8. Environmental Neglect
Ignoring Climate Change
A fascist regime ignores science when science gets in the way of short-term profit.
In February 2026, Trump's EPA repealed the endangerment finding. That's the 2009 scientific finding that greenhouse gases are dangerous to our health.
It's the legal backbone for limiting climate pollution under the Clean Air Act. Without it, the EPA claims it can't regulate those gases from cars and trucks. Health groups and 24 states sued.
In January, Trump also pulled the U.S. out of the main UN climate treaty and the world's top climate science panel.
That puts us on track to be the only country on Earth outside the treaty. (More on that in sign #9.)
President Biden was called America's first "climate president" because of his climate policies and support for clean energy. Trump started undoing all of it on day one. We had some fun with that in our satire piece on the EPA's big rebrand.
When the government makes decisions that go against the science on purpose, it shows you who it really works for. Hint: it's not your grandkids.
Natural Resources Exploited
Authoritarian regimes tend to treat nature like a piggy bank. Profit comes first. The planet comes last.
"Drill, baby, drill" was Trump's catchphrase in 2024, and he kept that promise. He opened protected lands to drilling and championed the return of coal. Republicans pushed to sell off federal lands to help pay for trillions of dollars in tax cuts that mostly go to the rich.
This year, the administration went after the Endangered Species Act. In July, it rescinded the definition of "harm" that has protected wildlife since 1981.
Under the old rule, destroying the habitat an endangered animal needs to survive could count as harming it. Now it doesn't.
The change took effect in September. Environmental groups filed at least four lawsuits.
In August, bulldozers started tearing into Big Bend National Park to build a border wall after DHS waived dozens of laws.
And the Iran war set off an energy crisis that pushed diesel to record prices. So much for "energy independence."
