#i present: Party Mitch and Party Carlos

[formulatrash]

[x]

[fangirl-dot-com]

Chapter 20 - Backstreet's Back - All Right!

Why this sat in the drafts for so long, I do not know so I apologize to everyone! I've been super busy with college and haven't had time to write much...but here we are

Today was an ABSOLUTE fever dream and we all need a little somethin somethin. So I present to you - the backstreet boys (formula 1 edition)

RACES SKIPPED ARE CANADA AND SPAIN (side note - Arthur hasn't been able to be at a race since Monaco)

Haven't been able to say this in a while but I hope you enjoy! Remember that comments, questions, concerns, reblogs, and likes are always appreciated!! Love you all :D

TAG LIST IS CLOSED

You had gotten to the paddock super early once again. But that was only because Lando and Oscar has asked you to hang out, and you’d never skip out on some good times with your papaya friends. Andrea loved you and often let you sit in his office if you were bored. Actually, all of the team principals seemed to do that. 

Even Toto, which was weird considering you stole on of his driver’s car with his other driver. 

Like always, you found yourself killing some time by playing Subway Surfers. You were about to get a new high score when two shadows covered your screen, making your character get arrested. 

“Hey, you made me lose my score!” 

You were about to tear them a new one, but your face had a shocked look once you finally pointed your head up. 

“What the f-!” 

“Has anyone seen the kid?” was a question that Max did not imagine that he’d hear first thing in the morning when he arrived on Sunday. 

His eyes glanced to the corner that you were almost always in, listening to music. But, the corner was void of any rookie teammate. He looked toward Christian, who asked the initial question. 

“Have you checked her driver’s room?” 

The Brit sighed, “We checked her room, your room, hospitality, and even the Ferrari garage, Williams garage, and McLaren garage. No one has seen her, yet the log says that she’s already here because she tapped in at the entrance.” 

Well, Max was stumped. And he knew why Christian was wanting to see you. They were finally in the Red Bull Ring, the home race for the entire team. It was a big deal, and Christian didn’t want you to get overwhelmed. There was a lot on their shoulders. Charles had pole, but Max was right behind him. Charles was always strong in the Red Bull Ring, almost winning in 2019 and then winning in 2022. The Ferraris had done well the last two races, and you two needed to hold them off. Thankfully, you were right behind Max in P3, but Carlos was behind you in P4. A Ferrari sandwich if you will. 

Everyone was kind of counting on the both of you for a Red Bull 1-2. 

“Have you seen Vito or Mitch?” 

“We’re right here.”

The Dutchman turned around to see your race engineer and manager, but you were nowhere to be found. He opened his mouth to say something but Vito held out a hand. 

“Yes, we’ve already tried to call her and Arthur. Both phones went to voicemail.” 

“Oh god.” Max shivered. If you weren’t picking up, and your boyfriend wasn’t picking up. Well, he didn’t want to imagine what you were up to. Just as he was about to suggest looking in the garages again, Lando popped his head in. 

“Have any of you seen Bug? She was supposed to meet up with me and Oscar earlier and she never showed up!” the curly-haired Brit whined. 

Now, that had Max even more worried. You never skipped hanging out with your favorite Brit (after Christian) or Aussie. Before he was about to start getting a search party together, Mitch suddenly made a weird face. 

“Do any of you hear that?” 

The five went silent to try to hear whatever Mitch had heard. 

Lando’s face scrunched. “Sounds like the Backstreet Boys?” 

The group quickly walked over to the opening and didn’t know whether to be relived or just upright confused. 

Because there you were, holding a giant boombox (God only knows where you got that) with sunglasses on, with Arthur to your right and one Ollie Bearman to your left. The soundtrack was indeed Backstreet Boys, namely the 1997 hit song “Everybody.” 

As Max learned at Vegas, you definitely knew how to make an entrance. By now, most of the drivers had walked out of their garages to see the commotion. 

And much to Max’s surprise, Nico Rosberg, Mark Webber, and Jensen Button walked up to the three of you, giant smiles on their faces. The song had ended a bit ago, and you handed the now silent boombox back to the German. The Australian of the group gave both Ollie and Arthur pretty big hugs. 

“Well, Oscar lost his grid dad,” Lando said, earning a hit from said Aussie. 

“Hey! He was never my grid dad in the first place.” 

The now group of six made their way to the giant group of drivers, including but not limited to: Max, Lando, Charles, Carlos, Logan, Lewis, George, and Oscar (in no particular order). Arthur’s hand was behind your back as you enthusiastically talked to the very tall British brunet dressed in Ferrari red. 

“I cannot believe that you come here, apparently to see me, and say that you need to be in the Ferrari garage! Arthur’s even going to be in the Red Bull one!” they heard you whine as the group got closer. 

Ollie rolled his eyes. “That’s only because he’s your boy-oof. You did NOT have to hit me.” He glared down at you as he rubbed his side. 

“Yes I did.” Your arms crossed as you finally stopped in front of the giant group, who were all staring at you. “Hey guys, what’s up?” 

Lando mirrored your stance, even popping his hip out. “What’s up?” he jokingly mocking. “We were supposed to go to breakfast?” He pointed between him and Oscar. 

A look of realization glossed over your face as you looked at the papaya drivers. 

“Oooohhhh, yeah. Sorry. Uh, their fault?” You pointed at Ollie and Arthur, who both looked betrayed. 

“Our fault?” Ollie squawked. “You were the one who dragged us to breakfast!” 

“You had breakfast?” 

“Yes Lando, I had breakfast.” 

The younger Monegasque silenced you. “The big boys are talking. And then you dragged us to find Nico because you thought  he had a boombox.” 

“The big boys? Seriously Thur? I can take you any day.” You glared up at him. 

“Oh yeah?” He cocked an eyebrow and smirked down at you, getting in your face to really show the height difference. 

That’s it.

You suddenly jumped on him, bring him to the floor. The Max and Charles jumped into action, trying to get you separated. Ollie just watched with a giant grin on his face, laughing at the two of you. 

“Ollie, kindly shut up?” 

“Yes mom.”

The two of you were separated quickly, because you really didn’t have much malice toward your boyfriend. 

“I totally won.” 

“Kid, you lost horribly.” 

“Max, has anyone ever told you that you don’t have to say everything that comes to your mind?” 

Charles, Lewis, Lando, Oscar, Logan, and George all nodded in agreement while Max stared at them with wide eyes. 

“You all agree?!” 

“Can I have my drivers back please?!” Christian suddenly yelled, making everyone look at him. 

“Please take her. She’s rabid.” Arthur pushed you forward, making you take a swing at him (that he was ready for and dodged rather easily). 

You stuck your tongue out at him, before giving Ollie a hug and gently guiding him to Charles. 

Your finger pointed at the red-clad driver. “Take care of my son please, even if you are the enemy. He likes his sandwiches without the crust and needs a nap with his blanket in 5 hours.” 

“Gosse?”

“Aw you brought my blanket?” 

Ollie’s face flushed red as he realized everyone’s eyes were on him. Charles just looked worried as though someone just handed him an actual child and told him “good luck.” 

