Trump World Update and Why It Matters

As the 2024 United States presidential campaign dives into its last full week, a dark threat lies on the horizon. That of an unfettered Trump presidency prepared for four years of implementing far-right doctrine. But, fear-mongering about a potential Trump administration is nothing new, especially as Trump boasts that in four years his voters won't have to vote again and he continues to champion a racist, anti-immigrant, far-right agenda. What many brush over, however, is the new inflection point in the climate crisis that Trump represents. An evolution in the hardening of

fossil capital's strategy to embrace proto-fossil fascist figureheads like Trump. Today, we'll dive into just how disastrous a Trump presidency would be for the climate and, indeed, the whole world. From Trump's own words to the agendas of those surrounding him epitomized in Project 2025, we'll look at not only how fossil capitalists plan on protecting its production and profit in an age when they are very clearly causing the climate crisis, but also why fossil capitalists are fanning the flames of fascism. This a glimpse into the dark world of a Trumpian fossil fascism.

This video is sponsored by Ground News. Stick around until the end to find out how you can get 40% off Ground News. Trump's Past…and Future Three days after the jury of a hush money trial found Trump guilty on all 34 counts, the ex-President took to the stage at a rally and said this: ["all they want to do is spend money on the Green New Scam. It's a Green New Scam. I mean, the things they're spending money on, it's like throwing the money out the window"]. Alongside his misogynistic ["you wouldn't have your job if you weren't beautiful it's very sad."], racist ["Why

do we want these people from, quote, all these shithole countries], and transphobic rhetoric ["I will seek to pass a bill that says that the only genders recognized by the government are men and women], Trump has also fashioned himself as an anti-climate action crusader. For Trump, denying the basic facts of the climate crisis goes hand in hand with transphobic, racist, and patriarchal policy making- all of which are wrapped up in Trump's vision for "Making America Great Again." We witnessed this ideology play out with disastrous consequences during his

tenure in the White House. Immediately the Trump Administration greenlit major pipelines like the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines and then rolled back 112 environmental rules by the time Biden took office in 2021. Among those rollbacks was the lifting of an Obama-era clean air rule in 2018 that tamped down on toxic air pollution from industry, while in 2020 Trump's administration freed oil and gas companies from having to detect or control their methane leaks. And the cherry on top for Trump was that he even pulled out of the Paris Climate Accords,

allowing other right-wing leaders to wriggle out of their responsibilities. But for Trump, the 2016 presidency was a shock. Many reports reveal that he was ill-prepared to staff the executive branch. Even as Trump settled into the white house, the frequent firings and hirings of cabinet members resulted in a haphazard anti-environmental approach that was vulnerable to legal challenges. As one journalist from The Guardian explains, "[Trump's] previous term saw an enormous number of legal defeats for his hurried attempts at environmental rollbacks, as well as the departure of scandal-plagued cabinet members overseeing this effort."

Now in 2024, the outlook is different. Trump's team seems much more primed to seize power. As the director of the EPA's air office under George W. Bush notes, the "[Trump's administration would be] much more prepared… They know what they need to do to undo rules in a legally defensible way." If Trump's current campaign rhetoric is any indication, another four years would be a significant climate action defeat. Trump is on the campaign trail bashing any renewable or electrification policy. Again and again, in speeches, he's railed against wind turbines ["Windmills are causing whales to die in numbers nobody has ever seen

before"] and any sort of electric car subsidy ["Electric vehicle mandates that will spell the death of the U.S. auto industry."] while simultaneously touting the power of coal, inciting the call to ["drill baby drill"] and opening up drilling for ["American energy dominance."] Indeed a second-term Trump Administration could very likely roll back significantly more environmental rules. Trump has already promised that on the first day in office, he would repeal ["crooked Joe Biden's insane electric vehicle mandate"] as well as start approving new gas export terminals. All the while, the Trump Regime will most likely have its sights

