President Donald Trump said a bunch of bizarre shit about windmills over the weekend at a conference in Florida for conservative college students, ranting about the size of the universe and saying “I know windmills very much.” It’d be almost funny if it wasn’t coming from the most powerful person in the world—a man who’s setting energy policy while climate change makes the world less inhabitable for all of us.
Trump, whose brain is mostly just KFC gravy at this point, told college kids at the Turning Point USA conference that the Green New Deal was threatening the very existence of the country. The Green New Deal is a comprehensive plan to address the environmental crisis, though it has met resistance from Republicans who insist that climate change doesn’t matter to the future of the nation.
“We’re in a battle of survival of this nation,” Trump said before using a racial slur against Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren in a rambling diatribe.
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“When you look at these people talk, with their Green New Deal. But I don’t want to knock it now, if you don’t mind,” Trump said. “I don’t want to knock it. I knocked… I knocked the hell out of Pocahontas. I got her down.”
Trump went on to say that he “never understood wind” while also claiming that he’s studied windmills more than anybody else.
[With the Green New Deal] we’ll have an economy based on wind. I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it better than anybody, I know. It’s very expensive. They’re made in China and Germany mostly—very few made here, almost none. But they’re manufactured tremendous, if you’re into this, tremendous fumes, gases are spewing into the atmosphere.
Trump is misleading everyone by suggesting that the U.S. doesn’t gain jobs through wind energy, of course. The U.S. produces a lot of wind technology through GE and employs tens of thousands of workers, according to a report issued this past summer for the U.S. Department of Energy. In fact, wind energy technician is one of the fastest growing jobs in the country, second only to solar technician.
Trump continued on to the rabid crowd on Saturday, ranting about how our world is tiny compared with the universe, though it’s not clear what point he was trying to make.
You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint—fumes are spewing into the air, right? Spewing. Whether it’s in China, Germany, it’s going into the air. It’s our air, their air, everything, right?
At least the president was right about living on one planet. That’s why international agreements are so important. President Trump, as you might recall, pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement for no good reason.
Trump, who has previously said that windmills cause cancer, went on about how wind turbines kill birds, which is accurate, but needs to be placed in context.
So they make these things and then they put them up. And if you own a house within vision of some of these monsters, your house is worth 50 per cent of the price. They’re noisy. They kill the birds. You want to see a bird graveyard? You just go. Take a look. A bird graveyard. Go under a windmill someday. You’ll see more birds than you’ve ever seen ever in your life.
You know what kills a lot more birds than wind turbines? Fossil-fuel power plants. Even cars kill more birds every year than wind power. But Trump isn’t calling for a ban on cars.
Trump continued, complaining that California’s windmills are like murderers who should be put in jail. Or something.
You know, in California, they were killing the bald eagle. If you shoot a bald eagle, they want to put you in jail for 10 years. A windmill will kill many bald eagles. It’s true. And you know what? After a certain number, they make you turn the windmill off. That’s true, by the way. This is, they make you turn it off after you, and yet, if you killed one they put you in jail. That’s ok. But why is it ok for these windmills to destroy the bird population? And that’s what they’re doing.
President Trump’s hatred of windmills is a personal vendetta that dates back many years and has cost him plenty of money. He’s even been ordered to pay $US290,000 ($420,211) in legal fees to the Scottish government after failing to block an offshore wind farm near his golf course in Scotland.
Video of the entire speech is available on YouTube and a short clip of the part about windmills is below.
All in all, the speech was suitably unhinged for a president who has mostly lost touch with reality. But President Trump has learned that he can say whatever he wants now and his supporters will stick with him.
One of the more jarring examples was last week when the magazine Christianity Today came out against Trump’s politics:
The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see. This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people. None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character.
How did Trump respond? He called Christianity Today a far left magazine, of course. And his followers are standing by him. We live in a truly unnerving time with a dangerous president at the helm. And there’s not much to do at this point but stand by and hope for the best.