You turned to follow your team principal, who was muttering something about you giving him even more gray hairs every weekend. “By Ollie! Have fun!” 

The parade went by smoothly. You laughed a lot when Nico brought the boombox to the interviews. He had a lot of questions for you and Max, since it was the team race today, which made your anxiety skyrocket just a bit.

You and Arthur were able to have just a few minutes of alone time back in your driver’s room. 

Because this was a surprise race, Arthur didn’t have to work or be with his brother. So, he was all yours for the entirety of Sunday. However, your excitement didn’t last long as he told you that he had to go back to Switzerland for more testing right after. 

You sighed as you pressed your head against his chest, his arms around you. “If I had known that you’d be gone so much, I wouldn’t have called Seb and just have kept you as my WAG.” 

Arthur sadly smiled down at you. “I know chéri, but I like testing. It gives me a purpose.” 

Another sigh escaped your lips as you finally met his gaze. He cooed as he saw tears forming in your eyes. 

“What is wrong mon fille jolie?” 

You let a few tears escape, but they didn’t get very far as Arthur wiped them off as quickly as they fell. 

“I just miss you and I miss home,” you confessed, hiding your face in his neck as you stepped closer. Arthur gently brought you over to the couch and readjusted you so that you were just lying on his front. 

His hands gently ran through your hair. He knew you needed to be in the car soon, but he wouldn’t let you go without trying to console you. 

You continued, “And I know that we just had summer break not too long ago, but it wasn’t enough.” 

Arthur just listened, know you needed to spill to feel better. 

“Everyone is counting on me to bring in a 1-2 since it’s the home race. But the last two races weren’t the best. I barely got any points.” You muttered the last part, “I’m never going to win a race by now.” 

“Hey, none of that.” Arthur lifted your face so that you could look in his eyes. His were filled with determination. “Do you know how amazing you are? You podiumed at your first race and are fourth in the championship. As a rookie! You are incredible. Parfois j’aimerais que tu te voies comme je te vois.” (translation: Sometimes I wish you saw yourself as I see you.)

You huffed. “I still can’t understand you, but I’m hoping that was a compliment.” 

“It was.” 

He moved his head down to place a gentle kiss on your lips. At the contact, a sigh expelled from your nose. 

It felt so good to be so loved. 

If someone was to write a poem, about how Arthur looked at you and how you looked at Arthur, their pens would be void of ink and the stars would be shadowed by their words. 

The two of you were so lost in each other that a knock at the door scared you both and ended up with you on the floor. 

Mitch poked her head in before shaking it slightly. 

“I don’t even want to know what you were up to, but Y/n needs to get in the car.” 

You quickly stood, with Arthur’s help, and grabbed your helmet, making your way back into the garage. Like clockwork, the Monegasque took your headpiece and gently made sure that it was safely secure. And, with a kiss on the “forehead,” he sent you off. He could tell that you didn’t really want to get in the car. Which was understandable. It wasn’t very often that Arthur saw you not want to drive. But he knew that you were going to be amazing today. 

Starting Grid: 

Charles Leclerc 

Max Verstappen 

Y/n L/n 

Carlos Sainz 

Oscar Piastri 

Pierre Gasly 

Daniel Ricciardo 

Lewis Hamilton 

Yuki Tsunoda 

Alex Albon 

Lando Norris 

Logan Sargeant 

Valtteri Bottas 

Fernando Alonso 

George Russell 

Lance Stroll 

Zhou Guanyu 

Kevin Magnussen 

Esteban Ocon 

Nico Hulkenberg 

You rolled your tires as you waited for the lights to go out. They were tense, but that helped you be ready to press the accelerator. If you weren’t tense, you knew there’d be something wrong. If you felt high-strung outside of the car, inside was 10 times worse. 

All the pressure, all the doubts, all the hopes and dreams – were on your shoulders. 

And you weren’t going to let them down. 

“And it’s lights out and away we go for the 2024 Austrian Grand Prix! Charles Leclerc has a strong start in the initial few seconds, but Max Verstappen seems to be on a mission to turn this into a win. Verstappen gets down the inside and pushes Leclerc a bit wide to gain a position on the pole sitter. We both know that he will probably start to bolt in just a few corners. 

“His rookie teammate Y/n L/n seems to also have the upper hand against the other Ferrari of Carlos Sainz as she seems to do what she does best – go around the outside on that initial turn 1 and somehow make it out in front. 

“Now the track is a bit rainy, and we saw what happened the last time that happened, so we’ll keep an eye on our Red Bull number 2.” 

You felt water droplets fall into your visor as you were picking up speed on the Ferrari in front of you. You knew that this “dirty air” would be much worse than regular, since it was contaminated with water as well. 

You pressed your radio button when it seemed almost impossible to catch up to the red car. The rain had also stopped so your intermediates were getting dangerous to drive with. 

“Mitch what is the plan because I cannot catch up to Leclerc in these conditions.” 

“Do you think you can go the rest of the way in mediums?” 

You thought for a moment. You couldn’t go the rest of the way on softs, as they would degrade too quickly. And hards took forever to warm up. 

“Yeah. I can do that.” 

“Then box ahead of Max. You’ll come out right behind him. So, he’ll give you a tow and then when he boxes, you’ll do the same. Max has priority.” 

“Copy.” 

You quickly pitted the next lap. The Red Bull team seemed to be on fire as you were in and out in a few seconds. You didn’t know, but they somehow set the record for a new pit stop – 1.789 seconds. 

The crowd got excited as you suddenly appeared behind Max and in front of the number sixteen car. 

With Max in front of you, the tow was very helpful as you started to build bigger gap. You guessed that Ferrari must have messed up Charles’s pit stop as Lando’s papaya car was now behind you, instead of Charles. 

You felt bad, but that’s on his team. 

However, Lando was on much fresher tyres that you were, and he was gaining in the last ten laps of the race. You really tried to not let him overtake, but he did…with five laps to go.

Mitch suddenly came over the radio. “Don’t push it like last time. We don’t need another Suzuka. Third place will be just fine.” 

But you weren’t having any of that. You never responded and just kept at the pace you were going, trying to get the maximum out of the car. 

You hadn’t noticed, but everyone else in the garages could see that you were surprisingly gaining on Lando. Ollie watched as you were making qualifying times per lap. The crew was holding on to each other, cheering you on. With each tenth gained, the noise grew louder. 

You saw the last lap flag, and you knew you had to keep your elbows out. 

“And we are coming up on the last lap and L/n has somehow made it back into Norris’s DRS. She tried to get around the outside on the first turn, but is not successful. Yet, she’s keeping herself well in the DRS and doesn’t make try to make a move on the straights. 

“Here comes the last real corner of the circuit and only a small straight for an overtake. 

“SHE’S GOING FOR IT!

“IT’S A PHOTO FINISH…DO WE HAVE RESULTS?” 

You slowed down your car as you drove around for the cool down lap. Your finger was jamming the radio button. 

“Do we have it!?” 

Arthur was biting his fingernails as everyone in the garage was waiting for the results. The mechanics were happy with another P1 finish from Max, but they were on baited breath to see if you had almost done the impossible and finished in a 1-2 sequence. A steward walked over to the pit wall and gave Christian the paper with the results.