set on dismantling the Inflation Reduction action, which, at the moment, is the largest climate bill in United States history. Altogether, a Trump presidency would mean the hollowing out of an already lacking U.S. climate agenda- leading the United States in the exact opposite direction it needs to be going by strengthening the grip fossil capital has on American politics and economy. According to an analysis from Carbon Brief, a second term of the Trump regime would add 4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere by 2030. An amount that "is

equivalent to the combined annual emissions of the EU and Japan, or the combined annual total of the world's 140 lowest-emitting countries." This would spell disaster at a time when we need to be quickly drawing down emissions to stave off the worst of climate chaos. But the whims of Trump are not the only specter on the horizon. The far-right has already laid out detailed plans for how to defend fossil capital from environmental attacks and dismantle any necessary climate action. Project 2025 Down the road from the 2024 Republican National Convention, far-right politicians, libertarian bigwigs, and billionaires were concocting a plan.

It was an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation where these scions of capital put the finishing touches on their roadmap for a Trump presidency. Or as the opening lines of the document assert: "the conservative movement's unified effort to be ready for the next conservative Administration to govern." The 922-page document, Mandate for Leadership: A Conservative Promise, also known as Project 2025 is extensive… and scary. It's the latest installment of the Mandate for Leadership series that the Heritage Foundation has published since 1981. These manifestos are

blueprints for a conservative, libertarian, and nationalist agenda for America. Past editions have been integral to Republican policymaking in the White House. According to the Heritage Foundation, 64% of their 2016 Mandate for Leadership policy recommendations were adopted by the Trump administration. These documents have significant sway, which is especially concerning considering that this agenda charts the course, for, as the director of the Heritage Foundation said, ["the second American Revolution."] Within the document lie plans for a wholesale dismantling,

limiting and concentration of the executive branch to push through libertarian and Christian far-right goals like eliminating the Department of Education, slicing apart Medicaid, revoking FDA approval of abortion pills, and reinforcing the border with horseback-mounted Patrols. In short, this is a playbook for the concentration of power into the hands of the few as a means to defend America's Christian and traditionalist identities from perceived and often racialized outsiders. As The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism notes, "Project 2025 paints progressives and liberals as outside acceptable politics,

and not just ideological opponents, but inherently anti-American and 'replacing American values.' Targeting vulnerable communities is a core tenet of Project 2025." This is just a step away from fascism. Borrowing from political theorist Roger Griffin's definition of the term, fascists mobilize narratives that the nation is decaying and in a crisis of identity and needs to be restored to its former glory, as well as the narrative that nation has to defend itself against racialized outsiders in order to assert power and control. In the case of

Project 2025 this means restoring America to its true American values, a "second American Revolution" if you will, by battling those that have led to American decay and impotence: liberals, progressives, and racialized communities, and specifically immigrants. Coupled with calls for the defense of American conservative values by eliminating "The noxious tenets of 'critical race theory; and 'gender ideology'" from schools, and saving the free-market economy from regulation come the blueprints for anti-climate action. Dark plans for environmental destruction that could likely come to pass under a Trump presidency. Echoing Trump's

calls for "American Energy Dominance," Project 2025 seeks the "unleashing all of America's energy resources," which, as journalist Zoya Teirstein from Grist explains, means "eliminating federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands, curtailing federal investments in renewable energy technologies, and easing environmental permitting restrictions and procedures for new fossil fuel projects such as power plants." More specifically, Project 2025 outlines a crusade on climate science and environmental regulation with a specific aim on the Environmental Protection

Agency. Indeed a whole chapter written by the likely next EPA director under Trump, Mandy Gunesakara, is dedicated to the agency. Within the section, Gunesakara lays out a vision for significantly scaling back and defunding the administration, cutting any climate change-related programs, gutting "social cost of carbon" ideas, repealing hydrofluorocarbon regulation, eliminating the environmental justice office, and repealing transportation emissions standards. All the while, Gunesakara proposes cleansing the EPA of left-wing environmental activists who

are politicizing the agency. Instead of these civil servants who have decades of institutional knowledge that keep the administration running, Project 2025 suggests putting political appointees in charge. The manifesto suggests political appointees run the Office of Transportation and Air Quality, the Office of Research & Development, the American Indian Office, a new Chief of Staff to oversee the Air Office, and a newly created Renewable Fuel Standard office. In short, Project 2025 envisions cutting environmental enforcement to scraps, which will then be overseen

