It’s admittedly somewhat foolhardy to thoughtfully critique any of former President Donald Trump’s policy proposals.

The problem is the 78-year-old former president doesn’t really think in terms of policy. Instead, he emotes. He thinks out loud. He weaves — or, if you prefer, rambles.

That’s not to say people haven’t tried to interpret his mercurial whims into something resembling a coherent body of policy that can be predictably carried out during a four-year presidential term. More than 140 of his former staffers, including six of his former Cabinet secretaries and his first deputy chief of staff, worked with the Heritage Foundation to do just that.

The result was Project 2025, a 900-page doorstop that polls worse than socialism.

For Trump’s former staffers, this was impressive in the worst possible way. Socialism was viewed favorably by only 18 percent of those surveyed, which means it’s viewed roughly as favorably as the Internal Revenue Service, Congress and universal abortion bans, even in cases of rape and incest. Project 2025, by contrast, was only viewed favorably by 4 percent — 4 percent! — of voters surveyed.

Trump, it should be noted, did not appreciate the effort — or at least didn’t appreciate the staggering unpopularity of the end result. Despite flying with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts and announcing in a speech that the foundation will, and I quote, “lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do” before Project 2025 was released, he rapidly developed a sudden case of amnesia. He claimed he knew nothing about Project 2025 or the people — again, more than 140 of his former staffers, including six of his former Cabinet secretaries and his first deputy chief of staff — who helped create it.

Then, presumably to help him remember who was involved in that doomed effort, he and his team prepared a list of banned staffers to keep away from any post-election transition plans. Everyone involved in Project 2025 was on the list.

Since then, Trump has enjoyed the freedom to evolve his policy desires in real time. Unencumbered by the need to develop a linear thought someone might develop and act upon independently, he has expressed a desire to create a “strategic national Bitcoin stockpile.” This, presumably, would be stored by Blockchains LLC across the street from Elon Musk's battery factory.

Trump also proposed abolishing income taxes and replacing them with tariffs. Speaking from experience, this is the sort of messaging one usually hears toward the end of Libertarian Party meetings, followed by a call to privatize the roads and an immediate return to the gold standard.

Less whimsically, he has also expressed a desire to deport all illegal immigrants — and an unspecified number of legal immigrants — because, in his eyes, immigrants are “animals,” “stone cold killers” and the “worst people.”

Trump has also expressed a desire to deploy the military against the “enemy within,” a nebulous set of political foes he insists are more of a threat than any external foe the nation currently faces. Democrats, of course, are included in that set — they are, as he himself said, “not people, in some cases.” 

It is currently unclear if Trump views independent or nonpartisan voters as people. There is, I suppose, only one way to find out.

During a recent rally in Coachella, one which a well armed Las Vegas sovereign citizen was regrettably unable to attend, Trump also expressed a desire to withhold wildfire aid to California — which, in a roundabout way, finally weaves us to the alleged topic of this column.

Due to the direction of the Earth’s rotation and the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere at the equator, a west-to-east jet stream develops at northern latitudes. Since California is west of Nevada, the Silver State is consequently usually downwind of the Golden State. As a result, when a forest fire flares up in California, the smoke from the fire frequently ends up in Nevada — as it did in September when Clark County was socked in by wildfire smoke due to a large fire complex in Southern California.

It is therefore in the best interests of all Nevadans for California’s wildfires to be addressed and remediated as promptly as possible. It is also in the best interests of all residents of “this area … of the world,” friends and enemies within alike, for sufficient resources to be deployed following each wildfire to ensure future fires are less likely to occur.

Yes, even if we have to provide some of those resources ourselves in the form of federal aid.

That logic rings true if our westerly neighbor is a scrooge, one utterly unwilling to assist its neighbors in times of need. Fortunately, California is a better neighbor than that. The Emergency Management Assistance Compact, among other similar interlocal agreements and cooperative efforts, ensures that California and its various local and county governments provide mutual aid to Nevadans in the event of a catastrophe. Additionally, California and Nevada National Guards jointly train together on wildfire suppression techniques.

This aid is admittedly not always free. Most interlocal agreements require jurisdictions in need to reimburse those who send aid for the costs incurred in providing that aid. That, however, also works to Nevada’s benefit because our agreements with California work both ways. Consequently, when Nevada sends resources to fight wildfires in California, Californians frequently pay Nevada for firefighting capacity that Nevadans would be unwilling to afford on our own. The result is better trained, more experienced and better resourced firefighting crews for Nevadans to call upon when emergencies arise on our side of Von Schmidt’s line.

When it comes to wildfire management and air quality, what’s good for California is good for everyone downwind. That’s why, regardless of your — or Trump’s — feelings on California’s liberal-leaning voters, Nevadans must continue to support providing federal aid to California during times of emergency.

David Colborne ran for public office twice. He is now an IT manager, the father of two sons, and a weekly opinion columnist for The Nevada Independent. You can follow him on Mastodon @[email protected], on Bluesky @davidcolborne.bsky.social, on Threads @davidcolbornenv or email him at [email protected].