A giant smile crossed his face as he was the one to give you the news. 

“Congrats kid. It’s a 1-2 finish.” 

Race Results 

Max Verstappen – 25 points 

Y/n L/n – 18 points 

Lando Norris – 15 points 

Charles Leclerc – 12 points 

Carlos Sainz – 11 points 

Pierre Gasly + fastest lap – 9 points  

Oscar Piastri – 6 points 

Lewis Hamilton – 4 points 

Yuki Tsunoda – 2 points  

Alex Albon – 1 point 

Logan Sargeant 

George Russell 

Lance Stroll 

Fernando Alonso 

Nico Hulkenberg 

Valtteri Bottas 

Esteban Ocon 

Kevin Magnussen 

Zhou Guanyu 

Daniel Ricciardo 

Champions Standings

Max Verstappen – 244 points 

Charles Leclerc – 201 points 

Y/n L/n – 124 points 

Lando Norris – 115 points 

Carlos Sainz – 91 points 

Lewis Hamilton – 70 points 

Oscar Piastri – 68 points 

Alex Albon – 39 points 

George Russell – 36 points

Fernando Alonso – 35 points 

Logan Sargeant – 29 points  

Daniel Ricciardo – 23 points

Lance Stroll – 15 points 

Pierre Gasly – 12 points 

Yuki Tsunoda – 8 points 

Nico Hulkenberg 

Kevin Magnussen 

Zhou Guanyu 

Valtteri Bottas 

Esteban Ocon 

Constructors Standings 

Red Bull – 383 points 

Ferrari – 292 points 

McLaren – 194 points 

Mercedes – 106 points 

Aston Martin – 50 points 

Williams – 41 points 

Alpha Tauri – 31 points 

Alpine – 12 points 

Alpha Romeo 

Haas 

“OH YEAH BABY. LET’S GO!” you yelled over your radio. The crew in the garage stood up from their seats and began to hug each other. 

“Oh man, that was, wow! Can’t believe that. Great job everyone. Is this what winning feels like?” you asked as you took the cooldown lap, yet there was no answer. Everyone was too busy watching that final overtake and celebrating about it. 

Arthur just watched your car take a lap on the screen. He softly whispered, “I knew you could do it.” The love in his eyes could have poured out if love was a physical thing. 

Mitch came over the radio as you were beginning to pull in. “And congrats kid. You have surpassed Lewis Hamilton’s rookie point record.” 

“LET’S GO! THAT'S THE SHIT!” 

“You really need to stop hanging out with Max all the time. He’s teaching you bad words.” 

You smirked under your helmet. “I’m a girl whose friends are dominantly male. Mitch you even curse over the radio.” 

Max almost didn’t want to look at whatever car was in the second place spot. He knew you’d be devastated if you weren’t there. Last he knew, Lando was behind him with you on his tail. It was your helmet that caught his attention. His body turned to see you standing on your car in the P2 spot. 

His heart dropped, but in a good way. He watched you jump off and jump into the arms of the crew. Head pats were definitely deserved as you tried to touch as much of the team as possible. He laughed when you purposefully hung off the banner, just to get closer to the crew who were a bit further back. 

He watched you and Mitch hold out your arms (kind of like Lando and Carlos at the Singapore Grand Prix), mirror each other, and then hug it out. He swears he saw the older lady wipe away a few tears. 

Next was Christian, who gave you a big hug as Max finally made his way to the wall of crew. It was his turn for hugs, high-fives, and helmet pats. 

You had just gotten to Arthur, who held onto you a bit longer than everyone else. 

Just for the two of you, he whispered, “If you didn’t have you helmet on, I’d kiss you right here in front of all these people.” 

Your cheeks were bright red under the helmet.

Ollie, who had been able to escape from the prancing horse, had also come to congratulate you. His hug was a tag shorter than Arthur’s, but you knew he did it to make your previous hug not look as suspicious. 

You had been on the podium time and time before, but this felt different. You don’t know if it was the adrenaline, the sun, or the happiness that ran through you veins that made the trophy a bit lighter or the bubbly a bit sweeter: maybe it was all three. 

You were still hungry for a win, starving, but this was just the snack to tide you over.

Down below, Arthur and Ollie had somehow gotten a hand on the boombox once again. You could barely hear it on the podium, but you had a guess. Suddenly, the music screeched to a halt, making everyone confused. You watched as your two boys had a knowing smirk on their faces. The same smirk slowly crept on your face as well. 

You turned to Max and Lando, who looked equally confused. You held your trophy to your lips, as though it were a microphone. You pointed at the two men, and lip-synced the words. 

“BACKSTREET’S BACK -  ALL RIGHT!” 

redbullracing has posted

redbullracing 1-2 in the house! The Red Bull Ring was shining as our drivers carried home two new trophies! Congrats to y/n.89 for her first record as she surpasses Lewis Hamilton's rookie points with 124 points total!

liked by y/n.89, maxverstappen, lewishamilton, and 4,203,893 others

y/n.nation THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT

y/n_on_top that fight for the win will go in the history books mark my words

landonorris please tell your drivers to slow down so the rest of us can have a chance

charles_leclerc I second this y/n.89 idk, you all just sound like misogynists here... maxverstappen1 what she said

lewishamilton I knew someone would have to beat it. congrats kid

y/n.89 thank you Lew! (someone should take notes ahem landonorris) landonorris sure bug, sure

redbullfan 1-2! 1-2! 1-2!

y/n.lover she is legit currently in p3 for the constructor's championship...what do they feed her?

y/n.89 the tears of my enemies (Charles cries a lot) charles_leclerc HEY redbullracing lots of energy drinks and protein!

arthurxy/n Arthur back in the rb garage - too bad ollie couldn't join them

y/n.89 has posted

y/n.89 my boys are BACK

liked by y/n.nation, boxbox_express, change_ur_f-car, and 85,395 others

y/n&co God I've seen what you've done for others

rookiefan I kinda feel bad for her boyfriend...but at the same time Arthur is more than happy to show her off (her bf needs to take notes!!)

olliebearman MOM ON PODIUM

y/n.89 did you have a nice nap? olliebearman yes until charles_leclerc forgot my blanket y/n.89 when I find you charles_leclerc arthur_leclerc Charles you better run charles_leclerc HE'S 18?? WHY DOES HE STILL NEED A BLANKET AND NAP y/n.89 you're 26???? why do you still need to call my teammate goodnight? lestappenlove and I OOP

prema_y/n anywayyyyy the second pic is hilarious

Arthur.nation thur is glowing, wonder if he has a gf??

arthurgirly4life I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE

boxbox_express the trio no one knew we needed, but the trio that we deserve

arthur_leclerc has posted

arthur_leclerc a driver, a reserve driver, and an endurance driver walk into a bar...

liked by thurthur, ferrari_fanfest, porsche, and 102,284 others

arthur4porsche this makes no sense but it's hysterical??

