Recent chatter about the inevitability of a second Trump term has been getting on my ever loving wick. Why do I feel like most of us can relate?
Beginning with President Joe Biden’s less-than-stellar debate performance a couple of weeks ago (an unfortunate own goal but not a match loser, IMHO) - and rising in sotto voce crescendo since the horrific assassination attempt - there have been many angry/desperate/defeated murmurs from Democratic “operatives” and the chattering class in general about how this election is now “over,” and Donald Trump will win a second term this November.
Never mind that polls are still showing a tie (within the margin of error). Never mind that Trump remains a grotesquerie: a madman and an authoritarian-curious, fascist-leaning sex pest, rapist, and grifting scumbag of the highest order.
GOP “luminaries” who formerly opposed him in the starkest and most insulting terms are bending their knee at the RNC. A supposedly “game-changing” photo of a bloodied post-shooting Trump with his fist raised is making the rounds and being canonized as a picture that might potentially change history. Hand-wringing is at its highest pitch, and defeatism is hanging heavy in the air, like the toxic stench from a fire at a landfill.
We can’t give in to all that. We must keep fighting. There is so much at stake that it boggles the sober, normalcy-seeking mind. I think that most of us here on DailyKos are full-on behind the president and ready to do whatever it takes to GOTV. My purpose with this brief diary is simply to pile on with yet another reason that we cannot let the felonious dictator-wannabe back into the White House. Not only is our 200+-year-old democracy hanging in the balance, but so is the fate of our only home - the climate of Planet Earth.
Humans are the product of a stable, welcoming climate, one that has made settlements and cities and agriculture possible, and led to thousands of years of civilizations busting with art, music, literature, and majesty. Sure, we’ve had some hiccups. We tend to get in our own way, be violent and territorial, racist and misogynist, prone to religious oppression and hubristic othering of those with whom we are not familiar - but we are also generous, kind, altruistic, and VASTLY creative. And we can work on our shitty instincts. We can come together to try to better everyone, and make the world a juster, more welcoming place for all humanity.
What we cannot do is survive in a climate that no longer welcomes us, and no longer nurtures our well-being. We cannot live in lands ravaged by wildfires. We cannot survive in places where wet bulb temperatures soar beyond our bodily capacity to live. We cannot survive in cities that are swallowed by rising seas. And our frail, tender bodies cannot withstand the howling winds and hurtling debris of climate changed-charged hurricanes and tornadoes. Our houses are being washed away. Our infrastructure is being ravaged by the violence of weather that is super-charged by a warming atmosphere.
So this November, we are not just saving democracy by voting for Joe Biden. We are also voting for keeping a path open to dealing with the worst effects of global warming. We are voting for a government that might do something to ameliorate the worst effects. For a government that might be willing to listen to a people’s climate revolution that demands mitigation, hardened infrastructure, and yes - gasp! - even slashed emissions.
A vote for Trump (or if you sit home because of some inane purity test)? Read it and weep.
From https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/27/project-2025-dismantle-us-climate-policy-next-republican-president
The guide’s chapter on the US Department of Energy proposes eliminating three agency offices that are crucial for the energy transition, and also calls to slash funding to the agency’s grid deployment office in an effort to stymie renewable energy deployment, E&E News reported this week.
The plan, which would hugely expand gas infrastructure, was authored by Bernard McNamee, a former official at the agency. McNamee was also a Trump appointee to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He previously led the far-right Texas Public Policy Foundation, which fights environmental regulation, and served as a senior adviser to the Republican senator Ted Cruz.
Another chapter focuses on gutting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and moving it away from its focus on the climate crisis. It proposes cutting the agency’s environmental justice and public engagement functions, while shrinking it as a whole by terminating new hires in “low-value programs”, E&E News reported. The proposal was written Mandy Gunasekara, who was the former chief of staff at the EPA under Trump.
The guide also features a chapter on the Department of the Interior written by William Perry Pendley, who controversially led the Bureau of Land Management under President Trump and worked to eliminate drilling regulations.
In other words, it is game over for doing anything - at least in the next 4 vitally crucial years - about emissions, the environment, climate change response plans and/or mitigation, or even studying what the hell is happening and documenting that science.
If Trump prevails in November, IT WILL BE A DISASTER, not just for our democracy (which we all know and already acknowledge) but for OUR CLIMATE.
Shit. F***. We don’t have the luxury of sitting this one out. We have to get our bodies on the barricades. GOTV. Phone bank. Distribute leaflets. Work for our local Democratic organizations. Speak up. Blog. Set up an Insta. Call all our friends. SHOUT IT THE FUK OUT LIKE CINDY LOU WHO.
Can we do this? Hell yes, we can do this. And even if we DO do this… time is running out.
Remember:
- Asking did not work.
- Voting did not work.
- Marching did not work.
- Emissions keep going up.
#ClimateRevolution
-Kira Thomsen-Cheek
Insta: climaterevolutionary
Twitter: KiraOnClimate
