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We Will Fight Tyranny and Defend the Common Good From Trump—Starting Now
How will we conduct this resistance? By organizing our communities. By fighting through the courts. By arguing our cause through the media. We won't stop until the battles are won.
Nov 06, 2024
I won’t try to hide it. I’m heartbroken. Heartbroken and scared, to tell you the truth. I’m sure many of you are, too.
Donald Trump has decisively won the presidency, the Senate, and possibly the House of Representatives and the popular vote, too.
I still have faith in America. But right now, that’s little comfort to the people who are most at risk.
Millions of people must now live in fear of being swept up by Trump’s cruel mass deportation plan – documented immigrants, as he has threatened before, as well as undocumented, and millions of American citizens with undocumented parents or spouses.
Women and girls must now fear that they’ll be forced to give birth or be denied life-saving care during an ectopic pregnancy or miscarriage.
America has become less safe for trans people – including trans kids – who were already at risk of violence and discrimination.
Anyone who has already faced prejudice and marginalization is now in greater danger than before.
Also in danger are people who have stood up to Trump, who has promised to seek revenge against his political opponents.
Countless people are now endangered on a scale and intensity almost unheard of in modern America.
Our first responsibility is to protect all those who are in harm’s way.
We will do that by resisting Trump’s attempts to suppress women’s freedoms. We will fight for the rights of women and girls to determine when and whether they have children. No one will force a woman to give birth.
We will block Trump’s cruel efforts at mass deportation. We will fight to give sanctuary to productive, law-abiding members of our communities, including young people who arrived here as babies or children.
We will not allow mass arrests and mass detention of anyone in America. We will not permit families to be separated. We will not allow the military to be used to intimidate and subjugate anyone in this country.
We will protect trans people and everyone else who is scapegoated because of how they look or what they believe. No one should have to be ashamed of who they are.
We will stop Trump’s efforts to retaliate against his perceived enemies. A free nation protects political dissent. A democracy needs people willing to stand up to tyranny.
How will we conduct this resistance?
By organizing our communities. By fighting through the courts. By arguing our cause through the media.
We will ask other Americans to join us – left and right, progressive and conservative, white people and people of color. It will be the largest and most powerful resistance since the American revolution.
But it will be peaceful. We will not succumb to violence, which would only give Trump and his regime an excuse to use organized violence against us.
We will keep alive the flames of freedom and the common good, and we will preserve our democracy. We will fight for the same things Americans have fought for since the founding of our nation – rights enshrined in the constitution and Bill of Rights.
The preamble to the Constitution of the United States opens with the phrase “We the people”, conveying a sense of shared interest and a desire “to promote the general welfare”, as the preamble goes on to say.
We the people will fight for the general welfare.
We the people will resist tyranny. We will preserve the common good. We will protect our democracy.
This will not be easy, but if the American experiment in self-government is to continue, it is essential.
I know you’re scared and stressed. So am I.
If you are grieving or frightened, you are not alone. Tens of millions of Americans feel the way you do.
All I can say to reassure you is that time and again, Americans have opted for the common good. Time and again, we have come to each other’s aid. We have resisted cruelty.
We supported one another during the Great Depression. We were victorious over Hitler’s fascism and Soviet communism. We survived Joe McCarthy’s witch-hunts, Richard Nixon’s crimes, Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam war, the horrors of 9/11, and George W Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We will resist Donald Trump’s tyranny.
Although peaceful and non-violent, the resistance will nonetheless be committed and determined.
It will encompass every community in America. It will endure as long as necessary.
We will never give up on America.
The resistance starts now.
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What Do We Mean by Transformative Change?
We should seek to drive changes so deeply that our country eventually emerges with a new system of political economy, one that routinely delivers good results for people, place, and planet.
Jun 22, 2024
Progressives and many others agree on one thing: Across a broad front of national life, the American economy and our politics are not delivering good results. The documented truth is that the conditions of life and living in our country are deplorable for most people, with almost all measures of public well-being behind other upper income countries.