y/n.89 ollie actually smacked his head on the bar

olliebearman YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T TELL - DAD, MOM IS MAKING FUN OF ME AGAIN arthur_leclerc it was funny? olliebearman grandpa? charles_leclerc yes? olliebearman not you, you forgot my blanket. the better one maxverstappen1 take that Charles

arthur&crew if max and Charles are grandpa...does that make Christian great-grandpa??

christianhorner sadly yes y/n.89 SADLY?? YOU MADE HIM CRYYYY charles_leclerc w o w , could never at Ferrari y/n.89 Charlie, you cried yesterday

redbullracing maybe the driver should become our photographer?

olliebearman has posted

olliebearman why is it that when we're together, we're always eating??

liked by ferrari, y/n.89, logansargeant, and 83,294 others

olliebear WHAT ARE THESE PICTURES I'M DYING

arthur_leclerc blocked and reported for that last picture

olliebearman why? trying to look good for someone?? arthur_leclerc say goodbye to the blanket olliebearman too late, your brother lost it :( arthur.nation HELLO??

y/n.89 I look sexy

olliebearman your boyfriend sure thinks so :D y/n.89 what Arthur said, blocked and reported

prematrio what are these comments??

y/n&co shhhhh just let them

oscarpiastri guess the invites got lost in the mail??

landonorris same here... y/n.89 you weren't in prema? kimi.antonelli thanks for the food mom! olliebearman brother? maxverstappen1 here we go again

change_ur_f-car what a time to be alive

TAG LIST: @fionaschicken @glitterquadricorn @laura-naruto-fan1998 @treehouse-mouse @sam-is-lost @kagatinkita @fangirl125reader @megatrilss1885 @myxticmoon @angsthology @cmleitora @agent-curt-mega @graciewrote @ashy-kit @slutofmultifandom @aexitizen-ln4 @sugarvibez @vellicora @thatgirlthatreadswattpad @cashtons-wife @hoetel-manager @xcharlottemikaelsonx @jayda12 @ilove-tswizzle @justme2042 @itsjustkhaos @nikfigueiredo @stopeatread @cha-hot @sadg3 @iloveyou3000morgan @s4turnsl0ver @alessioayla @torchbearerkyle @leptitlu @awekbachira @shreks-sugar-daddy @v1naco @stan-josie @mellowarcadefun @badassturtle13 @beskardroids @callisposts @poppyalice2001 @juniper-july19

[innytoes]

Come on, you did not put in “You got me a stocking?” - “Of course, you’re family.” and NOT expect me to prompt it with Reggie & the Molinas right?

Four people sent me some version of this prompt and I think I made the Reggie Molina bait a liiiiittle too strong. #noregrets Set in the same universe as this fic

Christmas hadn’t been the same since they came to LA. Not that his parents had been great at Christmas before that, but his Meemaw and Pops usually picked up the slack. They made sure Reggie got presents he actually liked, and clothes that actually fit. They took him to the mall to see Santa when he was little, even though the nearest mall was over an hour away. And whenever his parents inevitably started to argue (not fight, not yet, they had only turned into full blown fights after the move), Pops would take him out to give the horses their Special Christmas Treat. Usually some apple peels or carrots.

Pops had also been the one to sit him down and tell him about the Magic of Christmas and the truth about Santa. Thankfully, because his first winter in LA, there were no presents from Santa under the tree. There’d barely been any presents at all, but he’d heard enough fights about money, late at night huddled in his bed, to know not to complain.

Christmas after they came to LA just got worse over time. The arguments turned into full blown fights. They stopped getting a real tree, then stopped setting up the fake tree, and finally, his mom just stopped helping Reggie decorate at all. (At least they still let him decorate.)

There was the year both his parents forgot to get him a present, after spending a lot on each other, which crashed them straight out of the honeymoon phase and back into another fight. He‘d gotten his bass guitar around New Year to make up for it, though.

These days, Reggie tried not to be home a lot around the holidays. They still did Christmas morning, kind of, Reggie making Meemaw’s apple pancakes and exchanging only-sometimes-heartfelt gifts. He did his best to get his parents something he’d thought they would like, and he kept a smile on his face, even when he unwrapped the Star Trek shirt. It was the thought that counted, right? At least the shirt fit.

Most years, he just wandered around town, pretending he was on his way to some awesome party, smiling and nodding at families in the street. Or he stole they key from under the flower pot at Luke’s house, crashing in his room even though Luke and his parents always visited his grandparents for Christmas. The Pattersons always had a pretty tree, and he liked to stare at it, even if he didn’t dare turn on the lights lest the neighbours call Mitch or Emily.

This year though, he had a place to go. Because Julie had invited him to Family Christmas Dinner. And then dragged him inside and made Ray invite him too, when he started talking about how that was like, family time and he didn’t want to intrude.

When he got to the Molina house and knocked, Carlos opened the door, shouting happily. “It’s Reggie!” He pulled Reggie inside, talking a mile a minute about the new videogame he’d gotten for Christmas and how they’d finally have enough people for multi-player mode with him and Julie.

God he loved the Molinas.

He gave Julie a hug, and passed Tía the tin of cookies. “I know you said I didn’t have to bring anything, but I made cookies,” he explained. And honestly he hadn’t felt like sharing them with his parents. He’d left them a few, but he’d made them for the people he really wanted to spend the holidays with. “It’s my Meemaw’s recipe.”

“Thank you, mijo, that’s very kind of you,” Ray said, catching him in a hug. Ray hugs were still kind of new, after Father’s Day, but they were also kind of the best.

Dinner was amazing, and he basked in the feel of sitting at a family dinner and not being worried about when the shouting would start. The food was delicious, the pre-video-game trash talk was g-rated but thus extra hilarious, and it was just everything Reggie had been missing at home for the past couple of years.

After dinner, while they waited for the ice cream to thaw enough to eat and munched on Reggie’s cookies (and man, did he glow under the praise from Victoria and Ray), Carlos jumped up. “Can we, dad? You said after dinner, it’s after dinner!”

“Fine,” Ray said, chuckling as Carlos raced out of the room. Reggie blinked, wondering if it was video game time, but then Carlos came back, carrying three brightly coloured stockings. He handed one to Julie, put one on his chair, and Reggie leaned back so he could give the last one to Ray, but it ended up in his lap instead.

He was about to pass it over, when he saw the name embroidered on the hem. “You got me a stocking?” he asked, shocked. He hadn’t gotten anyone presents. Julie had told him not to. They were already doing the Band Secret Santa when Luke came back, and she knew his pocket money was non-existent.

“Of course,” Ray said, like it was nothing. “You’re family.”

He did eventually get to his stocking, but not before hugging the daylights out of Ray, and then Julie, and Carlos, and Tía.

[vileart]

Our Christian Dramaturgy: Joe Janes @ edfringe 2017

Our Christian Nation Finds Paradise at Edinburgh Fringe 35 Characters Played by 11 Actors in Joe Janes' Cultural Satire About America Erasing the Line Separating Church and State CHICAGO (July 20, 2017)— What would the USA look like if the extreme Christian right got everything they wanted?  In this slightly alternate present just before the rapture, Reverend President Robert (Jamie Buell) has eliminated the “fake news” and homosexuality is outlawed.  A young family is torn apart when Mitch (Adam Ston), the breadwinner, loses his job and is arrested for not being able to pay his bills, while his pregnant wife, Louise (Lauren Fisher) is thrown into a hospital/jail as the state takes ownership of her “fetus.”

