The fires incinerating America’s West Coast are the latest sign that climate change has made landfall in America and is torching its way inward like an occupying army overwhelming battle-weary fortifications. Only, that military metaphor seems a bit off, because if you look carefully, you can see that we are not valiantly losing a battle — our government has made it impossible for us to even fight, and has arguably taken the side of the invasion.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. When Donald Trump became president, the expectation was that he would follow in the footsteps of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and merely allow emissions, fossil fuel subsidies, and oil exports to continue to rise. That kind of run-of-the-mill villainy is so bipartisan and has been so normalized that it’s barely considered news when even Democratic governors publicly lament climate change while continuing to approve fossil fuel development.

But normal villainy wasn’t enough for Trump. He and the GOP wanted to be supervillains for their fossil fuel industry donors, and so they have not merely enacted policies encouraging more carbon emissions and tacked on fossil fuel subsidies to pandemic response bills. They have also overseen an effort to change the rules of environmental politics and disempower climate activism for the long haul.