up its first major political victims: ironically, those who don’t believe in the seriousness of these very real problems in the first place.
Bledsoe is strategic adviser at the Progressive Policy Institute, and a former U.S. Senate and Clinton White House staff member.