Meanwhile, the couple’s daughter, Nipper (Bethany Schmieder) is indoctrinated in various “Biblical” texts by a couple that run a gay conversion therapy camp.

What was the inspiration for this performance? Anger. I was angry about how Republicans and the Tea Party were treating the Obama administration and I was angry at the constant attempts to erase the separation of church and state, especially when it comes to women rights and gay rights. I’m a comedy writer. Comedy is my weapon.

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas?  Absolutely! Especially, now. We have a president who is an egomaniac with a thin skin. Satire gets to him. When we did a run of our show earlier this year, I invited some local conservative on-line magazines to review us. They declined and in our e-mail exchanges admitted “We don’t do humor well.” How did you become interested in making performance? When I was a kid, my uncle would play comedy

albums for me. Notably, Stan Freberg’s The United States of America, Vol 1: The Early Years, which had a definite influence on this show. Our play is full of revised history lessons. I was hooked and started putting on shows for my classmates starting in the fourth grade.  Is there any particular approach to the making of the show? I wrote the the first draft very quickly. I pitched the idea of the play to 3 Brothers Theatre north of Chicago. They loved it and wanted to feature it in a staged reading during their summer festival in 2015. They told me this at the end of March when I had yet to write a single word of the play!  They loved it so much, they produced it the following summer and my director and I put it up in Chicago earlier this year. The play has a lot to do with current events, which can be scary for a writer. There’s a concern that things can become dated. Fortunately for the production and unfortunately for the world, it has not. 

We check the news everyday and, quite often, we’re able to reference the latest dumb thing Trump or someone in his administration has said.  Does the show fit with your usual productions? Many of my plays are epic with large casts and people playing multiple roles, so, yes. My plays tend to be like sketch comedy revues spinning out of control.  What do you hope that the audience will experience? Laughter! Where there’s laughter, there's hope. I hope it gives them a thing or two to think about regarding politics and religion.  One thing I also appreciate about satire is that it

often makes me feel like I’m not alone. There’s relief in discovering there are other people who are reasonably sane who also think this thing or that thing is bonkers.  What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience? I tried to be very clear that it wasn’t an attack on Christianity or anyone’s particular religion. It’s an attack on people who take it to the extreme and impose their beliefs on others and also the hypocrisy that inevitably gets intwined. 

Welcome to Our Christian Nation, an epic satirical one-act play written by Emmy award-winning writer and Second City instructor Joe Janes and directed by Andrea J. Dymond. 

Our Christian Nation is partially funded by a Part-Time Faculty Development Grant from Columbia College Chicago. Janes originally wrote the full-length version of the play for the Three Brothers Waukegan Theatre Festival in Illinois, where it received a staged reading in 2015. Three Brothers Theatre produced the show for their festival in 2016.

Earlier this year, the play received a full six-week run at Chicago’s veteran comedy institution The Cornservatory.

There are 35 characters performed by 11 actors in Our Christian Nation covering a wide range of Christian revised story lessons that include: God creating the world (but he rushed and is sorry about that cancer thing), the founding fathers signing the Declaration of Independence along with founding father Moses and help from a dinosaur, the Civil War occurring because God was mad at Lincoln, Goldilocks being an abortion-loving intruder, and a worldview that has the US as #1 and Australia being as if England and Mississippi had a baby and left it in a dumpster.

Entertaining as well as educational, Our Christian Nation takes place in a world Janes envisions as a kind of nightmare quickly becoming a daymare, i.e. in which the ultra-Christian right wing get everything their hearts desire.

“I wrote the play because I was angry about the Republican and Tea Party response to the Obama administration. I’m sad to report it is still pertinent today. Even more so given our current Whitehouse interloper,” said Janes.

“Our Christian Nation is a world where children only get church-approved homeschool lessons, privatization is rampant, being poor is a crime, insurance is only for those who can afford it, women have very few rights, and conversion therapy camps are as normal as the boy scouts. The Bible has become a textbook in history and science classes.”

“Satire is the best weapon I know of to shed light on absurdities. There’s a lot of work to be done in the states, right now. We’re bringing the show to Edinburgh to show the rest of the world that we’re not all crazy here and we’re doing our best to reverse the tide,” said Janes.

Joe Janes Joe Janes is an Emmy award-winning writer who teaches comedy writing and improvisation at The Second City and in Columbia College's new Comedy Writing and Performance major.  He has written for Jellyvision's video game series You Don't Know Jack and Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update. He has published three books, including 365 Sketches, 50 Plays and Seven Deadly Plays.  Other full-length plays include Metaluna and the Science of the Mind Revue, A Hard Day's Journey into Night, OtherSchool and Always Never.  His fake Twitter account is @futurepreztrump that he started over a year ago. He tried to warn you. Andrea J. Dymond A Chicago-based freelance director specializing in new work, Andrea J. Dymond has been a resident director at Victory Gardens Theater, where she directed 11 productions, including 7 world premieres.  Selected Chicago credits include: Tree, Year Zero, Blue Door, Free Man of Color, Shoes, and I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document, Helen, and Keep a Song in Your Soul, which she directed and developed with the Grammy award-winning band Carolina Chocolate Drops.  Most recently, Andrea directed A Lesson Before Dying by Clarence Brown, Shepsu Aahku’s Softly Blue and Lynn Nottage’s Mud River Stone. Andrea’s experience includes research and production dramaturgy, directing at new works festivals nationally; serving as thesis play advisor for MFA playwrights at Carnegie Mellon; and directing at NNPN’s MFA Playwrights Workshops at the Kennedy Center.  Andrea teaches directing, collaboration, text analysis, acting and new play development at Columbia College Chicago, where she recently directed Blues for an Alabama Sky by Pearl Cleage and Euripides’s Hecuba. Cast Lauren Fisher (Louise, Abigail) Adam Ston (Mitch, various) Bethany Schmieder (Nipper) Jamie Buell (Rev. President Robert) Robin Mina (Shrug, Evelyn, various) Adrian Garcia (Pastor Mooney, Carlos, various) Garrett Hanson (Mr. Looney, Michael, various) Nicholas Polk (Tim Harfington, Brian, various) Aidan O'Connor (Mrs. Kennedy, Dr. Harley, various) Joe Janes (Cal, Sam, various) Andrea J. Dymond (God)

from the vileblog http://ift.tt/2v7BEMT

[naivelocus]

How G.O.P. Leaders Came to View Climate Change as Fake Science

“Most Republicans still do not regard climate change as a hoax,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist who worked for Senator Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign. “But the entire climate change debate has now been caught up in the broader polarization of American politics.”

“In some ways,” he added, “it’s become yet another of the long list of litmus test issues that determine whether or not you’re a good Republican.”

