09 August
Politics
The President’s green comedy routine
A token, triumphal green moment for a president and party who just might need such a thing in an election year.
Last Tuesday, we almost had a breakthrough moment on the environment.
<p> With Interior Secretary David Bernhardt by his side, the 45th President prepared to set pen to paper on a bipartisan, nearly unassailable conservation bill to protect National Parks and other wild lands. </p><p>And then comedy broke out.</p><p>As God as my witness, President Donald J. Trump, offered <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/08/04/trump-mispronounces-yosemite-white-house-event/3289122001/" target="_blank">soaring rhetoric</a>: <em>"When young Americans experience the breathtaking beauty of the Grand Canyon, when their eyes widen in amazement as Old Faithful bursts into the sky, when they gaze upon Yosemite's — Yosemite's towering sequoias, their love of country grows stronger and they know that every American has truly a duty to preserve this wondrous inheritance."</em></p><p>But wait. When Trump got to the word "Yosemite" in his script, he tripped over it as if it were a word in Esperanto or Klingon. The first try was something like "YOH-seh-might." On the second try, he added a syllable, "YOH-se-ni-might."</p><p>Such a kidder.</p><p>Dear God, as an inveterate TV watcher, hasn't this man even heard of one of the most precious places on Earth, even if it's in a state run by Democrats? Hasn't he at least heard of Yosemite Sam, the colorful and prominent Westerner who apparently holds naming rights to the place?</p><p>Hats off to Sarah Lefton, a digital media creator, who turned Trump's gaffe into an ethnically-themed "Yo, Semite" T-shirt design that's <a href="https://forward.com/fast-forward/452210/yo-semite-t-shirt-breaks-sales-records-after-trump-gaffe/" target="_blank">reportedly going viral.</a></p><p>To be sure, the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/3422" target="_blank">Great American Outdoors Act</a> is a complete outlier for a man who put the "lier" in "outlier." It funds long-delayed maintenance of public lands and permanently renews the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a landmark conservation law first signed by President Lyndon Johnson. The Republican-controlled Senate, where such measures often go to die these days, passed the Act by a 73-25 vote. It was a token, triumphal green moment for a president and party who just might need such a thing in an election year.</p><p>But then Trump turned Half Dome into Half-Ass, and Yosemite became "Yoh-se-might"—a name that might sound more at home on a big can of powder in a GNC store. Mitigating factor? Tens of millions of Trump's faithful now hold the unshakeable belief that not only is "Yoh-se-might" correct, but since the days of the Miwok and Paiute nations, it's the only way it's <em>ever </em>been pronounced.</p><p>Just about every major news outlet covered the signing. Fox News covered it, well, a tad differently. They didn't find the "Yoh-Se-Mite" gag funny enough to include, but added a howler of their own: "<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/president-trump-sign-the-landmark-great-american-outdoors-act" target="_blank">The fishing and gaming industry</a>"was well-represented at the signing, Fox reported. The President's last go-round with the "gaming industry," by all accounts, didn't go so so well.</p><p>All of which brings us back to Yoh-so-might. If, as the great documentarian Ken Burns has said, national parks are "America's greatest idea," why does our president not have a clue?</p>
<p><em>Peter Dykstra is our weekend editor and columnist. </em><em>His views do not necessarily represent those of Environmental Health News, The Daily Climate or publisher, Environmental Health Sciences. </em><em><em><em><em>Contact him at </em><em><a href="mailto:pdykstra@ehn.org" target="_blank">pdykstra@ehn.org</a> </em><em>or on Twitter at </em><em><a href="https://twitter.com/pdykstra?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" target="_blank">@Pdykstra</a></em><em>.</em></em></em></em></p><p><em>Banner photo: </em><em>President Trump signs the Great American Outdoors Act on Aug. 4, 2020. (Credit: The White House) </em></p>
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