It's certainly something we haven't seen before in terms of a fully commercial global brand - really a family of brands - not just Trump but also Ivanka, who has a sub-brand. We've never seen this before. We've had presidents in financial conflicts of interest before, but this phenomenon where a sitting president image avatar is out there selling golf courses and condominiums, even as he is in office and having the value of his personal brand inflated dramatically by fact of his being president, is new territory.
Naomi KleinWhy would we build as unequal a renewable energy sector as we have built a fossil fuel sector? The nice thing about renewables is they're everywhere, so you don't have to have monopoly control in the same way.
Naomi KleinI do think that at this moment in late capitalism it is easier in our minds to imagine raising Florida 30 feet to escape the rising seas than it is to regulate capitalism to make it serve human beings.
Naomi KleinIt 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 KleinBecause it is such a huge crisis, because it puts us on a firm science-based deadline, it's a once-in-a-century opportunity to build a better society and address raging inequality, create huge numbers of jobs, rebuild our public infrastructure. But, we can't do it unless we break every single rule in the free-market playbook. Which is why the worst people in the world all deny climate change.
Naomi Klein