WHEN THE HURLEY-BURLEY'S DONE...?

 

When the Hurley-Burley’s done…?

 

Having served as journalist at The Washington Post for over two decades, John Harris is a veteran political journalist and co-founder of Politico, the political news and opinion organization available on various newsfeeds. Harris and Jim Vanderhei founded Politico in 2007 and Harris served as editor-in-chief until 2019.  Excerpts of his recent article below demonstrate a less emotional and hopefully more accurate prediction of what is to come – even if too slowly for many of us. 

 

“Donald Trump lost the presidency, but his opponents so far have not achieved the victory they want most: A fatal puncturing of the Trump movement, a repudiation so complete that it severs his astonishing grip on supporters and leaves him with no choice but to slink offstage and into the blurry past.

“For now, Trump dominates conversations about both present and future. His outlandish claims that he won the election except for comprehensive fraud have helped raise more than $200 million since Election Day. Many of his partisans share his dream of recapturing the presidency in 2024. For those who despise him, to paraphrase a famous Democratic speech, it seems clear the work goes on, the cause endures, the fear still lives, and the nightmare shall never die.

“Except it will die — most likely with more speed and force than looks possible today.

“There are three primary reasons to be deeply skeptical that Trump’s moment of dominating his party and public consciousness will continue long after Jan. 20.

“Most important are the abundant precedents suggesting Trump does not have another important act in national politics. The perception that Trump will remain relevant hinges on the possibility that he is a unique historical figure. Trump, however, is singular in one sense only: No politician of his stripe has ever achieved the presidency. In multiple other ways, he is a familiar American type, anticipated by such diverse figures as Joseph McCarthy, George Wallace, and Ross Perot.

“Like Trump, they all possessed flamboyant, self-dramatizing personas. They tapped into genuine popular grievance toward elites, and had ascendant moments in which they caused the system to quake and intimidated conventional politicians of both parties. In every case, their movements decayed rapidly. Cults of personality in American politics are quite common. But they never live long, and Trump has offered no reason to suppose he will be an exception.

“That’s the second reason Trump is not well-positioned to retain his hold on public attention: He has largely abandoned any pretense that he thinks about anything other than his personal resentments, or that he is trying to harness his movement to big ideas that will improve the lives of citizens. When he vaulted into presidential politics five years ago, Trump’s still-potent gifts — for channeling anger, for mockery, for conspiracy theory — were once channeled to an agenda that fellow Republicans were largely neglecting, over trade, immigration, globalization, and perceptions of national decline.

“These days, no one can follow Trump’s Twitter feed and believe that he cares more about the public’s problems than his own, and that is not a recipe for sustaining political power.

“Here is the third reason to be bearish on Trump’s future: Politics never stands still, but Trump largely does. As he leaves the White House, Trump should be haunted by a stark reality — if he had any capacity for self-calibration, he wouldn’t be leaving the White House at all. He’s got one set of political tools. When things are going well, his instinct is to double down on those. When things are going poorly, his instinct is to double down on those. In political terms, the pandemic demanded modulation of Trump’s blame-casting brand of politics — but also would have lavishly rewarded him if he had done so.

“Trump didn’t change because he didn’t perceive the need and couldn’t conceive of how to do so. That’s a combination of flawed judgment and impoverished imagination that hardly supports optimism about his ability to retain power in the new circumstances that await him once gone from the White House.

“Time moves on. Ambitious Republicans who wish to regain control of the party and become president themselves do not have to confront and defeat Trump, as his 2016 rivals tried and failed to do. They merely have to transcend him, using issues to create leadership personas that will soon enough make the 74-year-old Trump look irrelevant, an artifact of an era that has passed. What about his 88-million Twitter followers, and the possibility that in his ex-presidency he will start his own news network? It is true that Trump will not lack for avenues to get his message out. But what will that message be, beyond repeating claims of a stolen election that his own attorney general has said are not true. Conspiracy theories, of course, can have power, even when the evidence is nil — that’s just proof of how deep and wide the conspiracy must go. But this isn’t a promising basis to return Trump to the White House or make him kingmaker."

There’s so much more to savor reading by Mr. Harris’ article “Relax, A Trump Comeback In 2024 Is Not Going To Happen.”  https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/10/trump-comeback-2024-not-happening-444135  I hope you do and entertain a reason to hope that his longer view of our nation’s political history will once again repeat.    

 

TRUMP’S PARTING QUID PRO QUO

 

The Republican Senate in November of 2017 approved the $1.5 Trillion Tax Relief Bill skewed to assist the wealthy and major corporations but not without an offer to repay some major part of the cost of debt.

 

That payment would involve a deal: the reassignment of public lands as well as Native American lands as leasable to private oil, gas, and energy companies just before the end of Trump’s first term in office. 

 

Those lands, the “Coastal Plain” of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge represent nearly 8 percent of the 19 million acres of publicly owned land that is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).  In addition, the Trump Tax Relief Bill also provided subsidies for oil and gas industries, cuts in federal investments for clean energy development, and the lessening of plans to control climate change.  But there’s more: Trump’s administration has added to the $8 Billion gas and oil companies already receive in tax benefits as well as reducing royalty rates to be paid to the U.S government for use of lands, etc. 

 

The “coastal plain” is nearly 1.5 million acres, but it is also the environmental and biological heart of the ANWR, supplying life to the migrations of thousands of caribou, providing safe denning for hundreds of polar bears, protecting endangered avian species, and maintaining large salmon resources.  And the home of indigenous peoples who depend on those resources for their culture and survival.  

 

Trump started the process for selling oil rights in the coastal plains just after his election loss on November 17^th.  The procedure included a 30 day window for oil companies to confidentially tell the government which pieces of land they would like to include in a possible lease.  

 

Like a car, it’s a lease that ends with an option to buy and own.  Or, the companies can turn it back over to the Native Americans after they've “developed it (aka mutilated) beyond recognition.  But, if profitable, the companies can purchase it and carry on.

 

Although distasteful, this is not really very new.  Land reform deals where Roman patricians gained financially over plebes through swindles of acreage and the emperor over those same patricians reach back to 500 BC, but oil companies have been salivating over this opportunity in the coastal plain of ANWR for decades.

 

Patterns of seismic blasting the '84 and '85.

Between 1984 and 1985, more than 20 oil companies found means and method to survey the lands under the coastal plains, leaving scars and pockmarks that lasted many years.  Findings were unclear, but in 1986, Chevron and BP got the opportunity to spend $40 million and drill down 3 miles to find the answer, an answer no one is allowed to know. The well was called KIC-1.  

 

We’ll never know if there was oil or not – unless BP or Chevron (now Standard Oil) give away their position when bidding on a lease. Through the work of their hordes of lawyers and subsequent court filings, the two companies were able to muzzle the Alaskan Department of Natural Resources from releasing any of the two companies’ data.   

 

As for Alaska?  A Republican state without income or sales taxes and dependent upon its 50% of all revenue from mandated lease sales, despite its effects upon its indigenous people?  They can easily look the other way as the political process continues.

 

If you were wondering what another four years of Trump might look like, this is just one small sample of what he would do and is doing to burn it down before leaving an office in shambles for the next President.  President Biden may find his hands somewhat tied if Trump and his gang can get the leases finalized before he is forced to leave office on the 20^th of January, but Biden does control the permitting process afterward and the future costs enough to make even BP or Chevron take pause.    

Let's hope he does.

 

Resources: Center for American Progress and NRDC