Delegates to the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which led to the Paris Accord.

So President Donald J. Trump has pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord – a decision with fewer practical consequences than symbolic ones.

Practically, much if not most of the U.S. – states, cities, corporations, individuals – is committed to the accord. There’s nothing Trump can do about companies or people acting responsibly where the environment is concerned.

But the effect of the pullout is real in the sense that it absents the U.S. as an entity from the moral leadership it has exerted in the past. Into that vacuum sweeps China, Russia, you name it and the question becomes, Having relinquished our position as world leader, can we ever get it back?

You also have to ask yourself, Why? Why say you’re going to make America great again and then shrink from the world stage? It makes no sense. And it doesn’t help the economy. If it did, do you think so many corporations would be on board with the accord? You can’t just sell American goods to Americans. That’s not how you make money. Trump must know this. But he doesn’t care. Much of this seems to be about trashing President Barack Obama – still. Let it go, man, let it go. But Trump can’t. He and a bunch of other white males can’t get over that a guy whose father was black and a Muslim was president of the United States – and the rest of us have to keep paying for their obsession.

Trump can’t let go of the things he should and lets go of the things he shouldn’t.