“You know what? It's worth it."
Burn Ward
A dangerous heat dome — basically, a boiling pot of atmospheric heat and humidity that sits over a region — continues to boil the American southwest, sending temperatures in several states skyrocketing north of 20 and even 30 degrees Fahrenheit above their normal June temperatures. And yet, thousands of MAGA supporters have braved the heat to attend recent Donald Trump rallies in Las Vegas and Phoenix — where, as The Associated Press reports, dozens have been wound up hospitalized due to heat-related illness.
Per the AP, at least six people were sent to the hospital and 24 were treated onsite over the weekend in Vegas, where temperatures hovered around 105 degrees Fahrenheit. And in Phoenix the week prior, where temperatures climbed to a record-breaking 113 degrees, a total of 11 rally-goers were hospitalized and treated for heat exhaustion.
Heat exhaustion can obviously happen at any event where human beings stand outside in hot temperatures for hours. But climate experts widely agree that this year's heat domes have been directly linked to global warming. So the fact that Trump is a well-documented climate denier with a long history of calling climate change a "hoax" lends a salient bit of irony to the unfortunate situation of these rally attendees.
And that's before we mention that the presidential candidate has been chanting "drill, baby, drill" at his 2024 campaign events in reference to his plans to keep Big Oil and the heavily polluting American fossil fuel industry chugging right along.
"He's making promises to big oil executives who are fueling the climate crisis," Alex Glass, a campaigner at the climate advocacy group Climate Power, told The Guardian, "while people are passing out at his rallies from very real, very dangerous heatwaves that he says are caused by a hoax."
Walking Through Hell
Thankfully, all attendees who needed medical attention seem to be okay. And despite the danger, some Trump supporters said being at the rally was still "worth it."
“You know what? It's worth it," one rallier, a 65-year-old retired nurse from a Vegas suburb, told the AP. "Too bad it wasn't indoors, but that's OK."
"This is a dry heat," added Nevada GOP Chair Michael McDonald, who was one of the MAGA figures to take the stage at the rally, as quoted by the AP. "This ain't nothing for Las Vegas people."
According to McDonald, the unbearable temps were symbolic of the MAGA base's loyalty to the 2024 Republican frontrunner.
"What it symbolizes for the rest of the United States," McDonald continued, is that many Americans "will walk through hell" to elect former president Trump.
On a certain level, maybe they're right: if we keep pumping fossil fuels into the environment without meaningful mitigation, a "walk through hell" might be what much of the globe starts to feel like.
More on the same Trump rally in Vegas: Marjorie Taylor Greene Mocked for Saying the Gas Prices for Electric Cars Are Too High
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