The Royal Flush

Or, the royal scam.

Trump is going after environmental regulations concerning consumer products because he believes that, despite the newspaper headlines screaming about climate change and all of the hurricanes and firestorms caused by climate change, consumers will balk at any rules that cause them to change their behavior.  This includes the light bulbs we get, straws we drink with, the dishwashers we buy, and, yes, the toilets we use. 

The federal government has already scuttled regulations that would have started phasing out incandescent light bulbs beginning yesterday (January 1), because Trump marvels at the wonderful light that old-fashioned bulbs provide at a fraction of the cost of light emitting diode (LED) bulbs - never mind that LED bulbs last longer and pay for themselves in the long run.  Trump also wants to stop the move toward paper straws over plastic ones, as he finds plastic ones to be more user-friendly, and he complains about dishwashers and toilets that use too little water.  (They don't, really; they just use less.)

This could all work, though.  Because, as I've noted, Americans can be utterly stupid when it comes to matters of the environment.  Americans also don't like being told accept anything new.  As journalist David Kiley once observed, it takes time for Americans to embrace change, which is why it took a hundred years for the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution (multiracial suffrage) to be enforced and why we still haven't made the metric system official.  A lot of people in the heartland aren't ready to give up their inefficient light bulbs and appliances, which is why I think Trump can get an edge in the election this coming November.

Oh yeah, he's also doing away with tax credits for electric vehicles, the internal combustion engine being a tried-and-true icon of American automotive engineering.  Electric vehicles currently sell like opera tickets - that is, only a handful of wealthy, cultured people buy them - and Trump wants to keep it that way.  But Volkswagen, the same car company that cheated on diesel emissions, is hell-bent on providing electric vehicles for the U.S. market and even making them here, priced as competitively as standard gasoline-engine cars.  This is happening even as Detroit mostly pretends to be interested in entering the electric-vehicle market.  That all dovetails nicely with Trump's efforts to curtail the growth of the solar-panel industry with rules and tariffs designed to retard their sales and progress . . . and surrendering development of solar power to the Chinese.     

And Americans applaud Trump for standing up to change, thus proving that stupidity is a communicable disease.  

I hope you can't get it from a toilet seat.