That has been the case for decades, actually, and is one of the things that accounts for the widespread political disaffection in American today. When combined with extraordinary wealth concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority, the unsurprising result is public anger and resentment.
A host of reforms are advocated to improve key aspects of national life—in education, healthcare, child welfare, finance and banking, environmental and climate protection, taxes, social justice, advancement of women, and more. Getting such reforms adopted would make a huge difference. But more and more people are sensing that something deeper must be done, that what we should think of as our political economy—the combination of our economy and the politics that support it—is badly flawed and incapable of meeting today’s big challenges.
What we should be moving toward is the law of the next system, beyond today’s capitalism and yesterday’s socialism.
This realization has led to the now-frequent call for transformative change. There is a hunger for deep change but uncertainty about what that means. I want to spell out here what I think transformative change could and should look like. Overall, we should seek to drive transformative changes so deeply that our country eventually emerges with a new system of political economy, one that routinely delivers good results for people, place, and planet.
I know that this idea of a new political economy is too big to swallow whole. It can best be approached, I think, through a series of interacting, mutually reinforcing transitions—transformations that attack and undermine the key motivational structures of the current system, while replacing these old structures with new arrangements needed for a flourishing of human and natural communities.
I believe the following transitions hold the key to moving to this new political economy. We can think of each as a progression from today to tomorrow. In each of these areas, there are currently laws and policies that shape today’s realities. Collectively, we can think of these laws as the law of today’s corporatist, consumerist capitalism. What we should be moving toward is the law of the next system, beyond today’s capitalism and yesterday’s socialism.
Economic Growth: From growth fetish to post-growth society, from mere GDP growth to growth in social and environmental well-being and growth focused squarely on democratically determined priorities.
Indicators: From GDP (“grossly distorted picture”) to accurate measures of social and environmental health and quality of life.
The Corporation: From one dominant ownership and profit-driven model to new business models embracing economic democracy and goals other than profit, from shareholder primacy to stakeholder primacy.
The Market: From neoliberal market worship to powerful market governance in the public interest, from dishonest prices that neglect external costs to honest ones, from unfair wages that neglect productivity to fair ones, from commodification to reclaiming the commons.
Money and Finance: From money created through bank debt to money created by government, from investments seeking high financial returns to those seeking high social and environmental returns, from Wall Street to Main Street.
Social Conditions: From economic insecurity to a guaranteed income; from vast inequalities to equitable distribution and fundamental fairness; from racial, religious, gender, and other invidious discrimination to firm protection of rights and personal security.
Consumerism: From consumerism and affluenza to sufficiency and mindful consumption, from more to enough, from materialism to finding meaning and value in non-material things.
Communities: from runaway enterprises and throwaway communities to vital local economies, from social rootlessness to rootedness and community solidarity.
Dominant Cultural Values: From having to being, from getting to giving, from richer to better, from isolated to connected, from me to us, from apart from nature to part of nature, from near-term to long-term.
Politics: From weak democracy to strong, from creeping corporatocracy and plutocracy to true popular sovereignty and empowerment of marginalized groups, from threatened civic and personal rights to secure ones.
Foreign Policy and the Military: From American exceptionalism to America as a normal nation, from hard power to soft, from military prowess to real national and international security.
The good news is that we already know a great deal about the policy and other changes needed to move strongly in each of these directions, even value change. There are books full proposals and, importantly, advocacy groups working for many of them.
Also, we are seeing the proliferation of innovative models along the lines sketched here, particularly at the local level: sustainable communities, transition towns, solidarity and local living economies, sustainable and regenerative agriculture, participatory budgeting, locally owned and managed energy utilities, local currencies, and community development and investment institutions. Campaigns proliferate: Black Lives Matter! Move Your Money! Take Back Your Time! Own Your Own Utility! Live Lightly That Others May Live!
