Canadian activist, who only began writing No is Not Enough two months ago, says book will put forward manifesto for action

Naomi Klein has revealed she is to publish a book taking on the Trump administration, arguing that a corporate political takeover got him elected and that a rise in activism can be utilised to resist his policies.

No Is Not Enough is the most rapidly written book by the acclaimed Canadian writer and activist, a respected political thinker with a huge following since her 1999 book No Logo. She only began writing it two months ago and it will be published by in June.

Klein said that while she usually spent at least five years researching and writing her books, she felt it was important to put a book out immediately to put Trump into the context of the ideas she has spent the past two decades researching.



“An unprecedented number of people are becoming engaged in movements and politics, which is the silver lining of Trump,” said Klein.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest No Is Not Enough will explore how the key people around Trump have exploited crises in the past. Photograph: Allen Lane

“It is important to be able to step back from that barrage of news that we are overwhelmed with and think about how we got here, what we can expect, how things can get worse and think strategically how things can get better.”

The book, to be published by Allen Lane on 13 June, will also put forward a manifesto for action, which Klein said was inspired by her own involvement in activist groups over the past few years, particularly her work on the Leap Manifesto, which provided a blueprint for Canada to make a permanent transition from fossil fuels. Klein’s activism led her to be awarded the Sydney peace prize in November last year.

A key motivating factor for Klein writing the book now was her contention that Trump is not an aberration but an inevitable culmination of what she called “destructive trends” such as the rise of the “CEO saviour”, which included Trump, but also figures on the left, from Bill Gates to the Clinton foundation.

“I’m trying to tease out threads from my previous books to understand how we could have a human brand as the president of the United States, with a family of spin-off brands around, completely unable to distinguish his own personal identity from his corporate identity,” said Klein. “Only when we are not in a panicked regressed state can we think strategically.”

Her last book, This Changes Everything, published in 2014, discussed how unregulated capitalism was a direct cause of catastrophic climate change. She said this book would make similar vital links between austerity, racism, the corporate world, climate change and the importance of oil prices to Trump’s determination to instigate a fossil fuel frenzy.

Klein said No Is Not Enough was “a different kind of book, trying to mould itself to a very different kind of movement”. As well as looking at the factors that got Trump elected, she will also predict the kinds of crises and shocks of the future that she says we can expect the Trump administration to deliberately bring about, in order to further his agenda.

“My concern, and what’s really motivating me, is that in a moment like this, when so many people are entering politics – many of them for the first time – there is this temptation under the banner of unity to come to a lowest common denominator analysis – we all agree we don’t like Trump,” said Klein.

“Unity is great, but if that’s the only thing that’s uniting the anti-Trump resistance, we will end up back where we were before Trump, which is the place that produced Trump. We have to end up with a deeper analysis.”

Klein will use the book to explore how the key people around Trump have exploited crises in the past, whether that is Mike Pence as a public official or Steven Mnuchin, who extravagantly profited from the sub-prime mortgage crashes. “These guys are master disaster capitalists,” she said. “It’s a cabinet of destruction”.