Since Mr. McCain ran for president on climate credentials that were stronger than his opponent Barack Obama’s, the scientific evidence linking greenhouse gases from fossil fuels to the dangerous warming of the planet has grown stronger. Scientists have for the first time drawn concrete links between the planet’s warming atmosphere and changes that affect Americans’ daily lives and pocketbooks, from tidal flooding in Miami to prolonged water shortages in the Southwest to decreasing snow cover at ski resorts.

That scientific consensus was enough to pull virtually all of the major nations along. Conservative-leaning governments in Britain, France, Germany and Japan all signed on to successive climate change agreements.

Yet when Mr. Trump pulled the United States from the Paris accord, the Senate majority leader, the speaker of the House and every member of the elected Republican leadership were united in their praise.

Those divisions did not happen by themselves. Republican lawmakers were moved along by a campaign carefully crafted by fossil fuel industry players, most notably Charles D. and David H. Koch, the Kansas-based billionaires who run a chain of refineries (which can process 600,000 barrels of crude oil per day) as well as a subsidiary that owns or operates 4,000 miles of pipelines that move crude oil.

Government rules intended to slow climate change are “making people’s lives worse rather than better,” Charles Koch explained in a rare interview last year with Fortune, arguing that despite the costs, these efforts would make “very little difference in the future on what the temperature or the weather will be.”

Republican leadership has also been dominated by lawmakers whose constituents were genuinely threatened by policies that would raise the cost of burning fossil fuels, especially coal. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, always sensitive to the coal fields in his state, rose through the ranks to become majority leader. Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming also climbed into leadership, then the chairmanship of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, as a champion of his coal state.

Mr. Trump has staffed his White House and cabinet with officials who have denied, or at least questioned, the existence of global warming. And he has adopted the Koch language, almost to the word. On Thursday, as Mr. Trump announced the United States’ withdrawal, he at once claimed that the Paris accord would cost the nation millions of jobs and that it would do next to nothing for the climate.

Beyond the White House, Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, chairman of the House Science Committee, held a hearing this spring aimed at debunking climate science, calling the global scientific consensus “exaggerations, personal agendas and questionable predictions.”

A small core of Republican lawmakers — most of whom are from swing districts and are at risk of losing their seats next year — are taking modest steps like introducing a nonbinding resolution in the House in March urging Congress to accept the risks presented by climate change.

But in Republican political circles, speaking out on the issue, let alone pushing climate policy, is politically dangerous. So for the most part, these moderate Republicans are biding their time, until it once again becomes safe for Republicans to talk more forcefully about climate change. The question is how long that will take.

“With 40 percent of Florida’s population at risk from sea-level rise, my state is on the front lines of climate change,” said Representative Carlos Curbelo, Republican of Florida. “South Florida residents are already beginning to feel the effects of climate change in their daily lives.”

‘The Turning Point’

It was called the “No Climate Tax” pledge, drafted by a new group called Americans for Prosperity that was funded by the Koch brothers. Its single sentence read: “I will oppose any legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue.” Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, was the first member of Congress to sign it in July 2008.

Photo The “No Climate Tax” pledge signed by Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican.

The effort picked up steam the next year after the House of Representatives passed what is known as cap-and-trade legislation, a concept invented by conservative Reagan-era economists.

The idea was to create a statutory limit, or cap, on the overall amount of a certain type of pollution that could be emitted. Businesses could then buy and sell permits to pollute, choosing whether to invest more in pollution permits, or in cleaner technology that would then save them money and allow them to sell their allotted permits. The administration of the first President George Bush successfully deployed the first national cap-and-trade system in 1990 to lower emissions of the pollutants that cause acid rain. Mr. McCain pushed a cap-and-trade proposal to fight climate change.

“I thought we could get it done,” recalled Henry A. Waxman, a retired House Democrat who led the cap-and-trade push in 2009. “We just had two candidates from the Republican and Democratic parties who had run for president and agreed that climate change was a real threat.”

Conservative activists saw the legislative effort as an opportunity to transform the climate debate.

With the help of a small army of oil-industry-funded academics like Wei-Hock Soon of Harvard Smithsonian and think tanks like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, they had been working to discredit academics and government climate change scientists. The lawyer and conservative activist Chris Horner, whose legal clients have included the coal industry, gathered documents through the Freedom of Information Act to try to embarrass and further undermine the climate change research.

Myron Ebell, a senior fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, worked behind the scenes to make sure Republican offices in Congress knew about Mr. Horner’s work — although at the time, many viewed Mr. Ebell skeptically, as an extremist pushing out-of-touch views.

In 2009, hackers broke into a climate research program at the University of East Anglia in England, then released the emails that conservatives said raised doubts about the validity of the research. In one email, a scientist talked of using a statistical “trick” in a chart illustrating a recent sharp warming trend. The research was ultimately validated, but damage was done.

As Congress moved toward actually passing climate change legislation, a fringe issue had become a part of the political mainstream.

“That was the turning point,” Mr. Horner said.

The House passed the cap-and-trade bill by seven votes, but it went nowhere in the Senate — Mr. Obama’s first major legislative defeat.

Unshackled by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and other related rulings, which ended corporate campaign finance restrictions, Koch Industries and Americans for Prosperity started an all-fronts campaign with television advertising, social media and cross-country events aimed at electing lawmakers who would ensure that the fossil fuel industry would not have to worry about new pollution regulations.

Their first target: unseating Democratic lawmakers such as Representatives Rick Boucher and Tom Perriello of Virginia, who had voted for the House cap-and-trade bill, and replacing them with Republicans who were seen as more in step with struggling Appalachia, and who pledged never to push climate change measures.

Photo Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, speaking about his plan to fight global warming during a presidential campaign stop in Portland, Ore., in 2008. Credit Craig Mitchelldyer/Getty Images

But Americans for Prosperity also wanted to send a message to Republicans.

Until 2010, some Republicans ran ads in House and Senate races showing their support for green energy.

“After that, it disappeared from Republican ads,” said Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity. “Part of that was the polling, and part of it was the visceral example of what happened to their colleagues who had done that.”

What happened was clear. Republicans who asserted support for climate change legislation or the seriousness of the climate threat saw their money dry up or, worse, a primary challenger arise.

“It told Republicans that we were serious,” Mr. Phillips said, “that we would spend some serious money against them.”

By the time Election Day 2010 arrived, 165 congressional members and candidates had signed Americans for Prosperity’s “No Climate Tax” pledge.

Most were victorious.

“The midterm election was a clear rejection of policies like the cap-and-trade energy taxes that threaten our still-fragile economy,” said James Valvo, then Americans for Prosperity’s government affairs director, in a statement issued the day after the November 2010 election. Eighty-three of the 92 new members of Congress had signed the pledge.

Even for congressional veterans, that message was not missed. Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican who once called climate change “a serious problem” and co-sponsored a bill to promote energy-efficient light bulbs, tacked right after the 2010 elections as he battled to be chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee against Joe Barton, a Texan who mocked human-caused climate change.

Mr. Upton deleted references to climate change from his website. “If you look, the last year was the warmest year on record, the warmest decade on record. I accept that,” he offered that fall. “I do not say that it’s man-made.”

