Opinion: Trump, like Teddy Roosevelt, wants to be the bride at every wedding

Among the many disappointing aspects of President Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the international Paris climate agreement is that he made the call based not on science or even believable statistics about jobs and the economy, but on politics and his personal hunger to be the center of attention. Trump, as Alice Roosevelt Longworth once said about her father, President Theodore Roosevelt, “wants to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening.”

You could see it in the orchestration of the announcement — the buildup of leaks that Trump might be changing his mind, his pretending to listen in Italy last week to the heads of other G7 countries (“very unsatisfying,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said afterward), and in his teasing promises that the answer would be coming soon. Ooooh! Suspense!

Then there was the staging of the announcement itself in the Rose Garden before silent journalists and applauding staffers, his speech bookended by sycophantic comments about Trump’s greatness by Vice President Mike Pence in his introduction and afterward by Environmental Protection Agency Director Scott Pruitt.

In making his announcement, Trump used the “I” pronoun 27 times in a speech that lasted about 27 minutes. He bragged about the fruits of his recent trip to the Middle East and Europe with details that yawed from the truth like a sailboat tacking against the wind; took credit for “our tremendous — tremendous — economic progress since election day” (actually, a mixed bag); and finally got around to saying he was withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris agreement “in order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens.” How putting the nation on the side of global climate catastrophe protects us is a mystery.

In fact, science seems not to have even entered into the decision. Pruitt told reporters Friday afternoon that “all the discussions we had through the last several weeks has been focused on one singular issue: Is Paris good, or not, for this country” economically.

Economist and political observer Paul Krugman laid Trump’s decision to spite — the accord was a liberal accomplishment, thus it must be reversed. There’s some truth to that on both sides. If the other end of the political spectrum likes it, then it must be bad. In fact, the concept behind Obamacare, and some of its details, had some Republican support before it became Obamacare and, thus, evil.

Actually, the dangers of climate change from global warming propelled by human activity are recognized across the political spectrum. Just not by the narrow set to which Trump belongs.

There also is a vein of anti-Obama to it. Trump seems to be driven to undo Obama’s national policies no matter how much value they might have for the country, from establishing national monuments to the Clean Power Plan to the Waters of the United States rule to, now, the Paris agreement. The economic impact of the last one will be significant: Focusing U.S. policies on fossil fuels while the rest of the world continues to create, innovate and expand renewable energies means Trump and his political supporters are handing the keys to the new economy to China and the European Union. And sending the U.S. back to a more polluted past.

But for Trump, this is less about policy than it is about his need for the spotlight, and for public adoration (which, given his 40% approval rating, is a matter of selective hearing).

Hubris is a horrible way to form policy, and a dangerous way to lead a government. Yet that’s the lot into which we’ve cast ourselves.

Scott.Martelle@LATimes.com

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