Hervé Kempf: Why did Donald Trump win?
Naomi Klein: The right is easier to scope the working class than the left or liberals. This should work on us like a bucket of cold water and show us how progressive discourse is seen: as an elite, detached from reality and without a plan to aid average people. I have always believed that there is simply a possible policy strategy that faces both the environmental crisis and social inequality. But the left has developed its climate policy differently. Working people think that specified problems are a luxury they can't afford. There is thus expanding discouragement among them.
The Social Democratic Left doesn't want to deal with people's regular problems?
This is the failure of the left as a whole, not only of the Democratic organization in the US – which is not left-wing, but represents the establishment. Bernie Sanders' Wing in this organization has been completely marginalized. erstwhile it was gone, the left divided into small, aggressive factions that fight each other.
There is no movement about a affirmative message that could attract people to work. Trump's run succeeded: it spoke to many leftist and workers who needed any hope of economical support.
It's a paradox, due to the fact that Trump is simply a billionaire, like Elona Muska.
The Democratic organization is considered even more elite than the Republican Party. The second is simply a coalition of rich, sometimes even disgustingly rich, but besides those who do not lose contact with people working. For example, Elon Musk talks to average Twitter users while wealthy Democrats don't talk to anyone outside their bubble. In 2016, I wrote that the Democratic organization was like a banquet that was not invited to. She's a super-elita who does the show, and she thinks average people will follow her. Meanwhile, people were offended and disfellowshipped. That's why they chose Trump.
Of course the Republicans service the wealth business. But they don't treat employees as superior as Democrats. In addition, the mass deportations proposed by Trump have a dimension not only racist but besides economic. The president-elect promises to redistribute income to the working class on the same rule that fascists presented as a redistributive means of anti-Semitism. That is what Trump says to his black and Spanish-speaking voters: “Immigrants take your job, we will get free of them so that more jobs are for you”. It sounds terrible, but you gotta realize that the voter's decision is based on economical logic.
So what's left of the left and the green?
We gotta start with a fair look at how we're seen. We request to focus on an environmental policy that besides involves redistribution; 1 that shows on concrete examples that there is no request to choose between environmental science, household and portfolio. For example, we should fight for free local public transport and for access to heat pumps that reduce energy consumption and supply both heating and cooling. We can have green initiatives that besides reduce the cost of living. We request ecological populism: ecopopulism.
Redistribution is needed, but the road to it seems completely blocked. People know about the horrendous inequality, but they think it's something that can't be changed, so it's fatal.
Strategic actions are the best way to fight fatalism. Choose 2 or 3 things to win – and win! This will awaken hope in people. Fatalists cannot be persuaded by argument alone. We gotta show that something is possible.
How?
For Trump's presidency, Democrats will proceed to regulation any states, for example in California, as well as in large cities like fresh York. president Biden can be criticized on climate issues, but he managed to sign inflation simplification law [which assumes, among others, investment of $370 billion over 10 years to start the energy transition – H. K.]. So the revolution of renewable energy is about to start, so I hope it can proceed without national support.
Joe Biden must unlock this money before the end of his word so that projects can launch. any Republican governors of the states are already saying they don't want to get free of this bill due to the fact that it'll get them funding.
Meanwhile, Trump and the far right lie without resistance, and public debate has ceased to be based on facts.
No 1 is faithfully married to the truth. We all choose our own fantasies. It is very hard to endure the natural, economical or war realities of our times. So we all live in our bubbles and plan to argue what we do not accept in ourselves.
However, it is actual that the Republican organization is increasingly "creative" about the facts. We're taking the toll of a strategy the right has been working for 50 years, destroying the information ecosystem. That is why I am talking about issues specified as public transport, heating prices, food prices and so on. The little we get into abstract debates about the causes of climate change, the better.
Does ‘green populism’ mean taking over the methods and language of the opponent, or even its ruthlessness?
Populism is not a bad word.
In France, it's a stigmatizing concept. It's utilized to brand people.
We're talking about redistribution policy right now and the tendency to meet people. The left became besides academic and elite. Its message is detached from human needs. erstwhile we talk about carbon trading, people don't realize what's going on, and it's easy for our opponents to distort our views. The right is frequently so that it takes a technological term, for example a "gender", and pushes people with its own interpretation. She succeeds due to the fact that people don't know what that sex is. Therefore, it is easier to communicate with people utilizing statements specified as "I am for free public communication".
So what does this populism mean?
Populism must be redistributive, that is, a direct consequence to the economical needs of people. The economical populist is Bernie Sanders, due to the fact that he talks about the redistribution of wealth and wage growth, about universal wellness care and public services, about things that meet human needs. The center is mocking this, and I think we should adopt these ideas with open arms. Populism is simply a good thing!
In the early 21st century, planet Social Forums were held in Brazil's Porto Alegre. Can you imagine any effort to reopen the climate? How do we revive the big, bottom-up movement? Is it a dream?
It's not specified a distant dream. There may be another mobilization that will intercept and redirect human energy. People are angry. They realize that they live under increasingly difficult, more stressful conditions. They feel the strategy has been set against them. Right-wing populism Takes over that anger and focuses it on the weakest – on immigrants he makes scapegoats of. Left-wing populism seeks to redirect this energy against corporations and elites. But people like Steve Bannon, Giorgia Meloni, and Marine Le Pen besides took over.
The threat of war is expanding worldwide. How do you deal with that?
Trump's gonna be good for it. He wants Europe to spend more on arms. But it is besides an invitation to the left to invest in wellness and housing alternatively of wars. It's a tough choice. Do we make bombs or do we set up hospitals?
How does the left answer that question? Do we gotta increase our defence spending?
No, but we can invest in an economy that gives people hope for peace – contained with the planet Earth and with each other. Trump expands the position of the world, in which we invest in tackle weapons and in a global iron dome. This would defend our borders from the effects of our own policies, from mass migration and so on. The populist left could propose another vision, focused on the war on the climate crisis and on economical injustice.
The engine of capitalism is artificial intelligence. What answer does the left have?
We request to point out the cracks in that coalition that the right hand had. She has many weaknesses. 1 of them is that Trump is already talking about investing in artificial intelligence today, while this contradicts Bannon and fresh Right's statements about the spiritual collapse of the country. The left is not yet able to express the sense that the planet is dehumanized. This is simply a problem for the climate, for workers' rights, but besides a problem of spiritual nature. We request to talk more about it.
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Naomi Klein is simply a lecturer in climate justice at the Faculty of Arts at the University of British Columbia and author of, among others, No Logo (interview of Hanna Pestula-Lewicka, Isabella 2004), Shock Doctrines Katarzyna Makaruk, Tomasz Krzyżanowski, Michał Penkala, Warsaw 2008) and It changes everything. Capitalism vs. Climate Katarzyna Makaruk, Warsaw 2016).
Hervé Kempf is simply a French writer and writer. He worked for many publications specified as “Courrier International” or “Le Monde”. He is the editor-in-chief and founder of "Reporterre", an independent editorial board dealing with environmental problems. His Last Book Les riches ravagent la planète (How a rich ravaged planet) was released in September 2024.
The article was published within the task Come Together, originally published in a magazine Reporterre in French. In English she translated Aleksandra Paszkowska.
