Steve Benen on Maddowblog is puzzled about Trump’s continued pushing of “clean coal” and doesn’t believe Trump understands his own position:
I have to wonder if Trump heard about “clean coal” at some point, and thought to himself, “Well, I like coal, and ‘clean’ sounds good, so I guess I’m for ‘clean coal.’” Spending a few minutes to get up to speed on the basics probably never occurred to him.
But Trump is not operating with constraints of the potential reality of the various positions he might take. Trump made promises to his base, and if he’s going to hold his base together, he has to at least look like he’s fighting to keep those promises. This is all about Trump’s political survival, because if his base falls apart, there’s literally nothing to keep him from falling into the abyss of failure.
And that is something Donald J. Trump cannot tolerate.
So Trump will continue to push clean coal, whatever that means to him, for as long as it takes to keep his base hooting with him, rather than at him, until he finds someway to shore up his political base in some other way, whether it’s find that magical position which will sway independents to his side, or opens up a new industry which will quickly employ all those former coal miners.
While the latter option seems unlikely, I don’t know if Trump can actually look to the future. His success so far has been through reminders and exhortations concerning the past, all the way back to the Civil War. But that doesn’t mean, if the opportunity arose, that he couldn’t pivot to a future industry.
Or perhaps he’s just hoping to get a primo dacha on the Black Sea.
