16 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY AUGUST 7-13, 2025 www.montereycountynow.com Signal, Noise The daily Trump chaos distracts us from existential failures to save our planet—and human life. By Robert L. Borosage FORUM Epstein’s list, charging Obama with “treason,” on and off Liberation Day tariffs, thuggish ICE raids and its global gulag, abetting Gaza horrors, bullying Columbia, brazen corruption, gelding law firms, depriving millions of healthcare while larding more tax cuts on the wealthy, Truth Social fulminations and lies—the daily Trump grotesqueries drive the headlines, troll the liberals, foul the public debate and trample the laws and the Constitution. The constant noise often distracts from the true perils of Trump’s misrule. At a time when this country faces ever more threatening interlocking crises, Trump is perversely exacerbating the most dangerous threats to our nation’s security, a dereliction of duty that will cost lives and wreak ever greater destruction. For example, the congressional presentation of the Annual Intelligence Community’s Threat Assessment in March was consumed with the brouhaha over Defense Secretary Hegseth’s reckless “Signal call.” No mention was made of the two most deadly security threats to Americans—catastrophic climate change and global pandemics. Climate change had been included for over a decade. Astounded at the omission, U.S. Sen. August King, I-Maine, asked, “Has climate change been solved? Why is that not in this report?” Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s director of national intelligence, replied that while “we are aware of occurrences within the environment…we’re focused on direct threats to American safety.” Over the past 10 years, the US has been hit by 190 billion-dollar disasters that killed more than 6,300 people and cost an estimated $1.4 trillion in damage. This year, fires in California, 200 million suffering under record “heat domes,” more than 120 dead in central Texas Hill country from flash floods. Record temperatures are producing blackouts, buckling roads and filling emergency rooms. Yet somehow this doesn’t count as a “direct threat to American safety.” The loss of lives and property will get worse. And Trump isn’t just ignoring it—he’s making it worse. He is dismantling the capacity needed to track the growing threat, gutting NOAA, the chief climate agency responsible for weather forecasting, slashing the National Weather Service and more. While he is putting lives and property at greater risk, Trump is ceding to China the industries of the future—from solar to wind to electric vehicles to batteries and storage. China will dominate the coming industrial revolution. Meanwhile Covid-19, the deadliest disaster in U.S. history, took the lives of over 1 million Americans, the most of any country in the world. Perversely, Trump has chosen not to strengthen the institutions tasked with addressing future threats to public health, but to lay waste to them. This isn’t a sideshow; it is not cutting waste and fraud. It is putting the lives of Americans at risk in the face of real and present dangers. Robert L. Borosage is a writer and activist. This story first appeared in The Nation. OPINION Trump isn’t just ignoring it—he’s making it worse.
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