Shock and awe: A far-right tactic we must resist
Trump released a flurry of Executive Orders this week, as we knew he would. He and his government want us to be dazzled, distracted, overwhelmed. There are already legal challenges under way, so it won’t all last. But amidst the smoke and mirrors is profound danger, and at the root is people in power prioritizing profit for a select few above all else. AKA exactly what led to the climate crisis.
So it’s time to set the record straight in no uncertain terms: the reason Trump left the Paris Agreement is not because he believes that climate change is a hoax. He believes it’s an opportunity to acquire more power for himself, and he doesn’t care if the rest of us die.
It’s easier to say you don’t believe in climate science than that you don’t care. Or that you care about how you and your friends can make the most money off of it in the short-term and what you can claim as yours in the continuous wake of destruction.
Trump showed that he does believe in climate change, but views it as opportunity for himself when he…
- …said he wanted to invade Greenland: with abundant resources for the renewable energy transition, melting ice opening new waterways, and a key geopolitical location, Greenland is tantalizing to Trump because of what it represents in a changing climate.
- …courted the billionaires who control our communication platforms and put them in the most prized seats at his Inauguration: you only need to control people’s information flow if you are trying to keep them from sharing and learning the truth.
- …ordered drilling in the Alaska Arctic and related threats to Indigenous sovereignty: if you strip the land from its people and the people from their land, you prime people to view the land as expendable and up for grabs rather than as integral to all of life.
- …scapegoated trans people and migrants: for Trump and the billionaire class, the cruelty is the point, to distract us from their assault on everything else.
This week, Trump, the global far right, and billionaire CEOs have again shown us in painful clarity who they are and who they stand for: themselves and their inner circles. If you have been confused or misled, know that they’ve manipulated public attention, so give yourself grace and then move forward with clear eyes. If there is grief in seeing so evidently that the market doesn’t have morals and business leaders will always chase profit above all else, let there be grief. And if there is anger about the scrapping of DEIA programs while the least qualified cabinet picks are put forward for the most high profile jobs, that anger is justified.
Resisting this fossil-fueled agenda is the most natural thing we can do.
In resisting this status quo, we are simply making way for living beings to survive, to sustain, and to grow. This makes our resistance the most natural thing in the world. It is the wealthy elite, who have structured our society around destruction and profit, who are “radical”.
We can know without doubt that by refusing to comply with or to facilitate destruction in any of its forms—from decimating public lands to removing people from their homes and depriving them of their right to shelter—we are in harmony with each other and our earth. And that we are standing with everyone around the world who chooses to affirm and foster life, day after day, in the face of our own country’s destructive influence. That is power too.
Wondering what to do next? Choose based on whether you’re feeling…
- Ready to disrupt:
- Ready to tap into joyful people power:
- Ready to prepare for things to get worse:
Dive deeper in this resistance guidebook.