Voting Against Fascism Means Respecting Civil Society And The Planet

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The media is stuffed with tales concerning the potential consequence of the 2024 election and the way it will affect the clear vitality business. Most of us of a specific age by no means thought we’d see a candidate whose ideology was in sync with fascism. Can efforts to mitigate the local weather disaster stand as much as authoritarian whims?

We all know that decarbonization will take a metal will and a perception sooner or later to beat the election nastiness round renewable vitality. Photo voltaic is widespread, however will its attractiveness make a difference in native elections? Dependence on fossil fuels each as feedstock and a supply of vitality is on the coronary heart of the intertwined world and political crises. We’re seeing earlier than us a deep disconnect between fossil gas–producing international locations’ commitments to continued manufacturing and their Paris agreements for a 1.5°C emissions purpose.

Regardless of its monumental implications, US presidential candidates’ have barely acknowledged the local weather disaster — regardless that analysis indicates that non-public views on local weather change had been one of many strongest predictors of voting habits in 2020, particularly amongst independents. May a robust perception within the want for local weather motion be a predictor for leads to 2024?

Acknowledging the Previous to Inform the Future

As a Vietnam Warfare little one, I’ve witnessed previous elections that had been additionally very severe. Within the Nineteen Sixties my associates’ older brothers had been being drafted to an unpopular conflict, and this pivotal youth expertise framed me as a social justice advocate then and ceaselessly. The Seventies witnessed the peanut farmer/nuclear scientist’s rise to the manager workplace, solely to see Jimmy Carter — together with his visionary photo voltaic panels on the White Home — weakened by his honesty, the Mideast fuel disaster, and Iran hostage behind-the-scenes negotiations.

It was a time in my life by which I hiked mountains and meandered alongside forest trails. I embraced vegetarianism — and haven’t had any purple meat since. I learn Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and The Sea round Us. I felt awakened as I learn Black Elk Speaks and Carlos Castaneda’s The Classes of Don Juan. I picked up litter on Earth Day and immersed myself within the environmental motion, solely barely realizing then how much the world was already in decline.

The Bush dynasty arrived, and with it got here wars that introduced new generations of younger males — and ladies — to battle, a few of whom undergo the results of battle trauma to this present day. Invoice Clinton’s election was a excessive level for me, because it got here with the optimism of a tide change to know-how and egalitarianism. The Supreme Courtroom determined an election, and local weather activist Al Gore bravely accepted that successful the favored vote wasn’t sufficient. Barack Obama’s historic rise to the manager workplace gave me pleasure.

In 2016, Russian election affect led to Hillary Clinton’s loss for the presidential bid, and I’m nonetheless a bit weighed down in the present day over the Electoral Faculty’s capability to affect an election greater than the American voters. Trump’s January 6 treasonous rebellion failed, and Joe Biden fought for the Inflation Reduction Act, which launched a lot progress on clear vitality.

All through my recollection of elections, there’s been a typical thread of making a society by which decency for one another and the planet stands robust. In spite of everything, if we’ve got an ideology of caring, gained’t the remainder fall in place?

Voting within the 2024 US Presidential Election

My 2024 election vote was solid by an early voting poll. Hubby and I drove a number of miles to a traditionally black neighborhood in my Florida metropolis. Indicators and cubicles proclaiming allegiance with native candidates speckled the doorway, and volunteers nodded politely at passersby. A line of about 15 folks stood calmly and quietly waited for his or her flip to enter the polling location.

I stepped ahead in line when it was my flip and was instructed by the sheriff supervising the group that one pc was down. That meant that, of three computer systems that will certify my identification and print my poll, solely two had been working.

The road moved methodically ahead, one step each couple of minutes.

Would a polling place’s pc setup be completely different in a predominately white district? It’s laborious to say. I do know that nobody complained; they had been awaiting their flip to solid their poll in what is without doubt one of the most essential elections of their lifetimes. I do know that former president Trump falsely claimed that Kamala Harris “happened to turn Black” at a Black journalists’ conference in July, and the nonprofit information web site Capital B shortly published a narrative debunking the allegation. Coincidence? You inform me.

