The long-term project of conservatives to shrink government down to a size where it can be drowned in a bathtub has been given a big assist by their refusal to recognize or do anything about climate change. Now they don’t even need a bathtub. Our newly chaotic weather will provide a storm to do the drowning at any time drowning is required.

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What are the two issues of largest and longest-lasting consequence to the United States? Climate and wealth inequality. Trump may display a startling lack of focus on most issues, but he has been unnervingly consistent in his actions on these two priorities. His opponents, or what is left of them, seem to have it just the other way around.

Climate? We can’t talk about that NOW, not while people are suffering from it! And we can’t talk about it before or after people are suffering from it, either!

Wealth inequality has similarly been disappeared from public debate, as anyone who dares mention it is hastened offstage into the zone of extremist. We can’t talk about that now either, or ever. Stories you read on tax “reform” are long on tactics and suspiciously fuzzy on where the big benefits go. And the results are similar. The graphs of wealth disparity bear a disturbing resemblance to the graphs of CO2 emissions and temperature increase: relentless movement in a bad direction. But somehow our attention is displaced elsewhere, like disoriented storm evacuees.

Here’s a suggestion, to Trump fans, old or new, and to the Trump-exhausted, old and new. Watch these two issues and ignore all the others, for now at least. Watch Trump’s actions on them. And watch everyone else’s. These are the ballgame, and Trump appears to know it, even if he knows nothing else.