Donald Trump vs USA weather (? [Jan. 2016])
Will the real USA please stand up? We live in times of an early start for the US presidential race and a rich, ignorant buffoon named Donald Trump seems streets ahead of his Republican competitors. But how far ahead really is he of his main Democrat rival, Hillary Clinton?
Fear not dear reader-persons about media coverage of Trump. Look instead at the USA’s weather. And we find that the real USA isn’t Donald Trump. The real USA is on the weather ropes (see if we aren’t correct, watch tornado alley in the USA for more bad news if you don’t believe us). Trump is just a side issue.
In early January 2016, mid-winter US-style, the Mississippi River floods, the state of Missouri is in a state of emergency. Parts of St Louis have met destruction. People are being evacuated. All this is on world TV, yet Donald Trump keeps frothing that he will return the USA to its former “greatness”. This writer wonders if the weather (read, the effects of climate change) will allow Trump his wish?
We find that www.forbes.com by 4-1-2016 has an article by a sceptical Larry Olmsted (“When the Levee Doesn’t Break: what’s wrong with the Media’s Weather Coverage?”), where Mr Oldmsted fails to consider cases where the levee does break (such as with New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina). Mr Oldmsted wonders if Memphis Tennessee is really badly flooded or not? And this writer concludes that if US media outlets can’t be trusted to write accurately about the weather, why should they be trusted to write accurately about more subtle matters such as politics and about Trump? It seems a fair enough question.
It gets worse in the USA. We found that earthzone.org runs a web page on “Changing the Media Discussion on Climate and Extreme Weather”, by two writers, Christine Shearer of University of California Santa Barbara and Richard B. Rood, of Dept. of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Science, University of Michigan. And we thought, don’t ask Trump about any of this, ask Shearer and Rood. The Weather Channel of the USA (much maligned we found in some circles) had predicted a colder-than-average-winter for the s/w, s/e and the east coast, while warmer-than-average temperatures were predicted for the west coast, n/w, Upper Mid-West and n/e interior,with the current El Nino set to make its mark on the US 2016.
Well, we finally turned in despair to an article on Trump … The article by Brad Norington finds that Trump’s remarks are “wild, inflammatory and often extreme”, or “wild and devoid of reason”. Not to put too fine a point on Trump, Norington finds he is by turns remarkable for his rise, confounding the experts, shallow (short on detail for the most complex questions), a big mouth, no experience in public office etc etc. Trump advocates a discriminatory immigration policy (about Muslims). Trump is anti-Mexicans. Trump can be abusive, racist, factually incorrect, not so fond of women having menstrual periods, yet Trump is popular.
But who is Trump popular with? Not, it seems, popular with the men who run the USA’s Republican Party or GOP. (Grand Old Party as it laughingly reviews its own history back to Jefferson.) The men who run the GOP are terrified that Trump might get near to winning a Republican nomination to run for President, that they might ever have to endorse him. It seems Trump speaks for a pretty mean constituency, which consists of remnant Tea Partiers, plus working class men with no great education levels, non-university graduates who yet fancy themselves “straight-talkers”. How strong are Trump’s supporters likely to be? Norington doesn’t think Trump will do well soon where he needs to do well politically, in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. At least one expert Norington talked to thinks Trump’s success is a reflection from USA folks annoyed that a leftie-black-guy (happens to be named Obama), is currently running the US White House.
Norington thinks Trump will finally be left with two options. Stay with the Republicans and be finally inhibited. Or cut loose from them, go Independent, and lose comprehensively to Ms. H. Clinton.
And please don’t ask what happened to those working class US guys with their poorer education levels, or their wives or girlfriends, or their collective destinies, because it will be all too sad. Deplorable, really. Anyone for weather in the USA, then?
(Based partly on an article by Brad Norington on Trump, Weekend Australian, 2-3 January 2016., p. 17 of Inquirer section, “Trump card unplayed as senior Republicans consider shut-out”. The reader will obviously gather that Mr. Byrnes as things happened was not one of those who predicted that Trump would win the US presidency. Which, drat it, becomes another story.)
