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EFE/Narendra Shrestha
EFE/Narendra Shrestha

[OP-ED]: Come Play with Me

The New Trump Administration cuts the hopes of any citizen who dreams of a future without borders, nationalism an fuel.

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I wish that article could crumple itself in the shape of a paper ball and shoot automatically against the heads of all those who voted for Donald Trump in the past elections. Perhaps a small blow against their temples would have made them react on time. What were they thinking about when casting the ballot? Do they realize what they have achieved?
They have managed to send to the White House a billionaire and frustrated casino entrepreneur who has openly manifested his nationalist, xenophobic, sexist ideas;  someone who rub shoulders with Putin, dismisses the media and believes that climate change is a Chinese hoax. And, to make matters worse, now he has invited his rich friends, who think like him, to join him in the White House. Welcome to the new Trump Administration.
Let's start with Rex Tillerson, chief of oil giant Exxon Mobil and friend of Putin, chosen by Trump to be Secretary of State. He has no political experience, but thanks to his management position at Exxon he has contacts all over the world. Contacts as the Russian president, who in 2013 granted him the Order of Friendship of his country.
Tillerson's closeness with Putin has shaken theSenate members, especially over the past few weeks, when US intelligence has confirmed that Moscow is behind cyber-attacks on the US election campaign that could help To the victory of Trump.
Maybe we'll get lucky and Tillerson will not be so bad. During his second hearing before the Senate to confirm his position, the future head of American diplomacy acknowledged that Moscow's attitude is "dangerous" but that bilateral dialog must continue.

I wish that article could crumple itself in the shape of a paper ball and shoot automatically against the heads of all those who voted for Donald Trump in the past elections

Tillerson also wanted to distance himself from Trump's denialist position on climate change, admitting that global warming "poses certain risks." His relationship with one of the largest oil companies in the world is not a sign to believe that it has much interest in reducing carbon emissions and preserving the environment. And if we do not preserve the environment and the planet dies, it does not matter if anti-immigrant walls are built or anti-globalization measures are taken. Climate change will soon be the world's largest poverty and migration exodus  multiplier .

Another Trump appointment that bothers me most is Scott Pruitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The scientific community does not come out of their astonishment at the election of this lawyer who until now was Oklahoma's attorney general and who takes climate change as a joke. Since 2011, Pruitt has filed more than a dozen lawsuits against the EPA; for example, by supporting the fuel industry against the Obama Administration's Clean Energy Plan. Democrats and activists question Pruitt's line with the oil and gas industry.

If the planet dies, it doesn't really matter if anti-immigrant walls are built or anti-globalization measures are taken.

Denying climate change is denying science. And this attitude is also shared by the new Secretary of Education, the also billionaire Betsy deVos. Active defender of the system of concerted schools, DeVos is also a Christian fundamentalist with a long history of opposition to science, reported in December The New Yorker.

In Chicago, the DeVos family has donated money to a Pro-Life foundation, suggesting that with it leading the public education could jeopardize the teaching of key issues such as abortion, the theory of evolution or advances in biotechnology.

In short: if the new Administration is hostile with the planet, globalization, science and cultural diversity - in the cabinet Trump there is no prominent Latino -, then thank you and good night. 

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