It is always easier to deny reality than to allow our worldview to be shattered, a fact that was as true of die-hard Stalinists at the height of the purges as it is of libertarian climate change deniers today.
Naomi KleinI do believe that our ability to jam the Trump brand is somewhat limited. I think we can chip away at it, but ultimately the way to undermine the Trump brand is a better product in the political marketplace, if you'll forgive the capitalist metaphor. I do think that the negative messaging on Trump is severely limited because he is tapping into a very deep, and in many a rightful, desire for deep change, and a feeling that the whole system is so broken and so corrupt that you might as well raise a middle finger as some kind of act of agency.
Naomi KleinAnd that is what is behind the abrupt rise in climate change denial among hardcore conservatives: they have come to understand that as soon as they admit that climate change is real, they will lose the central ideological battle of our timeโwhether we need to plan and manage our societies to reflect our goals and values, or whether that task can be left to the magic of the market.
Naomi KleinWhat haunts me is not exactly the absence of literal space so much as a deep craving for metaphorical space: release, escape, some kind of open-ended freedom.
Naomi KleinIt seems to me that our problem has a lot less to do with the mechanics of solar power than the politics of human powerโspecifically whether there can be a shift in who wields it, a shift away from corporations and toward communities, which in turn depends on whether or not the great many people who are getting a rotten deal under our current system can build a determined and diverse enough social force to change the balance of power.
Naomi Klein