Windbag

In the annals (by which I mean anals) of Trump speeches, his recent speech in front of a crowd from young Republican group Turning Point USA has to be one of the most unhinged (and that's saying something). In particular, his Quixotic campaign against windmills was quite the farrago of bullshit:

TRUMP: "They were killing the bald eagle. If you shoot a bald eagle, they want to put you in jail for 10 years. A windmill will kill many. It’s true. And you know what? After a certain number, they make you turn the windmill off. That’s true, by the way.” pic.twitter.com/DvkJqa4MNO

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 23, 2019

Trump is lying about the role of wind turbines in bald eagle deaths while eliding the fact that high-rise buildings like the ones he favors are much more dangerous to avians. As far as his claims that the production of wind turbines creates fumes, it's inevitable that any manufacturing process will create emissions (until we have a grid powered by renewables, that is), but the installation of wind turbines will offset any 'fumes' footprint. Also, he's not exactly against fumes, as his support for coal-fired power plants makes clear (by which I mean smoggy). This sort of concern trollery isn't exactly convincing, and I imagine even the Turning Point troglodytes know this, but are the sort of knuckle-draggers who want pollution because it 'owns the libs'.

Trump's major personality trait is his cupidity, but secondary to that is his inability to let go of a grudge. He still picks fights with Rosie O'Donnell decades after the two had a falling-out. He can't let go of a quarter-century old crack by Greydon Carter, and he's never realized that the heart of the insult was 'vulgarian', not 'short-fingered'. Much of his animus against wind power stems from his failed lawsuit over a wind farm offshore of a Scottish golf resort. He's willing to watch the world burn because of this particular grudge.

Perhaps the real root of Trump's animus against wind power is the fact that his boss hates wind power- much of Russia's economy is based on fossil fuels, so anything which reduces Europe's reliance on Russian petroleum products is anathema to Putin. Nancy Pelosi quipped that, with Trump, all roads lead to Putin. While the rant is still nonsensical, it's not inexplicable.