Trump’s Faustian deal

| 7:00 pm EDT May 10, 2024
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

Remember how we’re always telling anyone who will listen, from MAGAs to fence sitters alike, that Donald Trump cares nothing about them, that he’d kill them all and their whole families just to get re-elected? Well, Trump has just proved us right.

Last month at his shitty little MAGA-Lardo golf motel, Donald Trump sat down with the most insectile members of the fossil fuel Mafia and told them if they’d contribute a billion dollars to his campaign he’d destroy the environment for them. He’d tear up every one of Joe Biden’s environmental regulations and veto any new ones. Trump took them to a high mountain, showed them all the kingdoms of the world and said to them it would all be theirs if they would fall down and worship him. The insectile members of the fossil fuel Mafia told him they’d get back to him about it.

Trump vowed to more than twenty oil executives, including those from Chevron, Exxon and Occidental Petroleum, that he would substantially increase oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, remove all barriers to drilling in the Alaskan Arctic and reverse new regulations designed to reduce automobile pollution. He would also exit the Paris climate accord and overturn the Biden administration’s decision in January to pause new natural gas export permits which have been denounced as “climate bombs.”

When would Trump do all this for the men and women who would sell our planet for mammon? “You’ll get it on the first day,” Trump said, according to the Washington Post, citing a dinner attendee who wishes to remain anonymous.

It goes without saying that environmental groups are livid about Trump’s Faustian deal. But even some Republicans are aghast. Pete Maysmith of the League of Conservation Voters said, “One billion dollars for Trump, a devastating climate future for the rest of us.” A good deal, huh?

But don’t let that fool you. Just as it is with Kristi Noem and her puppy murdering ways, they may hate what Trump did, but they’re still going to vote for him. After all, destroying the planet and everyone in it can’t possibly be as bad as living one more day under Joe Biden’s “woke” administration, right?

I struggle to find a word for this. I’ve decided there isn’t one. We will have to invent a word that encompasses all the evil it would take to sell out a whole planet, its animals and all human beings for money. And I’m not talking about much-needed money, either. I’m talking about enriching people further who are already obscenely, disgustingly rich. They’re not considering doing it so their children can eat. They’re considering doing it so their racehorses can get new son hats. They’re considering doing it so their children can eat caviar.

Of course we don’t know what their decision will be — yet. But we do know something else about them. Of the couple dozen oil criminals on hand at MAGA-Lardo, only one person came squeamishly, anonymously forward to tell about it. The rest were going to just let it slide. Maybe they wouldn’t make a deal with the devil after all. Maybe instead they’d just hope the devil would do it anyway without their having to pony up a billion bucks. And you know what? They’re probably right to think just that. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.

Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.