Donald Trump and Climate Fascism

Trump is using climate change as a weapon of genocide.

Puerto Rican shanty towns were no match for Hurricane Maria

Earlier this week, when President Trump moved to open nearly all offshore waters to drilling, my immediate reaction was disgust at his idiocy. I could not see any logic behind further propping up fossil fuels amidst global climate disaster, a market which is rapidly shifting to renewables, and an international community which is unanimous in their condemnation.

Given time to reflect on this decision, however, I have concluded that the coming harm of Trump’s climate policies are not the product of ignorance, but intentionality.

At best, Donald Trump is a bigot. At worst, he is a fascist. And in a world where natural disasters disproportionately harm the poor and nonwhite, hastening climate change is more than an existential threat, it is a targeted weapon of genocide.

A few months ago, I wrote a piece on Hurricane Harvey, which highlighted the plight of the poor in natural disasters. In the time since, wildfires, typhoons, and more hurricanes have struck, once again leaving the struggling in shambles. These disasters are well understood to be exacerbated by climate change. Perhaps counter-intuitively, the increase in disasters is targeting the poor and vulnerable more than anyone else. While the homes of millionaires burn just the same, they alone have the money for new mansions and luxury bunkers.

In the past, I have compared Trump to Nero. His opulence and ignorance seemed reflective of Rome’s fall, and the insanity of his policies sounded to me like the strums of that infamous fiddle. Now, however, I hear a much more sinister tune.

Trump’s allies, from Richard Spencer to now-ousted Steve Bannon have an unmistakable Nazi streak. Spencer openly calls for a white ethno-state, and unapologetically blames ethnic diversity for the problems facing our world. Even Trump’s “respectable” Republican allies regularly blame the poor for their poverty, and have even refused to provide blameless children with healthcare and food. This hatred for the poor and the diverse manifests itself in revocation of TPS for immigrants fleeing natural disasters, neglect of American citizens without homes, hope, or power, and the passage of legislation which systematically steals from the poor for the sake of the rich.

Just as the Northeast is facing record low temperatures, homelessness has begun to rise for the first time in a decade. Just as floods and fires are destroying entire communities, poor Americans have less savings than ever to help rebuild. Just as swaths of the globe are becoming unlivable, America’s borders are becoming tighter. Trump, and those around him, are not only making climate change deadlier, they are ensuring that the “undesirables” are more vulnerable than ever before.

Japanese Internment, WW2

The trouble for 21st-century fascists is that the world is too keenly aware of the horrors they beget. In spite of their best efforts, we remember the unspeakable tragedies in Germany, Turkey, Rwanda, Cambodia, and many, many others. Americans know that Japanese citizens were interned. They recall the Trail of Tears — and many fled the Holocaust themselves. So the Nazis of today must seek alternative methods of extermination — and in climate change, they have found their final solution.

In the world of climate catastrophe, there is no need for death camps, nor internment. Simply build your walls, dig your wells, and burn, baby, burn. So long as the poor and nonwhite remain too vulnerable to protect themselves from tornadoes, or rebuild after wildfires; so long as we keep polluting, climate change will act as fascism’s invisible hand.

While the wealthy remain safe in their bunkers, while the nationalists hide behind their borders, the rest of humanity will be left to starve, wither, drown, and burn. This is the world of Donald Trump. This is the future of Climate Fascism.