Mr. Upton, who has received more than $2 million in campaign donations from oil and gas companies and electric utilities over the course of his career, won the chairmanship and has coasted comfortably to re-election since.

Two years later, conservative “super PACs” took aim at Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, a senior Republican who publicly voiced climate concerns, backed the creation of a Midwestern cap-and-trade program and drove a Prius. After six Senate terms, Mr. Lugar lost his primary to a Tea Party challenger, Richard E. Mourdock. Although Mr. Lugar says other reasons contributed, he and his opponents say his public views on climate change played a crucial role.

“In my own campaign, there were people who felt strongly enough about my views on climate change to use it to help defeat me, and other Republicans are very sensitive to that possibility,” Mr. Lugar said in an interview. “So even if they privately believe we ought to do something about it, they’re reticent, especially with the Republican president taking the views he is now taking.”

Obama Feeds the Movement

After winning re-election in 2012, Mr. Obama understood his second-term agenda would have to rely on executive authority, not legislation that would go nowhere in the Republican-majority Congress. And climate change was the great unfinished business of his first term.

To finish it, he would deploy a rarely used provision in the Clean Air Act of 1970, which gave the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to issue regulations on carbon dioxide.

“If Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will,” he declared in his 2013 State of the Union address.

Document

An Ad Trump Signed Supporting Action on Climate Change

This ad appeared in The New York Times in December 2009, urging President Barack Obama to push a global climate change pact being negotiated in Copenhagen. Donald J. Trump and members of his family supported the ad, along with other business leaders.

The result was the Clean Power Plan, which would significantly cut planet-warming emissions by forcing the closing of hundreds of heavy-polluting coal-fired power plants.

The end run around Congress had consequences of its own. To Republican (and some Democratic) critics, the Clean Power Plan exemplified everything they opposed about Mr. Obama: He seemed to them imperious, heavy-handed, pleasing to the elites on the East and West Coasts and in the capitals of Europe, but callous to the blue-collar workers of coal and oil country.

“It fed into this notion of executive overreach,” said Heather Zichal, who advised Mr. Obama on climate policy. “I don’t think there was a good enough job on managing the narrative.”

Republicans who had supported the climate change agenda began to defect and have since stayed away.

“On the issue of climate change, I think it’s happening,” Mr. McCain said in a CNN podcast interview last April. But, he said, “The president decided, at least in the last couple years if not more, to rule by edict.”

Mr. Obama’s political opponents saw the climate rules as a ripe opportunity. “When the president went the regulatory route, it gave our side more confidence,” Mr. Phillips said. “It hardened and broadened Republican opposition to this agenda.”

Starting in early 2014, the opponents of the rule — including powerful lawyers and lobbyists representing many of America’s largest manufacturing and industrial interests — regularly gathered in a large conference room at the national headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, overlooking the White House. They drafted a long-game legal strategy to undermine Mr. Obama’s climate regulations in a coordinated campaign that brought together 28 state attorneys general and major corporations to form an argument that they expected to eventually take to the Supreme Court.

They presented it not as an environmental fight but an economic one, against a government that was trying to vastly and illegally expand its authority.

“This is the most significant wholesale regulation of energy that the United States has ever seen, by any agency,” Roger R. Martella Jr., a former E.P.A. lawyer who now represents energy companies, said at a gathering of industry advocates, making an assertion that has not been tested.

Attorneys General Step In

Republican attorneys general gathered at the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia in August 2015 for their annual summer retreat, with some special guests: four executives from Murray Energy, one of the nation’s largest coal mining companies.

Murray was struggling to avoid bankruptcy — a fate that had befallen several other coal mining companies already, given the slump in demand for their product and the rise of natural gas, solar and wind energy.

The coal industry came to discuss a new part of the campaign to reverse the country’s course on climate change. Litigation was going to be needed, the industry executives and the Republican attorneys general agreed, to block the Obama administration’s climate agenda — at least until a new president could be elected.

West Virginia’s attorney general, Patrick Morrisey, led the session, “The Dangerous Consequences of the Clean Power Plan & Other E.P.A. Rules,” which included, according to the agenda, Scott Pruitt, then the attorney general of Oklahoma; Ken Paxton, Texas’ attorney general; and Geoffrey Barnes, a corporate lawyer for Murray, which had donated $250,000 to the Republican attorneys general political group.

That same day, Mr. Morrissey would step outside the hotel to announce that he and other attorneys general would sue in federal court to try to stop the Clean Power Plan, which he called “the most far-reaching energy regulation in this nation’s history, drawn up by radical bureaucrats.”

Mr. Pruitt quickly became a national point person for industry-backed groups and a magnet for millions of dollars of campaign contributions, as the fossil fuel lobby looked for a fresh face with conservative credentials and ties to the evangelical community.

Photo “If Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will,” President Barack Obama declared in a section of his 2013 State of the Union address on climate change. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

“Pruitt was instrumental — he and A.G. Morrisey,” said Thomas Pyle, a former lobbyist for Koch Industries, an adviser to Mr. Trump’s transition team and the president of a pro-fossil fuel Washington research organization, the Institute for Energy Research. “They led the charge and made it easier for other states to get involved. Some states were keeping their powder dry, but Pruitt was very out front and aggressive.”

After the litigation was filed — by Mr. Morrissey and Mr. Pruitt, along with other attorneys general who attended the Greenbrier meeting — Murray Energy sued in the federal court case as well, just as had been planned.

In April 2016, the Supreme Court indicated that it would side with opponents of the rule, moving by a 5-4 vote to grant a request by the attorneys general and corporate players to block the implementation of the Clean Power Plan while the case worked its way through the federal courts.

Trump Stokes the Fires

When Donald J. Trump decided to run for president, he did not appear to have a clear understanding of the nation’s climate change policies. Nor, at the start of his campaign, did he appear to have any specific plan to prioritize a huge legal push to roll those policies back.

Mr. Trump had, in 2012, said on Twitter, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” But he had also, in 2009, joined dozens of other business leaders to sign a full-page ad in the The New York Times urging Mr. Obama to push a global climate change pact being negotiated in Copenhagen, and to “strengthen and pass United States legislation” to tackle climate change.

However, it did not go unnoticed that coal country was giving his presidential campaign a wildly enthusiastic embrace, as miners came out in full force for Mr. Trump, stoking his populist message.

And the surest way for Mr. Trump to win cheers from coal crowds was to aim at an easy target: Mr. Obama’s climate rules. Hillary Clinton did not help her cause when she said last spring that her climate policies would “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”

In May 2016, Mr. Trump addressed one of the largest rallies of his campaign: an estimated crowd of over 10,000 in Charleston, W.Va., where the front rows were crammed with mine workers.

“I’m thinking about miners all over the country,” he said, eliciting cheers. “We’re going to put miners back to work.”

“They didn’t used to have all these rules and regulations that make it impossible to compete,” he added. “We’re going to take it all off the table.”

Then an official from the West Virginia Coal Association handed the candidate a miner’s hat.

As he put it on, giving the miners a double thumbs-up, “The place just went nuts, and he loved it,” recalled Barry Bennett, a former adviser to Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign. “And the miners started showing up at everything. They were a beaten lot, and they saw him as a savior. So he started using the ‘save coal’ portions of the speech again and again.”

