The former President’s plan to bring water to the California desert is, like a lot of his promises, a goofy pipe-dream.
In an apparent effort to address the pressing issue of California water shortages, Trump said the following: “You have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north with the snow caps and Canada, and all pouring down and they have essentially a very large faucet. You turn the faucet and it takes one day to turn it, and it’s massive, it’s as big as the wall of that building right there behind you. You turn that, and all of that water aimlessly goes into the Pacific (Ocean), and if they turned it back, all of that water would come right down here and right into Los Angeles,” he said.
Amidst his weird, almost poetic rambling, the “very large faucet” Trump seems to have been referring to is the Columbia River. The Columbia runs from a lake in British Columbia, down through Oregon and eventually ends up in the Pacific Ocean. Trump’s apparent plan is to somehow divert water from the Columbia and get it all the way down to Los Angeles. However, scientific experts who have spoken to the press have noted that not only is there currently no way to divert the water from the Oregon River to southern California, but creating such a system would likely be prohibitively expensive and inefficient.
The problem is, he has no idea about policy and really no interest in it, except when the decision obviously benefits himself, or benefits those who pretty directly benefit him. So whatever he’s saying at this point is just stuff he thinks sounds good. It bears no relation to what he’ll do, except where there’s obviously something in it for him and his associates. That’s why “I’ll take vengeance on my opponents” or “I’ll increase fossil fuel use and suppress green technologies” are the kinds of statements to take seriously from him, but “I’ll sort out your water problems” is not, unless we can find a benefit for him in it. The question to ask is, “Is he saying this because he thinks it benefits him to say it, or because he thinks it benefits him to do it?” (And for him, making people he dislikes suffer counts as a benefit.)
This does benefit him if it gets him votes. He wants voters to like him, and he’d absolutely build this crazy pipe and slap his name on it if he could.
But like you said, he’d drop it like a rock if it’s inconvenient.
Unlike other politicians, Trump accepted there’s no real consequence for making fantasies up and almost lying, just like he did in business.
And anyone who’s on the fence about Trump is not thinking critically like this, they are looking at a few things he’s saying and pondering if its a good thing and benefits them.
And again, fact-based news journalism does not have the luxury of assuming “Here’s what we think he’s saying, and we think he’s making that up because it benefits him, so it’s probably nonsense.”