The pollutant they have selected to overwhelm and bring down this system is lies. Big lies, little lies, distortions, evasions, undermining scientific evidence and substituting interest-group-produced assertions.

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The spectacle of a nominee for drug czar who had played a key role in undermining the ability of the United States to slow the deluge of opiates into its citizens is emblematic. And the furor that resulted in his withdrawal from consideration is the exception that proves the rule. The Rule of Trump.

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Over at the Environmental Protection Agency, this exact fox-guarding-the-henhouse formula hums along with breathtaking ferocity. The agenda there is as clear as our air soon won’t be. Sideline and demolish environmental science and replace it with interest-group … well … interests.

The goal and effect of this will be more devastating climate change. Hope you like watching California burn down, Puerto Rico blown away, Texas inundated, Florida sinking. Massive rainstorms that drown a community near you. A tornado plowing a path of eradication through town. Because we know, science knows, Trump knows, that this is what we are baking into our future, as Trump turns up the oven dial ever hotter. The calculation by Trump and his rich industrialist friends is that this is a small price (for you) to pay if it enables them to accumulate greater short-term fortunes and larger discretionary power.

So if science stands in the way, science must go. If facts are a check on prerogatives, facts must go. If a robust, informed democracy is going to be difficult about it all, then democracy must go.