“The planet is well outside its comfort zone now. If the planet’s outside its comfort zone then perhaps we need to be a little bit outside our comfort zones in dealing with it.” ~Bill McKibben, speech at Northhampton Community College, April 19
Solidarity is an essential element of resistance. Without it, most of our political goals are out of reach.
Since November 8, we have seen a tremendous and encouraging outpouring of solidarity, both in the streets and in the contributions of time, energy and money for a handful of candidates in special elections. In the three months since Inauguration Day, millions of people have shown up at thousands of protests, kicked off by the giant women’s marches in January. From town hall meetings to town square demonstrations, the blossoming of the resistance has been an antidote for many of us numbed by the election of a man unfit to lead a student council, much less a nation. Behind the scenes, a huge amount of fresh organizing is underway to challenge the reactionary policies and retire the politicians who have proved themselves bigoted and backward. Out of despair has emerged determination.
On the 100th miserable day of Donald J. Trump squatting in the White House—Saturday, April 29—the resistance will come together again at the Peoples Climate March in Washington, D.C., and scores of other American cities. (I will be joining with Kosacks and other climate marchers at the event in San Jose, California.)
The marches will focus attention on Pr*sident Trump’s catastrophic anti-climate agenda. From his approval of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines to his proposed draconian budget cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency, from his appointments of climate science-deniers like Scott Pruitt at the EPA and Ryan Zinke at the Interior Department to his efforts to roll back vehicle mileage standards and to abolish the Clean Power Plan, from the removal of eco-data from government websites to the actual removal of the term “climate change” from official memoranda and emails, Trump has shown himself to be out of step not merely with the American people but with reality itself.
These marches are not mere opposition to Trump, however. He is no more out of step than the majority of elected Republicans. Every single one of the anti-environmental policies he is putting into place (or trying to) is rooted in think-tank white papers such as the Heritage Foundation’s, in the Republican Party Platform, in the fevered paragraphs of The Wall Street Journal’s science-challenged editorials and Op-eds, in the deluge of propaganda from the Heartland Institute and lying mouthpieces paid by Exxon-Mobil, and in the agendas of large numbers of Republican politicians at the federal and the state level, where the Koch brothers’ funding has achieved great successes. Trump is only a symptom of the disease.
The nationwide gatherings next Saturday are, as the Peoples Climate Movement labels them, marches for jobs, justice, and the climate. Despite our foes’ efforts to put those issues at odds with each other, they are inextricably entangled.