by political appointees like Gunesakara who are dead set on the eradication of the agency itself. If you're interested in learning more specifics I highly recommend reading the section or checking out Amy Westervelt's Drilled Newsletter article breaking down and analyzing the chapter. But Project 2025 goes even further. After proposing a wholesale defanging of the EPA, which will undoubtedly open up the floodgates for more fossil fuel production, emissions, and ultimately drive us deeper into climate change, the document seeks to hamstring any

form of resilience and adaptation. Project 2025 calls for defunding and fracturing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration because "it has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity." Alongside writing that "the preponderance of its climate-change research should be disbanded" the authors argue that the National Weather Service, which is housed under NOAA and is the very basis for our free and accessible weather reports, should be privatized. This could potentially lead to a scenario where

hurricane alerts and severe thunderstorm warnings, or even just daily weather reports, are blocked behind paywalls. To make matters even worse, Project 2025 suggests that the National Flood Insurance Program, which was created to protect homes that private insurers deemed too risky to insure, should be "should be wound down and replaced with private insurance." This is capitalism run rampant- allowing profit motive and the ever-accumulation of capital to decide who gets access to the very necessities of life. In addition, the dismantling of these agencies acts

as even more ammunition for the likes of Trump and the Heritage Foundation. As vice president of Evergreen Action, Craig Segall notes in an interview with Grist, this has long been a plan of conservatives, and especially libertarians: "What you do is you break the government, make it very hard for the government to function, and then you loudly announce that the government can't do anything." So, the future under a Trump presidency could mean a dark world. A world in which the fossil fuel industry runs rampant while research, information, and recovery

from climate chaos are stopped at every turn. A world where fossil capitalists enable dangerous far-right politics to shield their assets. This is the looming threat of fossil fascism. Looming Fossil Fascism: As the climate crisis bears down on us with full force with intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts, and wildfires, the fossil fuel industry, and fossil capital in general become increasingly untenable. The truth is that to stop climate change, fossil fuel extraction must end. Fossil capitalists have already realized this. So, to continue with business-as-usual, to preserve their power, fossil capitalists might funnel more

and more funds into the far right, a political wing that has shown their eagerness to protect and defend the infrastructure and profits of fossil capitalists as we already saw during Trump's presidency. The result of this would be the elites of the fossil class fueling the far right's rise to power in a time of deep crisis to protect their profits and infrastructure. This is fossil fascism, which I discuss thoroughly in this video I made about the subject. Or put another way by the Zetkin collective: "Fascism is a politics of palingenetic ultranationalism

that comes to the fore in a conjuncture of deep crisis, and if leading sections of the dominant class throw their weight behind it and hand it power, there ensues an exceptional regime of systematic violence against those identified as enemies of the nation." Looking at the funding pouring into the Trump campaign it's clear which horse fossil capital is betting on. As we've already seen, Trump seems dead set on assuring a continued business-as-usual for the fossil fuel industry. As we've already seen, he paints fossil fuels as a solution to Making

America Great Again by connecting oil and gas to American energy dominance, while blaming wind turbines and electric vehicle subsidies for American decay. And fossil capitalists love it. Which is why oil and gas money is integral to his campaign. Indeed, Trump even requested $1 billion from fossil capitalists for his campaign fund in return for a scorched earth anti-climate agenda. An agenda that would surely include executive orders drafted directly by the oil industry. Even looking at the funding for Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation, the tentacles of fossil capital, specifically Koch industries, grip tightly on the figureheads

and associated organizations. So, as the climate crisis bears down on us, and as the far-right offers a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry elites, we are now seeing that they are willing to throw their money and power behind the racist, patriarchal ultranationalism of projects like Project 2025 to continue polluting and more importantly, accumulating capital and profits. Fossil capital is fanning the flames of fossil fuel nationalism into the 2024 election. A nationalism which, if Trump's first term in office and Project 2025's playbook is any indication, will focus on dismantling regulation

