Why Chomsky Called Trump and Republicans “Criminally Insane”
Chomsky in 2018: “half of Republicans deny that global warming is even taking place, and of the rest, almost half reject any human responsibility. Words fail.” Photo: Wikipedia.
I’ve been paralyzed by fear and doubt lately, but I need to do something. So I’m posting this excerpt from my 2018 Q&A with linguist and political critic Noam Chomsky, an uncompromising speaker of truth to power. Chomsky, 96, suffered a stroke in 2023 that makes communication difficult, but what he said about Trump and his Republican enablers in 2018 rings even truer today. -- John Horgan
Horgan: Why did you recently call the Republican Party “the most dangerous organization in world history”?
Chomsky: Take its leader, who recently applied to the government of Ireland for a permit to build a huge wall to protect his golf course, appealing to the threat of global warming, while at the same time he withdrew from international efforts to address the grim threat and is using every means at his disposal to accelerate it. Or take his colleagues, the participants in the 2016 Republican primaries. Without exception, they either denied that what is happening is happening – though any ignorance is self-induced – or said maybe it is but we shouldn’t do anything about it. The moral depths were reached by the respected “adult in the room,” Ohio governor John Kasich, who agreed that it is happening but added that “we are going to burn [coal] in Ohio and we are not going to apologize for it.” Or take a recent publication of Trump’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a detailed study recommending an end to regulations on emissions. It presented a rational argument: extrapolating current trends, by the end of the century we’ll be over the cliff and automotive emissions don’t contribute very much to the catastrophe – the assumption being that everyone is as criminally insane as we are and won’t try to avoid the crisis. In brief, let’s rob while the planet burns, putting poor Nero in the shadows.
This surely qualifies as a contender for the most evil document in history.
There have been many monsters in the past, but it would be hard to find one who was dedicated to undermining the prospects for organized human society, not in the distant future — in order to put a few more dollars in overstuffed pockets.
And it doesn’t end there. The same can be said about the major banks that are increasing investments in fossil fuels, knowing very well what they are doing. Or, for that matter, the regular articles in the major media and business press reporting US success in rapidly increasing oil and gas production, with commentary on energy independence, sometimes local environmental effects, but regularly without a phrase on the impact on global warming – a truly existential threat. Same in the election campaign. Not a word about the issue that is merely the most crucial one in human history.
Hardly a day passes without new information about the severity of the threat. As I’m writing, a new study appeared in Nature showing that retention of heat in the oceans has been greatly underestimated, meaning that the total carbon budget is much less than had been assumed in the recent, and sufficiently ominous, IPCC report. The study calculates that maximum emissions would have to be reduced by 25% to avoid warming of 2 degrees (C), well above the danger point. At the same time polls show that — doubtless influenced by their leaders who they trust more than the evil media — half of Republicans deny that global warming is even taking place, and of the rest, almost half reject any human responsibility. Words fail.
Horgan: Wasn’t Richard Nixon worse than Donald Trump?
Chomsky: Nixon had a mixed record. In some respects, he was the last liberal president: OSHA and EPA for example. On the other hand, he committed terrible crimes. Arguably the worst was the bombing of rural Cambodia, a proposed article of impeachment but voted down though it was incomparably more important than the others. And the article was much too weak, focusing on the secrecy. There has been little attention to the orders that Nixon delivered, relayed to the Pentagon by his faithful servant Henry Kissinger: “A massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. Anything that flies on anything that moves.” It is not easy to find comparable orders for genocide in the archival record. But all of Nixon’s crimes pale in comparison with the decision to race towards the precipice of environmental catastrophe.
Horgan: Are the U.S. media doing their job?
Chomsky: It depends on what we think their job is. They are businesses, so by accepted standards their job is profit. By other standards, they have a duty to the public to provide “all the news that’s fit to print,” under a concept of “fitness” that is as free as possible from submission to power interests or other distorting factors. About this there is a great deal to say – I’ve devoted many words to the topic elsewhere, as have many others. But in today’s strange climate of Trumpian “alternative facts” and “false reality,” it is useful to recognize that with all their flaws, which are many, the mainstream media remain an indispensable source of information about the world.
Horgan: Can incremental reforms transform the U.S. into a just, prosperous society, or are more drastic measures required? In other words, are you a reformer or a revolutionary?
Chomsky: Both. Generalizations are misleading; too much depends on specific circumstances. But some have a fair degree of validity, I think. One is that there is both justification and pressing need for radical changes in the socioeconomic and political orders. We cannot know to what extent they can be achieved by incremental reforms, which are to be valued on their own. But unless the great mass of the population comes to believe that needed change cannot be implemented within the existing system, resort to “drastic measures” is likely to be a recipe for disaster.
Horgan: My students are pretty gloomy about the future. What can I tell them to cheer them up?
Chomsky: Apart from the truly existential threats of nuclear war and global warming – which can be averted – there have been far more difficult challenges in the past than those young people face today, and they have been overcome by dedicated effort and commitment. The historical record of struggle and achievement gives ample reason to take to heart the slogan that Gramsci made famous: “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.”
Further Reading:
See my full 2018 email interview with Chomsky here or here.
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