Voting Against Fascism Means Respecting Civil Society And The Planet – CleanTechnica

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The media is full of stories about the potential outcome of the 2024 election and how it will impact the clean energy industry. Most of us of a particular age never thought we’d see a candidate whose ideology was in sync with fascism. Can efforts to mitigate the climate crisis stand up to authoritarian whims?

We know that decarbonization will take a steel will and a belief in the future to overcome the election nastiness around renewable energy. Solar is popular, but will its attractiveness make a difference in local elections? Dependence on fossil fuels both as feedstock and a source of energy is at the heart of the intertwined global and political crises. We are seeing before us a deep disconnect between fossil fuel–producing countries’ commitments to continued production and their Paris agreements for a 1.5°C emissions goal.

Despite its enormous implications, US presidential candidates’ have barely acknowledged the climate crisis — even though research indicates that personal views on climate change were one of the strongest predictors of voting behavior in 2020, especially among independents. Could a strong belief in the need for climate action be a predictor for results in 2024?

Acknowledging the Past to Inform the Future

As a Vietnam War child, I’ve witnessed past elections that were also very serious. In the 1960s my friends’ older brothers were being drafted to an unpopular war, and this pivotal early life experience framed me as a social justice advocate then and forever. The 1970s witnessed the peanut farmer/nuclear scientist’s rise to the executive office, only to see Jimmy Carter — with his visionary solar panels on the White House — weakened by his honesty, the Mideast gas crisis, and Iran hostage behind-the-scenes negotiations.

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

The Bush dynasty arrived, and with it came wars that brought new generations of young men — and women — to battle, some of whom suffer the effects of battle trauma to this day. Bill Clinton’s election was a high point for me, as it came with the optimism of a tide change to technology and egalitarianism. The Supreme Court decided an election, and climate activist Al Gore bravely accepted that winning the popular vote wasn’t enough. Barack Obama’s historic rise to the executive office gave me joy.

In 2016, Russian election influence led to Hillary Clinton’s loss for the presidential bid, and I’m still a bit weighed down today over the Electoral College’s ability to influence an election more than the American voters. Trump’s January 6 treasonous uprising failed, and Joe Biden fought for the Inflation Reduction Act, which introduced so much progress on clean energy.

Throughout my recollection of elections, there’s been a common thread of creating a society in which decency for each other and the planet stands strong. After all, if we have an ideology of caring, won’t the rest fall in place?

Voting in the 2024 US Presidential Election

My 2024 election vote was cast by an early voting ballot. Hubby and I drove a few miles to a historically black neighborhood in my Florida city. Signs and booths proclaiming allegiance with local candidates speckled the entrance, and volunteers nodded politely at passersby. A line of about 15 people stood calmly and quietly waited for their turn to enter the polling location.

I stepped forward in line when it was my turn and was told by the sheriff supervising the crowd that one computer was down. That meant that, of three computers that would certify my identity and print my ballot, only two were working.

The line moved methodically forward, one step every few minutes.

Would a polling place’s computer setup be different in a predominately white district? It’s hard to say. I do know that no one complained; they were awaiting their turn to cast their ballot in what is one of the most important elections of their lifetimes. I do know that former president Trump falsely claimed that Kamala Harris “happened to turn Black” at a Black journalists’ convention in July, and the nonprofit news website Capital B quickly published a story debunking the allegation. Coincidence? You tell me.

It hasn’t been easy, has it?

Insidious Influences on our US Election Process

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 Workers president Shawn Fain late Tuesday called for working class unity against Republican nominee Donald Trump in the final stretch of the 2024 race, as reported by Common Dreams. Fain warned that the former president would serve the interests of his own class and embolden the nation’s executives to intensify their decades-long war on the labor movement. 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,” according to Harris.

Then there’s the newest Trump booster standing alongside him at many campaign stops. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has donated more than $70 million to boost Trump in the election. Through hundreds of tweets on his social media platform, X, Musk has spread fallacies with the goal of shortcutting federal regulations that he perceives inhibit his various companies’ rush to production.

Trump lambasted Liz Cheney, one of his most prominent Republican critics, in an end-of-campaign burst of vitriol on Thursday, as reported by the New York Times, saying she should be put 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.” Another Trump administration would revise nearly every forward-looking Biden–Harris administration action, including breakthrough legislation to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis. The Sierra Club 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 becomes a reality.

Another Trump administration seems foreboding in its negligence to the existential crisis of our lifetimes — climate pollution. And, if he has his way, he’ll “drill, baby, drill” through a winner-take-all, loser-be-damned approach.

Fascism Used to Be the Discourse of the Enemy

My story of living through political elections and embracing environmentalism isn’t your story, of course. But what we likely have in common is a deeply held respect for the US Constitution and our federal democratic republic form of government.

In his new book War, Bob Woodward quotes Trump’s chosen chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley, as saying the former president is “fascist to the core.” Then Trump’s former secretary of homeland security and one-time White House chief of staff, the retired Marine Corps general John Kelly, told the New York Times that Trump met the definition of a fascist.

I was quite surprised to learn that on March 24, 1945, the US Army pamphlet for personnel in the European theater of World War II was all about “FASCISM!” The US government document admonished its soldiers to beware of 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 familiar?