The deplorables

During the 2016 US presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton famously used the phrase “basket of deplorables” to describe Trump supporters, who she caricatured as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic.” This was one of many missteps by Clinton, which revealed a barely-concealed loathing for a large section of — often poor — middle America. The phrase “deplorables” has since gone on to be appropriated by Clinton’s source of disgust, and worn as a badge of honor.

A similar term emerged in the UK during Brexit: “gammon” was used to describe mostly white older male Brexit supporters, whose faces allegedly take on the pink flush of pork when enraged. Again, the disgust that progressive elites have for the “other” — various permutations of poor, northern, working class, non-university-educated, and so on — is barely concealed.

No wonder there appears to be so little dialogue between progressives and everyone else. Of course, the “everyone else” is hardly blameless, but their reactionary behavior is understandable in light of elite disgust (combined with their dominating cultural and financial capital), and if the progressive elites are so goddamn clever, surely they have an onus of responsibility for building bridges?

In a previous post we discussed the political compromises required if we are to build a Total Green Future, following the spirit of Malcolm X’s famous phrase “by any means necessary.” Let’s explore the nature of this compromise in a bit more depth, specifically the language we use and the political issues we prioritize.

A new study, “Messaging for environmental action: The role of moral framing and message source” in Journal of Environmental Psychology shows that:

Researchers wrote two experimental messages that were designed to urge readers to support a move away from fossil fuels as a primary energy source in the United States. The framing of one message appealed to conservative moral foundations (by noting that reliance on foreign resources is a national security concern) and the other drew on moral principles most meaningful to liberals (by citing the need to protect vulnerable citizens from a toxic environment). The overarching finding: The conservative moral message framing was more effective than liberal framing at increasing conservatives’ support for transitioning away from fossil fuels, especially when research participants were told the message came from a conservative source.

Surprise! People like to be spoken to in terms that resonate with their own worldview: who would have thought? So here is the first key to getting deplorables on board for a Total Green Future: we need to talk in terms that resonate with their worldview.

However, talking in such terms alone is not enough: it needs to be done with sincerity. Liberals, progressives, the Left — however you want to describe it — need to come to terms with the fact that they often have some deep-seated and unsavory prejudices when it comes to deplorables. The fact that we have come to this situation demonstrates just how divorced progressives have become from class consciousness. When we refocus our lens on power and identify who really benefits from environmentally destructive practices, we quickly realize that we are all — except a vanishingly small few — deplorables.

Talking in terms that resonate with the worldview of deplorables will require a prioritization of political issues. The clear and unambiguous political priority for a Total Green Future is course-correcting the environmental crisis. It will never be possible to recruit deplorables to a Total Green Future if we insist on continually forcing other issues down their necks, claiming they are racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-immigrant, and so on.

Now, this does not mean that problems such as racism and sexism should be ignored. What it means is that we have to build alliances to course-correct the environmental crisis before we prioritize other issues, which must be sufficiently dialed back so that constructive partnerships can take place across the political spectrum.

Remember, the Total Green Future manifesto specifically defines sustainability to include social sustainability, which absolutely includes issues such as racism and sexism. However, we do not even have a future to discuss such social sustainability issues unless we course-correct the environmental crisis. Furthermore, once we have learned to work together on the environment and have come to better understand each other’s motivations, strengths, weaknesses and experiences, it makes intuitive sense that we will have a better chance of having good faith discussions about other collective problems.

As we concluded the previous article on political compromise: If you believe that such compromise is wrong, consider the following provocation. What exactly is your priority? Saving the environment or maintaining your political purity? Given that you probably can’t have both, choosing not to compromise is to acknowledge that the environment is not your priority, which means that you are, in effect, part of the problem that genuine environmentalists need to overcome.