By Bob Topper
Christian fundamentalists believe we are living in the End-Times. So, why worry about climate change or plan for the future? But they should worry, and they should plan. The notion that the end is near has needlessly troubled people throughout history beginning with the crucifixion. Prophets of every generation have predicted Armageddon. Yet we’re still here, and provided humankind does not do something insane, we will be for a long time to come.
The Earth is near the halfway mark of its life span. It is 4.5 billion years old and will last another 5 billion years. Then, the sun, having consumed most of its nuclear fuel, will become a red giant that will engulf and destroy the Earth. That is certain. So, we must look ahead and plan for the many generations that are sure to follow. The End-Times believers, who comprise 39 percent of the US population, should climb aboard the solution train. Chances are the doomsday prophets will be missing their mark by a few billion years.
A government that is dedicated to the common good will look to the future and focus on the crucial issues that confront humankind ̶ global warming, nuclear war, regulating the internet and AI, and it will invest in research to advance society. But the Trump administration, fixated on the past, is cutting research, showing no concern about nuclear war and its approach to climate change is “burn baby burn.” We deserve better; our children deserve better.
Stuck in the past
At 78, Trump is too old for the job. He dwells in a vengeful past. Preoccupied with Clinton and Biden he tweets insults in the middle of the night to vilify them. Does anyone really care? More importantly, he does not grasp today’s realities and has little understanding of his presidential responsibilities to the nation or the Constitution. In the past, the nation has had some visionary leaders with youthful and hopeful plans for the future of the nation. Kennedy advanced civil rights led us to the moon, and Eisenhower built our interstate highway system. We need that kind of leader now.
Tariffs – Consumers foot the bill
By contrast, consider the Trump vision to bring manufacturing back to America, a 50-year-old problem. Our government made a tragic error when it endorsed the move to offshore manufacturing. The notion that manufactures could take advantage of the low labor costs in Asia and that we could simply re-train American workers was ill-conceived.
High wages in America, which were determined by our free market and strong unions, provided a good standard of living for American workers. The problem was not that our wages were high, it was that the standard of living for Asian workers and their wages were too low. This should have been recognized by members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat. It was not, and we paid dearly. American workers lost more than income; they lost the sense of fulfillment that comes from meaningful work. The loss of self-esteem leads to depression, which is both a cause and consequence of opioid use. That was an inevitable outcome.
Sure, Monday morning quarterbacking is easy, but still, had Congress looked ahead and prioritized the common good, things would have turned out differently. And now, to justify his outrageous tariff tax, Trump claims he wants to bring manufacturing back to America. Fifty years ago, tariffs might have been an appropriate strategy, but not today. When manufacturing moved offshore, the infrastructure and knowledge base moved with it. To rebuild will take time and a huge investment, which few companies will be willing to make in the current uncertain economic and political environment. And even if so inclined, rebuilding will take years. Moreover, businesses have changed. GE, for example, once a powerhouse in the home appliance industry, sold that business to Haier, a Chinese company.
And think of the absurdity of training young people to do jobs that were taken away from their mothers and fathers. Many of those jobs will never return. They have been replaced by automation. Trump is wasting valuable time while taking your money, for, in the end, tariffs are a tax on consumers. Should tax revenue increase, which is by no means certain, he will use it to lower taxes on billionaires.
A capable leader would be looking to the future and planning for a world in which factories are fully automated, and few factory jobs exist anywhere. How will people generate income and live meaningful lives in the coming world? Those problems don’t concern Trump and the other oligarchs, but they will have a major impact on most American families. For the good of the country, the government must be concerned.
It takes maturity
In 1964 Rachael Carson said, “[We are] challenged as mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves.” Her focus was the harmful effects industrial waste has on our environment. Then we had the maturity to do something. The Republican Nixon Administration created the Environmental Protection Agency following the creation of the National Environmental Protection Act.
But the challenge today is much greater. Do we Americans have the maturity to deal with the important issues of our time or will we continue to squabble over meaningless culture wars while the Trump-Musk administration dismantles our government institutions like the EPA? Do we have the maturity to deal not only with global warming and the threat of nuclear war but how we build a society that truly serves the common good, the society that was envisioned by the Enlightenment philosophers and our Nation’s Founders?
That society will not emerge from a party that is funded by and beholden to billionaires and big corporations, and it certainly will not come from a party that is dedicated to God and the bible rather than the people and our Constitution. Do we the people have the maturity to see through the façade of this George Santos-reality-TV-government and elect people to office who are decent and honorable men and women, who will respect their oath to the Constitution and dedicate themselves to the common good, people like John McCain, Bob Dole, and Dwight Eisenhower?
The nation is hungry for that kind of leadership. An autocracy cannot be the solution, for all of the problems in American society, our liberal democracy is far more successful than any autocracy or theocracy. We must repair the one we have by putting competent people in government not showmen and pretty faces.
Bob Topper is a retired engineer and is syndicated by Peace Voice.
This article was sent on May 11, 2025 to peacevoice editors by Tom Hastings on behalf of Bob Topper.