No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump's Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need

by Naomi Klein

Our movement had always been a very big tent—a “movement of movements,” as we called it (a phrase that has come back into the lexicon). But after September 11, large parts of the coalition got spooked by the “with us or with the terrorists” rhetoric. The nonprofits who rely on large foundations feared losing their funding and withdrew, as did some key unions. Almost overnight, people went back to their single-issue silos, and this remarkable (if imperfect) cross-sectoral alliance, which had brought together such a diversity of people under a pro-democracy umbrella, virtually disappeared. This left a vacuum for Trump and far-right parties in Europe to step in, exploit the justified rage at loss of control to unaccountable transnational institutions, direct it toward immigrants and Muslims and anyone else who makes an easy target, and take the project of corporate rule into new and uncharted waters. Many stayed active in this period and joined other broad coalitions, but by comparison these were thin and tactical: “Defeat Bush,” “Stop the War.” The deeper analysis of the global economic forces we were all up against regardless of which party was in power was largely lost.

shocked out of the way