Buckle Up. Things Are About to Get Even Uglier
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There’s a big elephant in the room when it comes to America’s political turmoil and the turn of one of our political parties completely towards fascism, and that’s climate change. I just read this article warning that with the planet’s average global temperature growing hotter, combined with the first El Nino in 7 years, we have no idea what kind of hellish summer we could be in for.
And we’re beginning to see the consequences of relying on our beautiful ocean to trap the ever increasing tons of emissions fossil fuel drilling spews into our atmosphere.
As our emissions have continued to increase, the heating of the planet and ocean have increased. Let’s face it. “Climate change is a hoax” was always a fossil fuel-industry funded LIE.
So how do I think the existential threat posed by climate change is influencing our politics?
My experience as a political activist since I was 18 has proven it. I’ve had a front row seat to the GOP’s long slow slide into theocratic fascism for a long time now. I watched Republican after Republican obstruct any attempts to address climate change. Hell, Ronald Reagan wouldn’t even allow the solar panels Jimmy Carter put on the White House to remain when he unfortunately took over in 1980.
Tenets of the right’s overall political strategy in the last thirty or so years seem to be:
- Literally billions have gone into climate change denying politicians and media outlets;
- Right-wing media has spread misinformation and lies to incite one side to hate the other (Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, and now a whole cadre of extremist pundits with unlimited billionaire money behind them spewing nonstop hatred and grievance on podcasts, YouTube, Facebook, etc.);
- The rise of populism, or what’s now referred to as “Trumpism”;
- Stacking the judiciary with right-wing extremists who a) encode hatred against women, LGBTQ people, immigrants etc. into their policy…
