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On Thursday afternoon Donald Trump announced, with great reality-TV star fanfare, that the United States will withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. While weve long come to expect the Great Orange to act like a complete fool at all times, this decision is so unilaterally stupid that its hard to believe that even someone as nasty as Trump could make it. The decision was met with a round of perfectly true op-ed articles explaining exactly how screwed the United States will be because of this, not just because fighting climate change is a moral imperative but because our nations economic and international interests are tied up in moving toward the clean energy goals set forth by the Paris agreement.

It doesnt make rational sense for Trump to pull out of the Paris accord. Even Trumps secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, has argued against withdrawal, as has Tillersons former company, Exxon Mobil. The traditional reasonsfor conservative opposition to cleaner energy protecting energy profits dont hold up as well as they used to. So why is Trump doing this?

Thelikely answer is, Im afraid, a disheartening one: Trumps anti-environmentalism is ultimately not about the grossbut rational pursuit of profit, so much as its the result of a nihilisticanti-conservationist ideology that has been fomentedfor years on the far right. Its an ideology concerned more with hating liberalism and undermining former President Barack Obamas legacy than with petty matterslike peace or prosperity.

As evidence for this theory, look no further than the ongoing fight over the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, which is under attack from conservatives and the Trump administration. Its a battle that is far more about wanting to stick it to the liberals than about making money.

For the past several years,a group of Native American tribeshave been asking the governmentturn the 1.35 million acres of Bears Ears landsinto a federally protected area.Utahs congressional Republicans, led by Rep. Rob Bishop, tried to circumvent those efforts by proposing a bill that would offer protections to Bears Ears while leaving some areas open tomining and oil drilling. The Obama administration would have allowed that compromise, but Bishop couldnt get his billpassed. So in the waning days of his administration, Obamadeclared Bears Ears anational monument. Since then the Utah Republicans, Bishop especially, have been livid.

At the end of the day with the Utah congressional delegation, it comes down to sour grapes over Rob Bishop not being good at his job, Aaron Weiss, media director for the Center for Western Priorities, said over the phone.

Its a story Ive heard from many other sources in the months that Ive covered the battle over Bears Ears: Sure, Bishop wants to protect oil and gas interests in the area. But a lot of what motivates him appears to be a deeply rooted unwillingness to have his state be home to anything that could be considered an Obama accomplishment.

Under pressure from Bishop and other Utah Republicans like Rep. Jason Chaffetz, Trump signed an executive order in Aprilordering Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to review national monument designations and consider the possibility of revoking their status something that has never been done inthe centuryplus that presidents have been designating national monuments.

Weiss notedthatduring Trumps bill signingheaccused Obama of an egregious abuse of power, even though other presidents previously have used the same powers to protect the Grand Canyon and Death Valley. Its this double standard that illustrates, Weiss argued, how central Obama hatred is to Republican animosity to Bears Ears National Monument.

This push toward rescinding the Bears Ears designation iscertainly not because the public wants it, said Dan Hartinger of the Wilderness Society, in another phone interview. A lot of it has to do with ideological opposition to conservation and, frankly, to public lands ownership generally.

Zinkes process of re-evaluating the Bears Ears designation reinforces this sense that Republican motivations on this issue are largely about are retroactively delegitimizing Obamaspresidency. Zinke appears to be rushing through the review process, barely even bothering to pretend to care what the public thinks about how he handles publicly owned lands.

Generally, federal agencies offer a 60-day comment period for the public to register opinions on proposed regulatory changes. ButZinke offered the public only 15 daysto comment on the Bears Ears designation.This short period was especially onerous for Native Americans in the area,many of whom live in remote areaswithout reliable access to broadband internet.

Just the way it was designed was to limit the participation of the tribes that were pushing for Bears Ears to begin with, Weiss said.

Hartinger pointed out that the Obama administrationput years of work into this, first by permittingUtah Republicans to craft a congressional bill and then inworking with the public to determine the size and scope of protections for Bears Ears.

Its alarming to see a process used that short-circuits the years of effort that went into that, he said.

Zinkes efforts to keep public voices out of the process have largely failed, however. An analysis by the Center for Western Priorities foundthat about 90,000 people managed to get comments onto the official federal website, while outside interest groups have collected 685,000 more comments during this 15-day period.A random sampling of the official comments found that 97 percent were supportive of national monuments in general, and half of those mentioned Bears Ears specifically.

Concerning big-money corporate interests, the situation is a bit more complex. There are definitely mining and oil companies that want to take a crack at Bears Ears, but also a huge business community in Utah relies on the tourist dollars brought in by national monuments and other protected lands. Protests at the Salt Lake airport when Zinke did his four-day tour of the state featured many business leaderswho felthe was unwilling to listen to the economic argument in favor of national monuments. At any rate, theres enough economic pressure on the pro-parks side to make it unlikely that the anti-Bears Ears sentiment is primarily about economics.

Zinkes indifference to citizens was even more on display during his supposed listening tour. Cassandra Begay, a Navajo woman representing the groupPeaceful Advocates for Native Dialogue and Organizing Support, followed Zinkearound during his visitand repeatedly demanded to know why he wouldnt meet with tribal leaders. He responded by shaking his finger in her face and scolding her to be nice.

Hisbehavior leaves conservationists with little doubt that the Trump administrationis moving swiftlyto undermine Obamas legacy byrescinding or drastically revising the Bears Ears monument designation.

Weiss pointed out that a similar fight, fueled by blind hatred of Obama, is going on in Maine. Thefounder of Burts Beesdonated 87,500 acres to the federal government, and Obama designated it the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. But the Trumpian governor of Maine, Republican Paul LePage, is so angry about the monuments existence that he hasrefused to let the state post road signs telling people where it is. The Katahdin Woods monument is also included in Trumps executive order to review such designations.

The Katahdin Woods were private lands given directly to the federal government, so there can be no legitimate conservative ideological principle threatened by the designation.Lucas St. Clair of the Burts Bees family called LePages decision spiteful, and its hard to disagree. The Katahdin Woods are part of Obamas legacy. Since Gov. LePage hates Obama, he also hates Katahdin Woods.

This childish, irrational behavior about national monuments on the part of far-right and Trumpian Republicans might not initially seem relatedto Trumps choice to pull out of the Paris climate agreement. In fact, it may be the key to understanding whats motivating a choice that has deemed foolish and shortsighted not just by liberals but the dwindling number of rational conservatives. What the national monument story tells us is that Trump and his acolytes are primarily motivated by a desire to uproot Obamas legacy however and wherever they can, and cant be bothered to care about the disastrous consequences of doing so. Its the legacy of a destructive loathing being spewed all over the planet by people who have been consuming hate for so long they have nothing else to offer.

See more here:
From Paris to Bears Ears, Donald Trump's Obama derangement syndrome is going critical - Salon