Opinion

Trump Needs To Get A Grip On His Communications And Cabinet

PHOTO: REUTERS/Carlos Barria

David Krayden Ottawa Bureau Chief
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President Donald Trump told Judge Jeanine on Friday that his communications people can’t keep up with him. You know, that might be true because Trump is not only a 24-hour a day president, he is a one who seems to really want to do his own communications without the aid of staffers.

That may sound like a cool idea in the age of social media; but it is a recipe for disaster. Trump has got to maintain some semblance of a communications message; otherwise, everything is going to unravel as he pushes out and endless stream of tweets that don’t always add up to a coherent or consistent paragraph.

He also needs to enforce that message with his cabinet and this week he did not do so.

What is President Donald Trump’s policy on climate change and does he think the United States should be encouraged — or even obliged — to follow the dictates of the Paris climate accord? Well, truly it depends who you talk to and no issue better illustrates the cleavage in the Trump administration between liberal progressives and conservatives who are ardently opposed to big government solutions.

If Secretary of State Rex Tillerson respresents the administration the abroad, and by the very definition of his office, that is precisely what he does, then American environmental policy is being pulled in the direction of the climate change acolytes who not only seriously believe that it is mankind’s most urgent mission to make war on climate change. For the most devout, this is not merely a political objective, it is a religious mission.

So what was Tillerson up to this week? Well, he journeyed to Alaska to have a summit with something called the Arctic partners. While there he signed the Fairbanks Declaration: a document that explicitly endorses the objectives of the Paris Accord. Tillerson was not just complicit in the declaration, nor was his participation reluctant or somehow coerced; no, Tillerson led the discussion and enthusiastically  forged unity among those present.

It always concerns me when a U.S. secretary of state earns the unbridled praise of a member of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet. But Foreign Affairs Minsiter Chystia Freeland was absolutely effusive in her praise of Tillerson’s tremendous efforts on behalf of the climate change cause, clearly believing that he was not only exhibiting his own environmental fervor but that of his government.

Trump needs to clarify his environmental position with the same speed and zest that he applies to his Twitter activities. The climate change movement does not just represent an utterly unrealistic political objective but it remains potentially the largest tax grab in history as we are expected to somehow reduce carbon emissions by paying more for gas. The objective of course is to reduce the population to a stone-age lifestyle that is bereft of any carbon-producing modern convenience or warmth-emitting fuel.

Of course, even if this transformation is achieved, it will not offset the increasing industrialization of China and India but we in the West will certainly feel the pain of doing our part. It is not so much a climate change war as a climate change swindle; but if you wish to reduce our carbon footprint to a mere fragment, be my guest.

Of course, the cruel irony in this story is that the very people who urge us to produce less and live at half the capacity are amassing fortunes and broadening their carbon footprints as they jet-set around the world spreading the environmental gospel.

Arguably, one of the principle reasons that people voted for Trump is that he unmasked this environmental imposter and promised to stop wasting taxpayers’ money on the impossible dream of controlling the weather.

Nothing inspired more cheers at the Second Gettysburg Address than his promise to stop sending money to UN so it could spend it on mindless climate change programs.

Thanks to Tillerson, those cheers are receding.

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