to reinvigorate American energy with fossil fuels combined with a violent crackdown on any perceived racialized threat to America, or as Trump says, ["American energy dominance."]. This proto-fossil fascism could very well be on the horizon. It is imperative, then, to not only fight to stop its ascendancy to power, but build a more caring, just, and regenerative world in its stead. How We Fight Back If there's one thing to be said about the far-right in the United States, it's that they are organized and prepared. Project 2025 is a scarily exacting manifesto. It is a vision that can realistically be implemented

because of its thorough consideration of all facets of the executive branch. Anti-capitalists, environmentalists, and movements need to take notes. We need radical ecosocialist plans that bring power, justice, and environmental healing to all. We need 900-page documents that lay out our plans for economies of care, and systems that restore and heal our environments. Ones that not only imagine but plan out and organize how we might build a zero-carbon liberatory world. But for now, while we build that power we need to fight the threat of fossil-fueled nationalism. We

need to keep Trump out of power. If his words and those of his allies in Project 2025 are any indication, another four years in the White House would be a disaster for the Earth and those living on it. For many, this might mean wading into electoral politics and voting in the upcoming election. To be clear electoral politics is not our ultimate goal, especially because the Democratic party cannot save us. Again and again, they've shown their ineptitude at creating any form of environmental policy at the scale needed to tackle the climate

crisis- and yes, the Inflation Reduction Act was a massive climate bill, but nowhere near the level of ambition it needed to be. But in this inflection point, they are unfortunately the least bad option when measured up against proto-fossil fascism. The reality is that, in the long-run, we can't just wait for one vote every two or four years. Trump is just a figurehead, there will always be another rightwing candidate and there will be more versions of Project 2025. So, building collective-based movements regardless of the outcome is crucial.

Because transformation and change don't just happen during an election. True power is built every day by creating deep connections with your community and within movements. Through those relationships and organizations, we can then fight from a position of strength to build a world that brings a good life to all on a renewable planet. Sure, vote if you want, but to stop fossil fascism in its tracks we need to build something stronger, more ethical, and more liberatory than just not voting Trump. We need to organize, act, and build power for an anti-rascist, anti-imperialist, liberatory, and sustainable world.

But tracking the Presidential election is crucial. Not only to understand what is happening but also to understand how the United States' political party machines are jostling for power in the eyes of media, like in the case of how Trump and Harris responded in the wake of Hurricane Helene's climate change-fueled devastation in late September. If anything, the U.S. presidential election reveals just how muddy the waters of media coverage have become, which is why I've been using this video's sponsor Ground News to peer past the curtain of media bias and stay up to date with this pivotal election. For this story, of the over 100 sources compiled, most of the reporting came

from the left and center while under 15% leaned right. Comparing the headlines, we can see how the framing of this story can change based on this bias. On the right, most of the headlines focus on Trump and his plans to visit areas affected by the hurricane (show headlines from Conservative Brief and Breitbart). Meanwhile, on the left, the headlines focused on how both campaigns are responding to the disaster (show headlines from Boston Globe and ABC News). This level of insight is only possible thanks to Ground News, a website and app that collects over 50,000 media sources into one place and lets you

compare how headlines are being covered across the political spectrum. Every story comes with a quick visual breakdown of the political bias, factuality, and ownership of the sources reporting - all backed by ratings from three independent news monitoring organizations. I especially like the Blindspot feed, which highlights stories that are disproportionately covered by one side of the political spectrum. Especially when it comes to news about climate change, I think it's really important to see what articles on both sides of the political spectrum are missing. Which is why I use Ground News literally every day.

I've been using Ground News for a long time because of tools like their Blindspot Feed that helps make current events like the 2024 U.S. clear and simple. Ground News is a crucial intervention in the media landscape, especially when misinformation hinders hurricane preparedness and recovery. Ground News helps me expand my scope of what is actually happening the world and then gives me tools to critically engage with articles from the left, right and center. And, best of all, I'm currently offering all of my viewers 40% off their Vantage Subscription, which is what I use for unlimited access to all of

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