It’s Official: Yesterday’s ‘Alarmists’ Are Today’s Only Realists

But there is a thing called ‘reality’ — and reality has a funny way of intruding into our willful (and often delusional) human affairs and denial. No matter how hard we try (and try and try, endlessly) to reassure ourselves that everything is OK and things will ‘work out’ in the end, our actual reality keeps rearing its ugly (or beautiful?) head and screaming, “Do you see it yet? Do you get it yet?”

Sadly, terrifyingly — humanity as a whole is not ‘getting it.’

The great refusal

You may be asking, “What the hell is he talking about?” It’s quite simple, really. I’m talking about the fact that much of the world — especially the U.S. — is turning its back on most of the social, ecological, political, and scientific advances of the past 80+ years. The dominant ‘powers that be’ are sucking our planet dry, wringing every last ‘resource’ from Her, and in the process… leaving only a desiccated, collapsing shell for future generations.

For decades, the ‘doomers’ sounded the alarm about climate disruption, plastic pollution, overpopulation, and vast social and economic inequities — but all along, we were either ignored or scorned. Even worse, sometimes the ‘powers that be’ appeared to be paying attention and gave lip service to the concerns we were raising. They often acted as if they, too, were concerned and would DO something to address our realistic concerns. Then, they almost always turned around, capitulated to ‘business as usual,’ and reneged on positive necessary action.

The foremost — and most telling — example is the utter failure of our global ‘climate initiatives’ designed to slow down climate disruption. (The bland term ‘climate change’ is intentionally inadequate; it’s the term preferred by the fossil fuel industry.) For the last 30+ years, the nations of the world have gathered annually for the so-called ‘COP’ (conference of parties) meetings, with the stated goal of agreeing on emissions reductions and enacting real reforms and rules.

Yet, not once have these goals been met. Never. Even when nations have ‘agreed’ to certain limits or rules regarding CO2 emissions — such as capping emissions and defining an ‘acceptable’ amount of warming — there has been NO agreement on how to do this. Thus, there has been little follow-through and NO meaningful action.

Meanwhile, reality keeps ‘acting out’ around us. It’s screaming loudly in our faces as climate disasters, floods, droughts, heat waves, and massive storms keep intensifying. The real world keeps intruding on our delusional, ‘separate’ (from nature) human societies, and in effect disproves and destroys all our arrogant, human-centered illusions.

The pure insanity of ‘climate denial’

There’s a whole other layer to this accelerating social and ecological disaster: ‘climate change denial.’ This added, c-r-a-z-y layer was quietly developing for many years, but then burst out into the open in the late 2010s. Its basic tenet is rejection of established scientific consensus and public efforts to rein in accelerating climate disruptions. It reached its peak over the past few years when climate denialism became accepted ‘public policy’ for the GOP and MAGA.

Not content with mere denial, there’s also a growing, vast subset of active, destructive ‘climate deniers’ — including Trump. These folks willfully proclaim that nothing will stop or slow our ‘progress,’ so we’re pushing ‘full steam ahead’ to keep mining, logging, drilling, and building data centers (huge energy hogs) and new power plants. This mindset pits humanity against nature — and discounts all ecological and climatological data as ‘insignificant’ or downright harmful.

That’s right. In this view, scientific information and climate data merely get in the way of our human plans and desires — so we have to get rid of them. It’s basically a new form of ‘kill the messenger’. We’re supposed to stop worrying about stupid nonsense like the climate and our environment and just “Drill, baby, drill!”

In this area, the ‘alarmists’ and ‘doomers’ have been completely correct. And, the insane, science-rejecting beliefs and actions people are now enacting are both disastrous and delusional. In this area, especially, the ‘alarmists’ are now the only realists — swept aside by a vast tide of illusion, greed, and idiocy.

Our rapid capitulation to Trump’s ‘hostile takeover’ of America

Here’s another potent example: the pathetic response and capitulation to Trump’s ‘hostile takeover’ of the U.S.

