The Left’s Unhinged Freakout over Trump’s Paris Accord Withdrawal

By Julie Kelly

Thursday, June 01, 2017

The fatalistic flip-out over Trump’s plan to exit from the Paris Climate Accord is the latest proof that the leaders of the political Left have learned absolutely nothing since November 8. Unlike Trump, who said during his Rose Garden announcement of the planned withdrawal that he was “elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” these woke folks continue to overlook huge swaths of the American public as they try to win a global popularity contest, redistribute our wealth, and lecture us about how ignorant, uncaring, and unaware we are.

The drumbeat from tone-deaf celebrities, tech titans, bureaucrats, and political hacks began earlier this week on social media when it became clear Trump would finally act to undo one of Barack Obama’s legacy policies. On May 28, California billionaire and climate catastrophist Tom Steyer, who donated $87 million to Democratic candidates in 2016 alone, tweeted out his dire assessment of Trump’s expected move. Steyer said Trump would be “committing a traitorous act of war against the American people.” Within moments of Trump’s speech, Steyer said the administration “has just committed assault and battery on the future of the American people. There can be no excuse for this willful crime. Yes, by pulling out of the Paris Agreement, Donald Trump is betraying the moral, political, and economic leadership position America has achieved over centuries at the cost of American lives.”

Steyer was joined in agony by fellow Golden State tycoons including Elon Musk, co-founder of Tesla, among other tech enterprises, who had threatened to stop working on two of Trump’s advisory councils if the president pulled out of the Paris agreement. Musk, whose holdings have benefited from nearly $5 billion in government support, tweeted May 31, “Don’t know which way Paris will go, but I’ve done all I can to advise directly to POTUS, through others in the WH & via councils, that we remain.” After Trump’s announcement, Musk tweeted, “Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.” Or for Musk’s bank account, considering how much more in likely government handouts the Paris deal would’ve meant for him. But Musk probably should turn his attention elsewhere: His solar-energy company, SolarCity Corp., is reportedly under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to disclose how many customers have canceled their solar-energy system orders.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple and a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, reportedly called the White House this week to urge Trump to stay in the pact. The man who heads an empire built off energy generated by fossil fuels is one of those Silicon Valley sillies who wrongly thinks we can — and need to — live off 100 percent renewables within the next few decades.

Celebrities who still haven’t learned that their endorsement of anyone or anything usually yields the opposite of the intended effect also weighed in on Trump’s move. Hollywood’s most prolific climate celeb — the bed-hopping, jet-setting, yacht-cruising Leo DiCaprio — said he hoped Trump would make the “moral” decision to stay in Paris, then tweeted shortly after the president’s announcement that “today, our planet suffered.” Unhinged showgirl Bette Midler tweeted that Trump’s exit gave “BigOil a windfall” and that “there has never in US history been such a destructive megalomaniac in the WH. Thank you to US press and other numbskulls who put him there.”

Mark Ruffalo, known more for his environmental activism than for his marginal acting, tweeted that if Trump left Paris, the president would “have the death of whole nations on his hands. People will be looking to the USA for retribution for what they loose [sic].” Actress Alyssa Milano, who is approximately 0 for 432 on helping political candidates win, tweeted: “Oh my God, you really are a monster. @realDonaldTrump.” But the topper could go to George Takei of Star Trek fame, who tweeted: “Trump is having us pull out of the Paris Climate Accord. Too bad someone didn’t tell his father that he shoulda pulled out too.”

The usual lefty politicians and commentators had their say. Bernie Sanders said leaving Paris would be a “horrific mistake” and an “extraordinary crisis.” Aging broadcaster Tom Brokaw tweeted that “denying climate change is like king Canute trying to stop the tide. Mother nature rules when deniers delude.” The New York Times’s Paul Krugman moaned that “as the probability of civilization-ending climate change rises, a special shout-out to all those who helped make it possible and yes, this includes media who decided to devote more coverage to Hillary’s emails than to all other policy issues combined.” And the Left’s new darling, California senator Kamala Harris, said Trump’s decision “will have catastrophic repercussions for our planet’s future. There is no Planet B. This disastrous decision threatened the world our children and children’s children will live in.” Activist Bill McKibben wrote in the New York Times that this was “our nation’s dumbest act since launching the war in Iraq.” (McKibben has said we should fight climate change in the same way we fought World War II.)

Not one mention from this crowd about how this move will save hundreds of thousands of jobs, stop nearly $3 trillion from being sucked out of our economy, and prevent rising energy prices estimated to cost American households thousands of dollars each year. Democrats may want to consider recalibrating their political messaging here. As conservative writer Bret Stephens, now a New York Times columnist, and hardly a Trump supporter, tweeted Thursday afternoon: “Likelihood of Trump re-election grows. Esp by backing out of Paris. Advice to Dems: recover your blue collar base!”

Seven months post-election, this week’s reaction from the left again proves that their taking that advice is as unlikely as ever.