For Trump and his backers, destruction is no longer a by-product of ideology. It is the ideology. theguardian.com/environment/20…
This is the denouement of the American Nightmare. The belief that God gave European colonists dominion over the “savage lands” and “savage peoples” of the Americas was translated into a holy duty to subdue and tame them. This meant genocide and ecocide.
The colonisation of the Americas was a series of Crusades against the living world and the “heathens” it supported. Destruction and mass killing was not just a convenience – clearing the land for timber, farming, mining etc – but a sacrament. The mindset continues to this day.
In RH Tawney's words, in the Puritan worldview that contributed so much to the formation of American ideology: “the world exists not to be enjoyed, but to be conquered. Only its conqueror deserves the name of Christian.”
Our government is doing its best to compete with this folly. theguardian.com/environment/20…
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