Back in 2017, a group of 37 psychiatrists banded together to publish an extraordinary book titled “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.” (It’s sitting on my bookshelf.) During Trump’s first administration, many diverse public servants, advisors, Cabinet members, and even generals who worked with Trump repeatedly warned the nation about his tyrannical ambitions and overall unfitness for office. There was a steady stream of anguished warnings about Trump’s character, amorality, racism, narcissism, and vengefulness.

None of these dire warnings made the slightest difference. Then, we endured the divisive, bizarre 2020 election. In the post-election period from Nov. 3, 2020, to the time of Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021, Trump kept spreading vile, dangerous conspiracy theories that the election was ‘stolen,’ fraud was rampant, and he was still the ‘real’ president. Then he instigated and directly fomented a huge insurrection at our Capitol on Jan. 6 that ended up killing several people and caused the Congress to shut down and hide from the violent mob. Only later that night was Congress able to reconvene and certify Biden’s win.

Undeterred, Trump never conceded the election and kept saying it was ‘stolen.’ During Biden’s term, from early 2021 to January ‘25, Trump continued speaking and acting with total impunity. He undermined and trashed Biden’s presidency and legally appealed — endlessly — all the various indictments and court rulings against him. He kept himself in the forefront of America’s attention and the news cycle, even while out of office. Hell, he was probably in the news more than Biden!

Meanwhile, the U.S. and the world were treated to the horrific spectacle of the GOP, one of our two primary political parties, fully surrendering and capitulating to Trump. Despite all his baggage and awful policy ideas — and his criminal conviction — the GOP chose to align with this terrible human being and make him their presidential candidate again.

And despite all his baggage, criminal behavior, accusations of sexual assault, and an endless stream of warnings from ‘alarmists,’ he won. Again.

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A much more dangerous ‘reality’

Everyone knows, by now, what happened next. Trump swept into office on Jan. 20, 2025, hit the ground running, issued a long string of tyrannical ‘edicts’ (executive orders), and initiated a barrage of tyranny and ‘strong man’ tactics that continue today.

All the frantic warnings fell on deaf ears. Today, the situation in the U.S. is far worse than during his first term. Trump and the GOP are eradicating anything remotely ‘woke’ (that is, compassionate, caring, or ecologically sound) from U.S. policy. They are also utilizing terror-inducing police-state tactics to round up and deport illegal immigrants.

In response, the same group of psychiatrists and psychologists — plus many new ones — released a new book with the ominous title “The Much More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.” Of course, no one is paying attention or listening. And of course, things in the U.S. just keep getting… worse.

Now, Trump and MAGA are going after and persecuting the judiciary. They’re trying to destroy the last bulwark of American democracy, which is the last thing standing between him and unlimited autocratic power.

To quote a CNN.com article:

“Six months into Donald Trump’s second term, his administration is at war with the federal judiciary, evading court orders blocking its agenda, suing judges for alleged misconduct, and veering toward what multiple current and former federal judges say could be a constitutional crisis.”

Except, I’d say we’re already IN a massive and prolonged ‘constitutional crisis.’ We’re not “veering toward” something awful that “could” happen. We’re deep into it. And due to Trump’s bizarre, on-again/off-again tariffs and his Big, Horrible (debt-exploding) Bill, dire economic and healthcare crises are also brewing. They’re already unfolding — but we’re still in denial because the awful effects haven’t fully hit home yet.

Our crazed, upside-down ‘reality’

These are just two examples out of many others (such as the intensifying ‘war on truth’ and accelerating MAGA/GOP attacks on ‘wokeness’ and diversity, equity, and inclusion). The two examples I explored reveal that the alarmists and concerned ‘warners’ tried hard for many years — but utterly failed. Instead, a new, toxic era of denial, deceit, and delusion was ushered in.

Thus, we live in a bizarre, painful upside-down ‘reality.’ We now live in a world where absurd fictions are truth, pollution is acceptable, amorality masquerades as morality, and accelerating climate disruptions are either normalized or altogether denied.

This is the (insane) world the right-wing ‘realists’ among us have created. It’s the triumph of delusion, greed, and racist, hateful nonsense.

Regarding our near future: it looks really bad. For as far as our inner ‘eyes’ can see, the fools, haters, and delusional idiots have decisively won (for now). The only true realists left standing are the ‘alarmists’ that everyone is busily ignoring.