Donald Trump, Arsonist in Chief

The President from Hell

[The book cover I’m putting up today is for Jon Else’s upcoming work, Frenchman Flat: The Rise and Fall of Atomic Bombs. I’m just in the middle of reading an advanced copy of it myself. It dramatically explores the coming of atomic weaponry, the nightmare of our world that, unlike climate change, gets almost no attention these days. I recommend that you check it out. Tom]

I know, I know. Recently, Donald Trump has been obsessed with water, at least the algae-green water in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool that he wants to be a beautiful, pristine blue. But consider that an irony indeed, since when it comes to the planet he now oversees, water is going to be a problem and a half, algae or not.

Phew, in fact, I’m already sweating and I’ve just been reading about the heat in Europe right now, a region which has been warming twice as fast as the global average for quite a while. And mind you, I’m thousands of miles away (although still in a distinctly hot New York City about to soon get hotter still)!

If it were me, the headline during Trump’s recent algal week in the news wouldn’t have been in question anywhere on this planet (of ours?). I’m thinking, of course, about the recent days when the mid-June temperature in Paris, France, hit a wild record of nearly 115 (yes, you read that right!) degrees Fahrenheit and it was in the 106-113 degree range across the European continent. From England to Switzerland and Spain, temperature records of a remarkable sort were being set and then set again (and again!).

No one had ever seen anything quite like it. In the third week of June, it was so hot, in fact, that across Europe at least 40 people drowned just trying to stay wet and cool and four toddlers died trapped in overheated cars. And yet, crisis as it might have been, think of it as just the beginning on this distinctly overheating planet of ours. With at least two and a half more years to go of Donald J. Trump, a fossil-fuel maniac of the first order who has called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” you can count on this planet becoming ever hotter ever sooner. And count on another thing as well: in the coming years, today’s weather and temperature headlines, however disturbing they might seem right now, are likely to prove all too mild.

In short, we humans -- Trump in his wildly pro-fossil fuel views and acts being just the most obviously mad of our leaders -- are all too literally hard at work heating this planet of “ours” toward the boiling point. Of course, no one should be surprised that this American president has proven to be an arsonist first class, a fossil-fuelized maniac of the first order. (Or do I mean second class and second order, since this is indeed his second time around?)

Once upon a time, in another age, Donald J. Trump’s return to the presidency would have been just a sign of the descent of a great imperial power. But on this planet of ours at this very moment, he represents so much more than that with his bizarre urge to further fossilize-fuelize our world in every way imaginable. Think of him, in fact, as the eerie personification of the decline not just of the United States, but potentially of everything. Yes, the works!

And keep in mind that, on this ever-changing planet of ours, the keys to imperial power no longer lie in war, as Trump and crew made all too clear recently in Iran, and Vladimir Putin has made even more strikingly clear in his never-ending war with Ukraine, the most devastating conflict in Europe since World War II. And, of course, it continues to pour fossil fuels into the atmosphere (just as Israel recently did in Gaza and Lebanon). It’s estimated that the first four years of that conflict have indeed already put 311 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

On Planet Earth today, it’s not complicated. No matter who (if anyone) wins any war, everyone loses. Yes, every last one of us from the almost 82-year-old me to -- especially -- my grandchildren who, barring a genuine surprise, will inherit what could only be thought of as the planet from -- yes! -- hell.

And that’s why, for the first time in human history, taking up the keys to global imperial power should no longer mean becoming the greatest military powerhouse around, something that -- to give its leaders credit -- China has grasped in a significant way. Now, don’t get me wrong, China is indeed arming itself in a traditional (if I can even use that word) fashion, including with the nuclear weapons that are the fastest way we humans have discovered to do ourselves in on this planet. But its leaders have also grasped that, as the heat rises ever more radically, the need for green power will only grow in an astounding fashion.

And so, in its imperial rise on this planet, and despite the way it, too, continues to burn coal, oil, and natural gas in a staggering fashion, it’s become the Earth’s great green power. It’s now selling the equipment to produce solar and wind power in a distinctly record fashion globally. As the Guardian reports, “the manufacture, installation and export of batteries, electric cars, solar, wind and related technologies accounted for more than a third of China’s economic growth” in 2025 and “clean energy industries drove more than 90% of the country’s investment growth last year, making the sectors bigger than all but seven of the world’s economies.”

Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been trying to ensure that, in our future, the United States will indeed be a lost country on this planet. (Fortunately, he’s been unable to stop the remarkable growth and roll-out of green energy here, too.)

In the meantime, all too sadly, the casualties are rising. And make no mistake, this is indeed war (even if of a different kind than anything we’ve been used to). Under the circumstances, don’t you think it strange indeed that Americans would have elected Donald Trump a second time to be our arsonist-in-chief?

And here’s the thing all of us need to try to grasp: the worst that’s happening right now is nothing compared to what could happen in the years to come. And mind you, nothing makes me sadder than imagining the world my grandchildren may find themselves in when they grow up.

Someday, Donald J. Trump will undoubtedly be remembered as the president from -- yes, it’s an all too appropriate and accurate word -- hell. He will have been our arsonist-in-chief on a planet that, all too sadly, as in Europe recently and despite everything now being done, could be going to hell in a handbasket.