It hasn’t been simple, has it?

Insidious Influences on our US Election Course of

In Madison, Wisconsin, this week, Vice President Kamala Harris described her perspective for the US future.

“What I am enjoying about this moment most is that in spite of how my opponent spends full time trying to divide the American people, what I am seeing is people coming together under one roof who seemingly have nothing in common and know they have everything in common, and I think that is in the best interest of the strength of our nation.”

United Auto Staff president Shawn Fain late Tuesday referred to as for working class unity towards Republican nominee Donald Trump within the last stretch of the 2024 race, as reported by Frequent Dreams. Fain warned that the previous president would serve the pursuits of his personal class and embolden the nation’s executives to accentuate their decades-long conflict on the labor motion. Harris has committed to prioritizing investments in strengthening and retooling factories. When Trump was President he “cut taxes for corporations, encouraged outsourcing, and lost nearly 200,000 manufacturing jobs, including auto jobs,” in accordance with Harris.

Then there’s the latest Trump booster standing alongside him at many marketing campaign stops. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has donated greater than $70 million to spice up Trump within the election. By tons of of tweets on his social media platform, X, Musk has spread fallacies with the purpose of shortcutting federal laws that he perceives inhibit his numerous corporations’ rush to manufacturing.

Trump lambasted Liz Cheney, one in every of his most distinguished Republican critics, in an end-of-campaign burst of vitriol on Thursday, as reported by the New York Instancessaying she ought to be placed on a battlefield “with nine barrels shooting at her.”

As my CleanTechnica colleague, Michael Barnard, notes“That the Democratic Party is the only choice for positive climate action is incredibly clear, with the Republicans being the choice for making climate change a lot worse.” One other Trump administration would revise practically each forward-looking Biden–Harris administration motion, together with breakthrough laws to mitigate the results of the local weather disaster. The Sierra Membership warns that “everything from rules to curb hazardous air pollutants to programs that help make cleaner and more energy-efficient purchases affordable would be on the chopping block” if Trump 2.0 turns into a actuality.

One other Trump administration appears foreboding in its negligence to the existential disaster of our lifetimes — local weather air pollution. And, if he has his method, he’ll “drill, baby, drill” via a winner-take-all, loser-be-damned strategy.

Fascism Used to Be the Discourse of the Enemy

My story of dwelling via political elections and embracing environmentalism isn’t your story, in fact. However what we doubtless have in frequent is a deeply held respect for the US Structure and our federal democratic republic type of authorities.

In his new guide WarfareBob Woodward quotes Trump’s chosen chairman of the joint chiefs of employees, Mark Milley, as saying the previous president is “fascist to the core.” Then Trump’s former secretary of homeland safety and one-time White Home chief of employees, the retired Marine Corps basic John Kelly, told the New York Instances that Trump met the definition of a fascist.

I used to be fairly shocked to study that on March 24, 1945, the US Military pamphlet for personnel within the European theater of World Warfare II was all about “FASCISM!” The US authorities doc admonished its troopers to watch out for its insidious nature.

• “Fascism is government by the few and for the few.”
• “The objective is seizure and control of the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the state.”
• “The people run democratic governments, but fascist governments run the people.”
• “The basic principles of democracy stand in the way of their desires; hence—democracy must go! Anyone who is not a member of their inner gang has to do what he’s told. They permit no civil liberties, no equality before the law.”
• “Fascism treats women as mere breeders. ‘Children, kitchen, and the church,’ was the Nazi slogan for women.”
• Fascists “make their own rules and change them when they choose.”
• “They maintain themselves in power by use of force combined with propaganda based on primitive ideas of ‘blood’ and ‘race,’ by skillful manipulation of fear and hate, and by false promise of security.”
• “The propaganda glorifies war and insists it is smart and ‘realistic’ to be pitiless and violent.”
• Fascists understood that “the fundamental principle of democracy—faith in the common sense of the common people—was the direct opposite of the fascist principle of rule by the elite few.”
• “They played political, religious, social, and economic groups against each other and seized power while these groups struggled.”
• Fascists “fought democracy.”

Sound acquainted?