To declare climate, change a con job is, as you have put it, a position which involves a tremendous suspension of disbelief - a dismissal of decades of decades of data, atmospheric physics and apparent global changes. However, this story does not persist, as it is factually sound, but due to the fact that such figures as Donald Trump have been able to turn political talk into a type of transgressive entertainment.
The claim that the climate crisis is a hoax, a scam, falls apart as soon as it comes up against the hard reality of empirical evidence. It is absurd to imagine thousands of independent scientists, rival countries and enormous, decentralized structures have conspired to tell a world-wide lie, without considering the logistical impossibility of such a conspiracy. It re-packages an issue of simple chemistry- trapping heat with carbon dioxide as a financial scam, and brushes off the actuality of rising sea level, extreme weather, etc as fake news. It is not skepticism, it is a determined ignorance of the physical world.
Nevertheless, it is the ignorance that finds a fertile ground since in the hands of a populist showman, such as Trump, it is served as fun. Trumps political strategy is not about ruling but about acting. He works like a stand-up comedian and wrestling heel as he knows that a lecture on the subject of the emissions targets will not work as effectively as the visceral thrill of mockery.
When Trump refutes the existence of climate science, he does it not using counter-data but using a punchline. He teases windmills, in the process makes jokes about cold weather debunking global warming, and presents the scientific community as a dour, elitist other that is out to deceive the common man. This turns an existential menace into one of laughter. To his audience, dismissing the expertise seems more an error of judgment than a fun and enjoyable rebel act.
This dynamic eventually transforms the rejection of reality into a group game. The rhetoric presents a soothing escape by indicating a crisis as a hoax: in case climatic change is a prank, or a gimmick, one has no reason to alter, no reason to worry and no reason to forfeit. The tragedy, of course, lies in the fact that the politics can be performative, but the consequences are not. The atmosphere does not care about the fun of the rally but only the physics of carbon irrespective of the fun involved in the denial.
@realDonaldTrump
NOW - Trump: "Climate change— it's the greatest con-job ever perpetrated on the world."