Snow fell

As I sit here with a cup of coffee, the world outside is dusted in white—a thin layer of snow, sparse but present. It’s been a long time since moisture graced the earth, though Washington, D.C., has seen its fair share of downpours—only, instead of rain, it’s been torrents of absurdity.

Trump often reminds me of an old coal mining story. During a meeting at a struggling mine, the leadership was discussing their financial woes. The head honcho laid it out plainly: “We’re losing $2 for every ton of coal we sell.” At this, a coal manager—someone with the same brand of logic Trump so often displays—offered a solution: “If we’re losing $2 a ton, then we just need to sell less coal.”

It’s a stunningly misguided approach, emblematic of Trump-style thinking. Take his energy policy, for instance. At a time when the nation urgently needs to expand its energy capacity to support the growing demands of artificial intelligence and other advancements, Trump’s plan is to double down on fossil fuels and sideline renewable energy.

Cutting back on wind and solar power in this context is like refusing fire extinguishers because you only want to fight fires with water. It’s shortsighted, outdated, and dangerously inefficient. Yet, here we are, faced with leadership stuck in the past while the future races forward.