This past weekend I joined our local “No Kings” demonstration in Middletown, Connecticut. It was well attended, including by our local town mayor and one of Connecticut’s state senator. Along with politicians, presenters included a Black Baptist preacher, a White preacher, an Imam, and a veteran. The speaker list seemed to check all the boxes. Except one. There was absolutely no mention of the Trump Administration’s onslaught against Earth, non-human beings, or even poor Americans trapped in environmental sacrifice zones.

Even though, just the day before, the Trump Administration had successfully threatened and cajoled member states of the International Maritime Organization to delay its Net Zero Framework vote (which would have levied a carbon tax on shipping).¹ And that’s just the tip of the melting iceberg. In the nine months Trump has been in office, his climate assault has been unwavering, from the symbolic (calling climate change a “con job” at the United Nations) to the scientific (cancelling climate reports, stopping the monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions, and publishing fake climate reports), to the financial (undermining renewable energy support and even halting work on nearly complete wind turbines), to the regulatory (pushing for new coal and oil development while undermining EPA’s authority to address climate change). Together these all add to a crime against humanity and all species—a civilization-threatening reality that should be shouted to audiences at every rally.

But it wasn’t. Not at the Middletown rally, and not even at the larger rally in Hartford later in the day.

The silence felt absolute—almost intentional.²

I don’t think it was, though Democrats have downplayed the climate and environment in past elections. Perhaps for the same reason, the organizers chose to omit it yesterday. But I hope it was more of just an oversight. It was painful enough, however, that I reached out to the organizers to ask. One assured me it wasn’t intentional and I offered to engage more and find ways to better draw out environmental issues (we’ll see how that develops).

But why I’m bringing this up at all is for two reasons. First, the White preacher focused his remarks on shaming White moderate Christians on not doing enough—that those who stay comfortably silent are as bad as those who stayed silent in the slave era. It was a Cobra-like strike, and could have gotten him booed off the stage (no one likes to be publicly shamed) but perhaps folks knew he was right and let him finish. He pointed out that it doesn’t matter if you marched for civil rights in the ‘60s or voted for Kamala Harris last November, it only matters what you do now. That’s true. And other than joining public EPA meetings, I’m not doing enough.

Second, about six months ago, my wife handed me a copy of Ur-Facism to read (by Umberto Eco). This made the important point that resistance is made up of many groups—even if they are not typical allies, working together to fight a bigger enemy (the Italian fascists in Eco’s case). Along with its excellent summarization of the 14 elements of fascism, the essay is a strong reminder that we must work together, and form coalitions, even with those who might traditionally be our opponents. To succeed, we must temporarily unite to fight the common threat.

The need to unite is a point effectively revealed by the late Alexei Navalny. For those unfamiliar, Navalny was an outspoken critic of the Putin regime who was poisoned, once, then twice by the Russian state, where he succumbed in prison to the poisoning. While alive, along with revealing the vast corruption of Putin and his crooked allies, he also mobilized various opposition groups to vote together—not for their own party but for the candidate that had the best chance of winning (as discussed in his autobiography, Patriot).

This coordinated resistance is something we too must embrace. America’s weak third parties, the young leftists, the moderate Republicans, and everyone anti-Trump need to, at least temporarily, join forces to get the most electable Trump opponents elected, to avoid the complete dismantling of environmental protection and climate mitigation (without which there will be no space for progressive political reform in the future—as survival will take precedence over equity, reform and everything else).³

And folks like comfortable Gaians, who are focused on long-term visions of civilizations that peacefully-coexist with Earth, who advocate for degrowth, who embrace planetary limits, and who would rather spend time in nature than in protest meetings, we, too, have to come together with the diverse anti-fascist coalition to fight for Gaia’s right to thrive.

So, that said, I acknowledge that I must devote more of my time to organizing and taking action. Certainly not out of joy, but out of civic duty—or more accurately, filial duty: duty to care for and protect my planetary parent who has sustained me since before my birth and needs my help to fight against the new fascist forces working to convert Gaia’s remaining life force into fuel, AI infrastructure, consumer goods, and entertainment—benefitting themselves and keeping us quietly amused until the systems finally fail.

Endnotes

1) The week of the vote, the Secretaries of State, Energy and Transportation even issued a joint statement warning of investigations, commercial penalties, visa restrictions, even sanctions on officials who sponsored the climate policies (and that was one of public warnings: who knows what was said behind closed doors).

2) Well, maybe intentional. Looking at the No Kings guide (a google doc provided by organizers) there’s zero mention of climate change and just a brief nod to attacks on environmental protections (though under speaker topics environment isn’t listed).

3) Sure, as part of the grand bargain, smaller parties can wring out concessions once the Democrats are in power and go back to squabbling and mediocrity after—though ideally not. (One valuable concession could be ranked voting where third parties would then actually stand a chance in winning future elections.)