Climate change will not wait for America to get its act together

Flood waters are lapping at the nuclear command center, and Republicans still do nothing

Capitol sinking in midwest flooding.
(Image credit: Illustrated | dkfielding/iStock, jakkapan21/iStock, Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images)

One of the many awful aspects of living in the United States today is how the nation is beset on all sides with crises — severe inequality, corruption, political rot, and climate change, to pick just a few — while our politics is consumed by imaginary nonsense.

Donald Trump is openly using the presidency to line his pockets; 42 percent of American cancer patients lose their entire life savings; there are clockwork spree shootings across the country; and on and on. Still, great swathes of the country spend every waking minute simply seething with outrage over NFL protests, leftists on elite college campuses, handfuls of bedraggled refugees, and fruitcake conspiracy theories.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.