Besides the smarmy loathsomeness of Clinton--Dolores Umbridge of the Harry Potter novels, just as ready to take "umbrage," is fiction's best comparison--Trump supporters merit some (though not unlimited) slack based on the general misinforming loathsomeness of consolidated corporate U.S. news media. Based on objective evidence, it seems totally fair to say--as Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky brilliantly asserted before today's extreme media consolidation--that U.S. news (whether corporate Democrat or corporate Republican in its bias) is a concerted propaganda attempt to conceal how our political system works from U.S. voters. Above all, how its policies are designed to benefit corporate and plutocratic interests to the extent that the common good--of either our nation or humanity itself--is not even a remote political consideration.
While Trump and Republican voters--in a system where propaganda (a.k.a. "fake news") is the norm for both parties--deserve some slack, they also merit a serious wake-up call. Namely, that Republican racism and social-Darwinist contempt for the poor are real, and amounting to spitting in the face of--or actually re-crucifying in Caesar's name--the very Jesus Christ so many Republicans claim to worship as God. Of course, it's far from the agenda of corporate lackey Democrats (equally unwilling as Dives to aid Lazarus) to point this out, especially given Democrat leadership's scathing contempt for Catholics and Christians generally. Social-justice activists--and social-justice activism is a crucial part of climate-justice activism--can only express lasting gratitude to William Barber (just cited) and gutsy religious liberals like William Alberts and Mike Rivage-Seul who've pointed out the heretical betrayal of Christianity in mainstream Republican "religion."
So unflinching is Republicans' anti-Christian racism and social-Darwinist contempt for the poor that it includes a blithe willingness to make poor people of color--perhaps by the hundreds of millions!--victims of climate genocide. Since poor people of color are being hit first and worst by the accelerating climate crisis--and since Republicans are criminally ramping up that crisis--it follows that most of the initial unnecessary deaths caused by Republican policies will be racist, social-Darwinist ones.
Attentive readers will note my change (from early in this essay) from citing Republicans' "classist" to citing their "social-Darwinist" climate genocide. While I earlier said classist for brevity's sake, social Darwinist (in addition to racist) is much closer to the rhetoric promoters of a 2020 "Green New Deal vs. climate genocide" referendum should actually adopt. As a deeper, deeply deserved twist of the knife, it rightly accuses Republicans (supposedly Darwinism's vehement "Christian" opponents) of the crudest, most unscientific, most anti-Christian version of Darwinism imaginable: a ruthless, immoral "survival of the fittest" that targets for suffering and death the poor outcasts Jesus himself most loved. Democrats, mostly contemptuous of religion themselves, have foolishly granted Republicans the fig leaf of Christianity--while today's Republicans are the worst persecutors of Christ imaginable.
But since "social Darwinism" is easily understood outside religious contexts, Democrats can score potent religious points against Republicans by citing their "racist, social-Darwinist climate genocide" without making any religious commitment themselves. Yet another instance of the 2020 referendum as "shooting fish in a barrel."
So why are Democrats so opposed to this perfectly stark 2020 referendum? Because the Democratic Party leadership is much more interested in milking rich donors and keeping its power than mopping the electoral floor with Republicans, no matter how dangerous. In fact, the Dem leadership, far from wishing to eliminate crazy, dangerous, morally reprehensible Republicans, like to keep them around--and keep them as crazy, dangerous, and morally reprehensible as possible. That way, they can, as a "Nummy Bits" better-than-starvation party, extort our votes based on Republican craziness without engaging in the mildest reform of their own corrupt party. And certainly not the extensive reform required by a Green New Deal.
Democrats avoid the obvious, damning--and winning--accusation of Republican racist, social-Darwinist climate genocide because it would 1) raise embarrassing questions about their own climate and other policies and 2) so weaken Republicans as an extortionist threat that Democrats would be forced to appeal to voters based on actual populist policies. Like, say, a wildly popular Green New Deal. All of which, in a nutshell, is why only Democrats willing to openly denounce Republicans' racist, social-Darwinist climate genocide can be trusted as supporters of a Green New Deal.
Sunrise, the PPC, and AOC: Heroic Versions of "Captain Obvious"
From the analysis just completed, it should be obvious that Republicans--as a racist, social-Darwinist science-denying party hell-bent on the reckless expansion of fossil fuels--are criminal perpetrators of racist, social-Darwinist climate genocide. And should obviously suffer the electoral devastation that status merits.
Yet, given that Republican hold the White House, the U.S. Senate, and most state governorships and legislatures, the GOP's beyond-criminal reprehensibility is clearly not obvious to U.S. voters. In a brilliant interview about political life under Trump, journalist Allan Nairn explained that "the rhythm of repetition is everything in politics" and "unless it's repeated, hammered away, day after day, on the big media outlets, it may be on the public record but it's not in the public consciousness."
What's obvious to the U.S. voting public depends on media repetition, and given the virtual conspiracy between Republican-friendly media and Democrat-friendly media not to cite it, the plain fact of Republicans' racist, social-Darwinist climate genocide is far from obvious to the U.S. voting public. Which in turn sabotages the voting public's sense of climate-crisis urgency and its pressure for the only just, viable solution to that crisis: a Green New Deal.
The Sunrise Movement and their avid congressional supporter, surprisingly genuine maverick freshman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have expressed ardent advocacy for a Green New Deal. I haven't heard anything from the Poor People's Campaign specifically about a Green New Deal, but it seems a natural for them--as is a compelling interest in warding off racist, social-Darwinist climate genocide. So, as potent newsmaking forces with aligned interests, all three need to heroically play the role of Captain Obvious and repeatedly denounce Republicans' racist, social-Darwinist climate genocide for what it obviously is.
Doing so will make the 2020 election a referendum between the party of the Green New Deal and the party of racist, social-Darwinist climate genocide. And warn Democrats not supportive of the Green New Deal that the label of "genocide Democrats" may soon await them.
As a very different captain--Jean-Luc Picard--said, "Make it so!"
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