No doubt I will come under fire from my own in admitting this, but I am a boring, neo-Liberal Globalist, and will vote accordingly in 2020. You want to know why? Because if we want to address climate change without billions of poor people perishing, we need a stable international order subject to the rule of law.
We were on our way to that before Brexit and Trump... we had the Paris Accord FFS!... we had a functioning WTO... we had the TPP and NAFTA, and dozens of other mechanisms that could be shaped with democratic pressure toward a sustainable path... yes those mechanisms created billionaires (the entire concept of which is obscene) but they were also the mechanisms that could be used to keep the billionaires in check, and ultimately, I believe, eliminate them through globally-enforceable wealth taxes. True, the move toward globalization contributed to a stagnation of working-class wages in rich countries — but at the same time, hundreds-of-millions of human beings were able to climb out of abject poverty along the way.
Revolutions may be satisfying, but they are the antithesis of stability, and they are almost always soaked in the blood of poor people. More importantly, in the current moment, they play into the hands of the most callous billionaires with whom we are stricken (like Putin, MBS, and Trump). Biting sanctions against authoritarian regimes and oligarchs (e.g. Magnitsky Act) were on their way to breaking the fossil fuel cabal. The Russian and Saudi Arabian elite knew their obscene wealth and unfettered ability to ignore international law were under threat. So they threw their weight behind Brexit, Trump, AND Bernie in a last-ditch gambit, which, as we all know, paid off in spades.
Bringing this all back around to the choices we will make in 2020… If you didn't vote for HRC in 2016, and are ready to vote for a Dem promising "revolutionary" change, you either don't care about poor people in other countries (unlikely if you are reading this), or don't appreciate the threat political instability poses to humanity’s ability to adapt to, and God willing, address, climate change. We need an enforceable Paris Accord and a strong United Nations capable of sponsoring even more aggressive policies aimed at adapting to and confronting climate change. (Meanwhile, we have societal issues screaming for attention (like finally destroying white male supremacy) that also require a commitment to democracy and the rule of law on a local, regional, and GLOBAL scale… but that is for another post). Civil and political strife in Western democracies precludes all of this from happening, and again, “revolutions” are a source of strife.
I only hope that when a “boring,” “neo-Liberal,” and/or “Globalist” candidate receives the Democratic nomination, the “revolutionary” wing of the Party understands it is imperative that candidate defeat Trump and that they work hard toward that end.
I, for one, am a boring, neo-Liberal Globalist… and right now, in this time, I’m proud to be one.
