Truth, it is said, is always a casualty in war, though the Trump administration hasn’t really needed a war to assault the truth.
When the Nixon regime was cratering under the fallout from the Watergate fiasco in 1973, embattled White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler frequently referred to a statement made the day before as “inoperative” after the comment was proven false. Today, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says things like, “If you heard it from the president, obviously it’s true,” and still keeps a straight face.
For those of us who sat through gas lines and the oil shocks of the mid-1970s, it’s really stunning to read that today’s situation represents the worst energy crisis in world history.
I can still remember looking out the big bay window at the rear of Rockefeller Library on the Brown University campus one evening in the mid-1970s and seeing … not much. Downtown Providence was in the midst of a “brown out” due to energy concerns, with silhouettes of big buildings shrouded in darkness, and small flashing red lights on top warning airplanes away.
It’s just a reminder that President Donald Trump’s mantra of “drill, baby, drill” − pandering to the oil and gas industry in the midst of global climate change − is forever irresponsible. Renewables are already useful, and battery storage capacity will be a game-changer.
The moral exhaustion of permanent outrage
In the meantime, Trump continues rage-tweeting against whatever is on his mind on any given night, constantly showing himself as a nearly 80-year-old “get off my lawn” curmudgeon. If he lived up the street from you, you’d tell your children, “Just steer clear of the Trump house, OK?” (As a child growing up in suburban Cleveland, I lived a few houses away from one of those cantankerous types. We gave his yard a wide berth.)
When Trump unleashed Operation Epic Fury on Iran, it seems clear he expected the regime to collapse or surrender in a matter of days. There was no Plan B. Eliminate their nuclear capacity? OK − but hadn’t we already “obliterated” that last year? Regime change from a virulently anti-American and repressive government? OK − but what of the decades of U.S. war-gaming against Iran that warned Trump of the potential for failure?
Instead, we have the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and an unfolding global economic crisis. Beyond angry and incredulous bluster, Trump seems powerless to do much about it.
I have been writing political columns for more than three decades, and I rarely mention religion − because I consider that someone’s private business. (Although I find myself shaking my head at the sheer arrogance of Trump and his toadies trying to school Pope Leo XIV on Catholic doctrine.)
But these days I am reminded frequently of what Jesus Christ said two millennia ago, words that ring true yesterday, today, and tomorrow − whether you think Jesus is the Son of God, a wise prophet, or just a guy who had an eclectic following (no heresy intended). He said: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
In the midst of war, in the midst of draconian deportation policies, in the midst of Man’s Inhumanity to Man written in headlines daily − those words should resonate with all of us. Yet in so many circumstances these days, they don’t seem to − and I guess I just don’t understand why.
Dirk Q. Allen is a former opinion page editor of the Hamilton JournalNews. He lives in Oxford.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Trump’s chaos leaves little room for truth | Opinion
Reporting by Dirk Q. Allen, Opinion contributor / Cincinnati Enquirer
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