We are also seeing the spread of innovative business models that prioritize community and environment over profit and growth—including social enterprises, for-benefit business, worker-owned and other cooperatives, and local credit unions—as well as numerous campaigns for fair wages, worker rights, pro-family policies, climate action, and minority justice. Together with new community-oriented and Earth-friendly lifestyles, these initiatives provide inspirational models of how things might work in a new political economy devoted to sustaining human and natural communities. Practical utopians at work and play, bringing the future into the present!
Out there, between despair and hopium, are the grounds for struggle.
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Naomi Klein Rebukes 'Counterfeit Populism' of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
"Progressive populists make tangible economic offers: tax the rich and give poor and working-class people more money and supports," Klein wrote. "Kennedy is not actually proposing any of this."
Jun 14, 2023
The Biden White House has thus far opted to
publicly ignore Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s 2024 presidential bid, and allies of the incumbent have dismissed the Democratic challenger as a mere nuisance whose campaign should be waved away as a joke.
But author and environmentalist Naomi Klein made the case Wednesday that such an approach is "not a viable political strategy" as Kennedy's profile continues to rise, with the environmental lawyer and longtime anti-vaxxer making use of corporate television outlets such as Fox News, social media platforms, and popular podcasts to appeal to millions of potential voters.
"He has landed an apparent endorsement from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and this week is being feted at a Bay Area fundraiser filled with heavy hitters," Klein wrote in a column for The Guardian on Wednesday. "According to a CNNpoll released in late May, support for Kennedy was at 20% among respondents who identify as Democrats or Democratic-leaning."
While the CNN survey indicates that more respondents were drawn to Kennedy because of his family ties—he's the son of assassinated former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy—than support for his political views or policy positions, Klein argued it's critical to discern "the reasons his campaign is resonating with a consequential slice of U.S. voters."
From Klein's perspective, Kennedy is a " counterfeit populist" who is "tapping into a wellspring of real pain and outrage" by railing against the "drug companies controlling the national health agencies and polluters controlling environmental regulators."
"He also is tapping into rage at the Democratic party itself, which feels to many like a hostage situation," Klein wrote. "Inside its logic, there seems to be no acceptable way of challenging entrenched power. Not open primaries, not incumbent primaries, not third parties, not getting in and trying to change the system from the inside. All, we have been told since as long as I can remember, will help to elect Republicans. Of course this political straitjacket provokes rebellion, as well as some irrational behavior."
But Klein stressed that "none of this means Kennedy is running a campaign rooted in finally telling the American public 'the truth'—as he repeatedly claims."
"What it does mean," she added, "is that a public discourse filled with unsayable and unspeakable subjects is fertile territory for all manner of hucksters positioning themselves as uniquely courageous truth-tellers. RFK Jr. now leads the pack."
Klein proceeded to outline and counter what she describes as the four myths about Kennedy that help explain his appeal, particularly among some progressive voters.
\u201cI don't believe in dismissing candidates - I believe in engaging. In this piece, I dispel 4 Key Myths about RFK's Jr's campaign: \n\n\u274cHe would be a climate champion \n\u274c He\u2019s not that anti-vax \n\u274cHe is anti-war and pro-human rights \n\u274cHe is a populist\nhttps://t.co/8PfodFVuSf\u201d— Naomi Klein (@Naomi Klein) 1686758670
The first misconception, in Klein's view, is the notion that Kennedy "would be a climate champion" as president, given his long history of environmental activism. Kennedy's campaign website highlights that he was "instrumental in transforming the Hudson from a dead river to one of America's cleanest today."
Kennedy has also been an outspoken opponent of fracking.
But Klein argued Wednesday that "the facts have radically changed," pointing to recent interviews in which Kennedy "claims climate science is too complex and abstract to explain and that, 'I can't independently verify that.'"
"He also says that the climate crisis is being used to push through 'totalitarian controls on society' orchestrated 'by the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates, and all of these megabillionaires—a green-tinged reboot of the same, all-too-familiar conspiracy theories he rode to pandemic stardom, when he opposed virtually every Covid public health measure, from masks to vaccines to closures," Klein wrote. "Now he is marshaling the same arguments against climate action."
