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

by Naomi Klein

All this work is born of the knowledge that saying no to bad ideas and bad actors is simply not enough. The firmest of no’s has to be accompanied by a bold and forward-looking yes—a plan for the future that is credible and captivating enough that a great many people will fight to see it realized, no matter the shocks and scare tactics thrown their way. No—to Trump, to France’s Marine Le Pen, to any number of xenophobic and hypernationalist parties on the rise the world over—may be what initially brings millions into the streets. But it is yes that will keep us in the fight.

I imagine that one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain.

In the rush to condemn the latter form of entitlement, we shouldn’t lose sight of something important: not all forms of entitlement are illegitimate. All people are entitled to a dignified life.

Which is why it’s short-sighted, not to mention dangerous, to call for liberals and progressives to abandon their focus on “identity politics” and concentrate instead on economics and class—as if these factors could in any way be pried apart.

This insouciance is representative of an extremely disturbing trend. In an age of ever-widening income inequality, a significant cohort of our elites are walling themselves off not just physically but also psychologically, mentally detaching themselves from the collective fate of the rest of humanity. This secessionism from the human species (if only in their minds) liberates them not only to shrug off the urgent need for climate action but also to devise ever more predatory ways to profit from current and future disasters and instability.

The strikes are intensely concentrated in regions with an average of just 200 millimeters (7.8 inches) of rainfall per year—so little that even slight climate disruption can push them into drought. In other words, we are bombing the driest places on the planet, which also happen to be the most destabilized.

a single rebellious cry rose up from the crowds of grandmothers and high school students, motorcycle couriers and unemployed factory workers, their words directed at the politicians, the bankers, the IMF, and every other “expert” who claimed to have the perfect recipe for Argentina’s prosperity and stability: “¡Que se vayan todos!”—everyone must go!

as Oscar Wilde wrote in 1891, “a map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail.”

Modern capitalism, white supremacy, and fossil fuels were strands of the same braid, inseparable. And they were all woven together here, on this patch of frozen land.

Teaching is low-carbon.