Well, now.
While this article is principally about climate activism, it’s also a look into how one left-wing activist group has sized up Kamala Harris and how it thinks it can pressure her to do its bidding if she wins the election.
Climate change aside, it’s reasonable to believe that other radical groups, regardless of cause, might also believe they should have their way with “President” Harris, which is an unsettling prospect indeed.
Climate Defiance, a group known for organizing disruptive protests at public events, boldly declares on its website:
WE DO NOT DO PETITIONS.
WE DO DIRECT ACTION.
IF PEOPLE IN POWER WILL NOT SAVE US, WE WILL SAVE OURSELVES.
Climate Defiance on Wednesday not only endorsed Harris for president; it also threw her under the bus in the process. In a 12-post diatribe on X, the group declared, in part (emphasis, mine):
Harris is not the visionary we need, but she is the leader we can pressure and move.
A Trump Presidency would be a full-fledged disaster for our climate & our water & our lands. Trump would gut the EPA, tearing down regulations on cars and power plants and farms. He would sell out our sacred public spaces to his billionaire cronies. This is a nonstarter.
[…]
Ok, now about Harris. We vehemently oppose her position on fracking. We also condemn her and Biden’s choice to continue sending money and weapons to Israel, which, as of this writing, have been used to kill over 40,000 Palestinians.
Harris we can move. Trump we cannot. Kamala – to some extent – is accountable to her base. And that means we can continue to change her. Trump is beholden to racists, rapists, fascists, and billionaires. Moving him is much harder.
A vote is not a valentine. It is a chess move. We must avert a worst-case scenario where Trump rises to power again. That can only happen if Harris wins. That’s why you should vote for her.
[…]
We have no special loyalty to the Democratic Party, but the cold, hard, undeniable truth is that there is no third-party candidate with a path to winning the Presidency.
Kamala is a finger-to-the-wind politician but we will use that to our advantage. We will roll through with a Category Five hurricane. It is now on us to build enough power to make her into the climate candidate we so desperately need her to be.
We are all at once revolutionaries AND realists. Wide-eyed idealists AND steely-eyed tacticians. Dreamers AND schemers.
We don’t give a damn about “respectability” but we care a great deal about relevance. We are here to shake society to its core – not to put on a sideshow. With open eyes about her shortcomings, and with big plans for the struggle ahead, we endorse Kamala Harris for President.
If you are ready to elect Kamala AND hold her to account, signup to join our group. Our site is here:
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Kamala. Still, these people pegged her to a T.
MAJOR UPDATE: Climate Defiance is endorsing Kamala Harris for President of the United States.
Harris is not the visionary we need, but she is the leader we can pressure and move. (1/12)🧵
— Climate Defiance (@ClimateDefiance) September 25, 2024
Here’s more about Climate Defiance:
Since it was founded in early 2023 by activists Michael Greenberg and Rylee Haught, Climate Defiance has crashed fundraisers, conferences, and engagements to protest prominent federal leaders such as Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Sen. Joe Manchin (I., W.Va.). The group has accused those officials of being too friendly to fossil fuel interests.
While the group has repeatedly targeted the White House for not being aggressive enough on climate change, it appeared to have an inside track on President Joe Biden’s January action ordering a moratorium on all pending natural gas export projects. Weeks earlier, the group’s leaders were granted a private meeting with White House clean energy czar John Podesta, whom they urged to implement a “swift end to any federal support for new fossil fuel infrastructure,” according to a letter written by the group.
Then, after Biden ordered the moratorium, the White House issued a press release touting Climate Defiance’s support for the policy. “This is the most significant move any President has ever made on stopping fossil fuels,” Climate Defiance said at the time.
And now they believe they’ll roll through Harris like a category 5 hurricane.
Let’s Think This Through a Bit, Shall We?
As I suggested at the top, if a group like Climate Defiance can figure out that Kamala Harris is a complete fraud, has no discernible positions of her own, pretends to flip-flop on radical positions she embraced in her disastrous 2020 primary campaign, but is now forced to suck up to moderate and independent voters, how many other radical groups also have the finger-in-the-wind politician pegged?