"In podcast interviews, especially with right-wing hosts, RFK Jr. now says he would leave energy policy to the market and describes himself as 'a radical free marketeer,'" Klein added. "It should go without saying that the markets are incapable of decarbonizing our economies in anything like the narrow slice of time left."
Klein also challenges the idea that Kennedy is not actually anti-vaccine.
Kennedy himself—who warned in 2015 that a vaccine-linked "holocaust" was underway in the U.S.—has sought to downplay the importance of his stance on vaccinations to his presidential campaign, telling reporters in May that he's "not leading with the issue because it's not a primary issue of concern to most Americans."
"Except he can't help himself," Klein wrote. "In almost every long-form interview with him that I have encountered (and there have been many), he leaps to defend this debunked position (that childhood vaccinations can cause autism), always by citing the same series of figures. 'Why is it,' he asked the journalist David Samuels, 'that in my generation, I'm 69, the rate of autism is 1 in 10,000, while in my kids' generation it's 1 in 34?' He added, 'I would argue that a lot of that is from the vaccine schedule, which changed in 1989."
But Klein countered that Kennedy confuses "correlation with causation" and noted that the definition of autism changed in the 1990s, entering "the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a 'spectrum disorder.'"
"Many more people suddenly met the criteria, which is a big part of what accounts for the post-1989 spike that Kennedy blames, wrongly, on vaccines," Klein wrote.
Klein closed her column by pushing back on the portrayal of Kennedy as an "anti-war populist" and a human rights advocate.
To the contrary, Klein wrote that Kennedy's expressions of outrage over U.S. interventions overseas should be met with skepticism given "the blanket support he offers the Israeli government, one of the top recipients of aid from the U.S. military-industrial complex he decries, and a nation consistently unwilling to entertain peace with justice, while escalating tensions with Iran."
"This position alone should cause Kennedy's supporters to question his supposedly anti-war, anti-surveillance stance. So should his increasingly reactionary position on border controls. Kennedy talks a good game condemning the U.S. for overthrowing democratically elected governments abroad and destabilizing entire regions," Klein wrote. "But that raises the question: what does the U.S. owe to the people living in the parts of the world its policies have ravaged? Very little, according to Kennedy. He has taken to warning about the U.S.' 'open border'... He has also cited Israel—with its network of walls and fences imprisoning Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza—as a positive example of a country successfully controlling its borders."
On Kennedy's supposed populism, Klein argued that "his sycophantic treatment of Elon Musk is about as un-populist as a person can get, with Kennedy
comparing the onetime richest man alive to the heroes of the American Revolution 'who died to give us our Constitution.'"
"Progressive populists make tangible economic offers: tax the rich and give poor and working-class people more money and supports; some call for nationalizing key industries to pay for it," Klein wrote. "Kennedy is not actually proposing any of this. On Fox, he would not even come out in favor of a wealth tax; he has brushed off universal public healthcare as not 'politically realistic'; and I have heard nothing about raising the minimum wage."
\u201cAs RFK Jr\u2019s fortunes soar, the Democratic consultant class continues to sneer \u2013 seemingly learning no lessons from Trump\u2019s rise, or the current unpopularity of their leader, or the desperate desire of so many members of their party for something that feels close enough to\u2026\u201d— Naomi Klein (@Naomi Klein) 1686766159
Klein isn't the first progressive writer to pen a detailed examination and criticism of Kennedy, whose campaign appears to be benefiting from President Joe Biden's lackluster approval among Democratic voters.
Last month, Lily Sánchez and Nathan Robinson wrote for Current Affairs that "it's only because Biden and the Democrats have been so disappointing that someone like Kennedy, an abysmal candidate and totally untrustworthy person, can be attracting any support at all."
"Kennedy will continue to sell himself as a brave 'alternative' to the status quo," they added. "But this man peddles lies and capitalizes on the public's hatred of corporate greed and government corruption. Like the con artist of 2016, this man is not to be trusted."
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