Mr. Trump’s advisers embraced the miners as emblematic of the candidate’s broader populist appeal.

“The coal miners were the perfect case for what he was talking about,” Mr. Bennett said, “the idea that for the government in Washington, it’s all right for these people to suffer for the greater good — that federal power is more important than your little lives.”

Mr. Trump took on as an informal campaign adviser Robert E. Murray — chief executive of the same coal company that had been working closely for years with the Republican attorneys general to unwind the Obama environmental legacy.

Photo Donald J. Trump at a campaign event in Charleston, W.Va., in May 2016. “We’re going to put miners back to work,” he said. Credit Ty Wright for The New York Times

Mr. Murray, a brash and folksy populist who started working in coal mines as a teenager, is an unabashed skeptic of climate science. The coal magnate and Mr. Trump had a natural chemistry, and where Mr. Trump lacked the legal and policy background to unwind climate policy, Mr. Murray was happy to step in.

“I thank my lord, Jesus Christ, for the election of Donald Trump,” Mr. Murray said soon after his new friend won the White House.

Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Ebell, the Competitive Enterprise Institute fellow who had worked for years to undermine the legitimacy of established climate science, to head the transition team at E.P.A. Mr. Ebell immediately began pushing for an agenda of gutting the Obama climate regulations and withdrawing from the Paris Agreement.

When it came time to translate Mr. Trump’s campaign promises to coal country into policy, Mr. Murray and others helped choose the perfect candidate: Mr. Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general.

Mr. Trump, who had never met Mr. Pruitt before his election, offered him the job of E.P.A. administrator — putting him in a position to dismantle the environmental rules that he had long sought to fight in court.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump wanted to be seen delivering on the promises he had made to the miners. As controversies piled up in his young administration, he sought comfort in the approval of his base.

In March, Mr. Trump signed an executive order directing Mr. Pruitt to begin unwinding the Clean Power Plan — and he did so at a large public ceremony at the E.P.A., flanked by coal miners and coal executives. Mr. Murray beamed in the audience.

Meanwhile, a battle raged at the White House over whether to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement. Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and his secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson, urged him to remain in, cautioning that withdrawing could be devastating to the United States’ foreign policy credentials.

Murray Energy — despite its enormous clout with Mr. Trump and his top environmental official — boasts a payroll with only 6,000 employees. The coal industry nationwide is responsible for about 160,000 jobs, with just 65,000 directly in mining, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.

By comparison, General Electric alone has 104,000 employees in the United States, and Apple has 80,000. Their chief executives openly pressed Mr. Trump to stick with Paris, as did dozens of other major corporations that have continued to support regulatory efforts to combat climate change.

But these voices did not have clout in Washington, either in Congress or at the White House, when it comes to energy policy.

Mr. Trump’s senior adviser, Stephen K. Bannon, backed by Mr. Pruitt, told the president that pulling out of the deal would mean a promise kept to his base.

“It is time to put Youngstown, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — along with many, many other locations within our great country — before Paris, France,” Mr. Trump said in his Rose Garden speech on Thursday. “It is time to make America great again.”

The Science Gets Stronger

The recognition that human activity is influencing the climate developed slowly, but a scientific consensus can be traced to a conference in southern Austria in October 1985. Among the 100 or so attendees who gathered in the city of Villach, nestled in the mountains along the Drava River, was Bert Bolin, a Swedish meteorologist and a pioneer in using computers to model the climate.

Photo Flooding in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in November. A report produced by 14 federal agencies concluded that climate change was responsible for much of the flooding now plaguing South Florida. Credit Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Dr. Bolin helped steer the conference to its conclusion: “It is now believed that in the first half of the next century a rise of global mean temperature could occur which is greater than any in man’s history,” he wrote in the conference’s 500-page report.

While the politics of climate change in the United States has grown more divided since then, the scientific community has united: Global warming is having an impact, scientists say, with sea levels rising along with the extremity of weather events. Most of the debate is about the extent of those impacts — how high the seas may rise, or how intense and frequent heavy storms or heat waves may be.

In recent years, many climate scientists have also dropped their reluctance to pin significant weather events on climate change. Studies have shown that certain events — a 2015 Australian heat wave, floods in France last year and recent high temperatures in the Arctic — were made more likely because of global warming.

But in Congress, reluctance to embrace that science has had no political downsides, at least among Republicans.

“We don’t yet have an example of where someone has paid a political price being on that side of it,” said Michael Steel, who served as press secretary for the former House speaker John A. Boehner, the Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush and the current House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, during his 2012 run as Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential choice.

Instead, the messages of Mr. Pruitt still dominate.

“This is an historic restoration of American economic independence — one that will benefit the working class, the working poor and working people of all stripes,” Mr. Pruitt said on Thursday, stepping to the Rose Garden lectern after Mr. Trump. “We owe no apologies to other nations for our environmental stewardship.”

American voters — even many Republicans — recognize that climate change is starting to affect their lives. About 70 percent think global warming is happening, and about 53 percent think it is caused by human activities, according to a recent study by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. About 69 percent support limiting carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.

But most public opinion polls find that voters rank the environment last or nearly last among the issues that they vote on. And views are divided based on party affiliation. In 2001, 46 percent of Democrats said they worried “a great deal” about climate change, compared with 29 percent of Republicans, according to a Gallup tracking poll on the issue. This year, concern among Democrats has reached 66 percent. Among Republicans, it has fallen, to 18 percent.

Until people vote on the issue, Republicans will find it politically safer to question climate science and policy than to alienate moneyed groups like Americans for Prosperity.

There will be exceptions. The 2014 National Climate Assessment, a report produced by 14 federal agencies, concluded that climate change is responsible for much of the flooding now plaguing many of the Miami area’s coastal residents, soaking homes and disrupting businesses, and Representative Curbelo is talking about it.

“This is a local issue for me,” Mr. Curbelo said. “Even conservatives in my district see the impact. It’s flooding, and it’s happening now.”

Mr. Curbelo helped create the House Climate Solutions Caucus, 20 Republicans and 20 Democrats who say they are committed to tackling climate change.

Mr. Curbelo is confident that as the impact of climate change spreads, so will the willingness of his Republican colleagues to join him.

Outside of Congress, a small number of establishment conservatives, including a handful of leaders from the Reagan administration, have begun pushing Washington to act on climate change. Earlier this year, James A. Baker III, one of the Republican Party’s more eminent senior figures, met with senior White House officials to urge them to consider incorporating a carbon tax as part of a broader tax overhaul package — a way to both pay for proposed cuts to corporate tax rates and help save the planet. A Reagan White House senior economist, Art Laffer; a former secretary of state, George P. Shultz; and Henry M. Paulson Jr., George W. Bush’s final Treasury secretary, have also pushed the idea.

“There are members from deep-red districts who have approached me about figuring out how to become part of this effort,” Mr. Curbelo said. “I know we have the truth on our side. So I’m confident that we’ll win — eventually.”

Continue reading the main story

— The New York Times