The Climate Movement's Difficult Fight Ahead If Trump Wins – Another term for Trump means an uphill battle for climate activism. But it's a fight we can't afford to lose.

Imag­ine it’s Novem­ber 10, a week after Elec­tion Day. Don­ald Trump has been declared pres­i­dent, whether he won the Elec­toral Col­lege or just stole the elec­tion. A man who once referred to cli­mate change as a Chi­nese hoax has just been rein­stalled to the high­est office in the country. 

We have grap­pled with the esca­lat­ing threat of cli­mate change for decades, a cri­sis our lead­ers have known about but large­ly ignored. Under Trump — an incom­pe­tent, cor­rupt cli­mate change denier who has active­ly rolled back cli­mate pro­tec­tions — we will con­tin­ue to steer straight into this crisis. 

Trump’s response to the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic reveals his (lack­ing) cri­sis lead­er­ship skills. In March, as the pan­dem­ic took root and major cities were decid­ing whether and how to shut down, Trump’s gov­ern­ment aban­doned work­ing peo­ple to bail out his bil­lion­aire pals. After 200,000 deaths and count­ing, it is abun­dant­ly clear: Trump can­not han­dle a crisis. 

If Trump is reelect­ed, what is our gen­er­a­tion to do? We have already lost two of the 12 years we had to address the cli­mate cri­sis. We can­not afford to lose four more. 

Under a Demo­c­ra­t­ic admin­is­tra­tion, we would be fight­ing to force the incom­ing pres­i­dent and Con­gress to pass trans­for­ma­tive cli­mate leg­is­la­tion: a Green New Deal. Under a Trump admin­is­tra­tion, our work must con­tin­ue (we have no choice!) but our strat­e­gy must shift. We can­not count on Trump to fight for our future — he will be too busy enrich­ing his bil­lion­aire friends and fos­sil fuel exec­u­tives, con­sol­i­dat­ing polit­i­cal pow­er and angling for an unlaw­ful third term. That doesn’t mean we do nothing. 

First, we have to keep orga­niz­ing. We have to be in the streets, every day, demand­ing a Green New Deal from elect­ed offi­cials up and down the bal­lot. These can­not be atom­ized protests, last­ing just a day or even a week. Nor can they be feel-good ral­lies. We need to make soci­ety ungovernable.

Trump is not moti­vat­ed by our pain, our desires, or our wish to make the world bet­ter. He is moti­vat­ed by his per­son­al inter­ests. So we must make it more cost­ly for him and the bil­lion­aires around him to avoid cli­mate change than to do some­thing about it. To use the words of Sen. Ed Markey (D‑Mass.), ​“If you break the sacred con­tract, the peo­ple make a revolution.”

Sec­ond, we must keep act­ing local­ly. A Green New Deal was nev­er ​“just” a fed­er­al plan. Local com­mu­ni­ties feel the pain of cli­mate change every day; they must be empow­ered to do what’s best for them­selves. We know what it’s like to have a local oil refin­ery poi­son our water, a local fac­to­ry pol­lute our air. We need to take direct actions against the cor­po­rate inter­ests that despoil our homes. We need to elect local rep­re­sen­ta­tives who will stand up for our communities.

With­out sup­port from the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, things will be hard­er. But our suc­cess­es will inspire more com­mu­ni­ties and make our vision crys­tal clear to increas­ing num­bers of people.

Third, we can­not aban­don elec­toral pol­i­tics. If Trump gets a sec­ond term, there’s no guar­an­tee we will have a fair pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in 2024. He is already abus­ing his pow­er and would have four more years to destroy our polit­i­cal infra­struc­ture. We must forge rela­tion­ships across the Left to give our­selves the best pos­si­ble shot at win­ning again, start­ing in 2021.

We, as the Left, can­not enter the 2024 pri­maries divid­ed, in races from the pres­i­den­tial down to munic­i­pal elec­tions. We must join hands — and forces — with our allies in every state, every city, every dis­trict, and put pow­er before ego. The ques­tion to ask is, ​“Who can break the back of the cor­po­rate donors in this race?” Then vote accordingly.

More than cli­mate jus­tice is at stake. The Amer­i­can exper­i­ment has always been fun­da­men­tal­ly flawed — our founders pre­tend­ed to believe in equal­i­ty while reserv­ing vot­ing rights for male prop­er­ty hold­ers, enslav­ing Black peo­ple, and mas­sacring indige­nous tribes — but Trump is drag­ging us back­ward toward that era, step by step. The work of our ances­tors is being dis­man­tled before our eyes, while cli­mate change threat­ens to exac­er­bate every sin­gle cri­sis we face.

If we fail to stop Trump from tak­ing a sec­ond term, we have to pre­pare for the fight of our lives.

This arti­cle is a response to ​“How to Win a Green New Deal Under Biden” by Nikay­la Jefferson.

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