This essay continues my recording many of the steps since World War II that has led to the devolution of the Republican Party into an anti-democracy party that’ has transformed itself into the autocracy of the Trumpistas. Ronald Reagan embodied the Big Lie of McCarthyism, the anti-government ideology of Barry Goldwater, the “I am the state” philosophy of Richard Nixon, and the implementation of future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell’s 1972 Memorandum to the Chamber of Commerce. Reagan’s personal popularity resulted in his policies leading our “advance to the rear” movement for 40 years (1981-2020).
The recent passing of James G. Watt (d. May 23, 2023) reminds us of the anti-environment policies and close-mindedness against climate change that has afflicted the Grand Old Party (G.O.P.) for decades. Mr. Watt was Reagan’s secretary of the Interior (1981-83), and it was he who set the example for denying climate change and advancing the use of fossil fuels even after scientists at Exxon, earlier in 1978, acknowledged that they were burning up the planet.
Watt was profligate in his leasing of federal lands to fossil fuel companies under the pretense of helping to pay off the national debt. Ironically, this was at a time when Reagan was cutting taxes on the extremely wealthy and tripling the national debt accumulated by all his predecessors combined. Besides, Watt’s leases were at rock-bottom rates, a steal for the fossil fuel industry, so hardly anyone bought Watt’s justification.
The House Interior Committee, chaired by a Democrat – whose party still held the majority in that body of Congress – asked him if he favored preserving wilderness areas for future generations. His reply was, “I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns.” I, and others, interpreted him to mean that we needed to use up all our natural resources while there was still time before Armageddon.
Watt’s supposedly “last gaffe” was when he complained about a Senate vote – and Republicans held majority control of the Senate – that barred him from leasing any more federal land. He was upset about who composed the panel that criticized his coal-leasing policies: He said that it contained “every kind of mixture – I have a Black, a woman, two Jews, and a cripple.” He was forced to resign post haste.
Nevertheless, each successive Republican administration during and after the Reagan-Bush era has tried to do more damage to the environment and more good for the fossil fuel industry than that of James Watt’s tenure at the Department of the Interior.
George W. Bush created an Energy Task Force in early 2001 that consisted of numerous Cabinet secretaries and other appointed federal officials and was chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney. Although its meetings and findings were held in secret, we have since learned who they met with. In at least 40 sessions, the task force sought extensive advice from utility companies and the oil, gas, coal, and nuclear energy industries and their lobbyists. It agreed to hold one meeting with representatives from 13 environmental groups, but Cheney didn’t bother to attend. Please remember that climate change was well recognized as a global issue at that time. With news of polar bears drowning due to melting ice, Bush II eventually admitted that climate change did exist, but that was about all he did.
Donald Trump’s energy policy was basically the same as Bush-Cheney’s: Promoting fossil fuels and denying climate change. In addition, his main emphasis was on undoing everything Barack Obama had done to try to save the planet. Sadly, for six years, Obama had to do everything by executive order, which could be undone by a later chief executive, such as Trump.
Recent polls indicate that virtually all Republican leaders and a large majority of likely Republican voters do not consider climate change a serious issue that must be addressed. This plays straight into the hands of Charles Koch’s donor network that finances multiple extreme right-wing think tanks to replace our democracy with an autocracy that represents plutocratic and theocratic interests.
The Heritage Foundation recently published a catastrophic G.O.P. “battle plan” called Project 2025: Acknowledge the obvious existence of climate change but deny any urgency to do anything about it; increase drilling and cut back on clean energy; to be implemented by an autocratic president. It’s essentially a “How to Burn Up the Planet Guidebook.”
As I have pointed out time and time again, the way for the G.O.P. to gain power is to accept that there are not enough extremely rich voters to win elections. The plutocrats (the wealthy) must get the support of single-issue voters: the minority who are evangelicals, the minority who oppose abortion rights, the minority who oppose gun safety regulations, the minority who oppose LGBTQ rights, the minority who oppose saving the planet, the minority who oppose democracy, the minority who want to suppress voting rights….
To win elections, they must unite these disparate minority groups, and they have been extremely successful. How else did George W. Bush (2000) and Donald J. Trump (2016) win the presidency? The Koch donor network has been brilliant at getting control of state and local governments. They’ve set the stage for winning the undemocratic and now-dangerous Electoral College vote that officially selects the American president even if a candidate loses the national popular vote.
In addition to his appointment of Mr. Watt, another notable contribution to Reagan’s climate-change denial was his bragging about removing Jimmy Carter’s solar panels from the roof of the White House. His legacy continues to threaten us. If the Trumpistas, as the current G.O.P. is presently constituted, regain control of the executive branch and either or both houses of Congress, we will not only lose our democracy: We will also lose the quality of life on the planet that we’ve been neglecting for far too long.
A version of this essay was published in south Arkansas’s El Dorado News-Times, on June 25, 2023.
High Noon 
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