theintercept--2020-10-01--A Message From the Future II: The Years of Repair

Do we even have a right to be hopeful ?
With political and ecological fires raging all around , is it irresponsible to imagine a future world radically better than our own ?
A world without prisons ?
Of beautiful , green public housing ?
Of buried border walls ?
Of healed ecosystems ?
A world where governments fear the people instead of the other way around ?
These are questions we wrestled with as we conceived of a sequel to last year ’ s Emmy-nominated short , “ A Message From the Future with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
” The first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ illustrated by Molly Crabapple , was set in a can-do , cli-fi future : one in which bold , progressive politicians joined with grassroots movements to launch the “ Decade of the Green New Deal , ” battling poverty , injustice , and climate disruption all at the same time .
The film touched a nerve and ended up being viewed more than 12 million times , convincing our little team of the need for more art that departs from well-worn apocalyptic scripts .
About a month into the pandemic lockdown , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who co-wrote and produced the last film , about whether the utopian imagination could possibly have a role to play in this markedly less optimistic political moment .
We honestly weren ’ t sure .
Last time , we could see a clear if narrow political path to the hopeful future Molly Crabapple illustrated .
The piece was conceived shortly after the Sunrise Movement stormed the halls of power in Washington , demanding a Green New Deal .
That challenge was immediately picked up by Ocasio-Cortez and then quickly echoed by several @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democratic Party — most notably , Bernie Sanders .
“ A Message From the Future ” was an attempt to help viewers envision what the world could look like if the Green New Deal was actually the governing framework in the largest economy on the planet .
Because , as Ocasio-Cortez said in the voiceover , “ You can ’ t be what you can ’ t see.
” As we all know , U.S. politics is in a very different place today .
Sanders lost the primaries , as did every other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of transformational policy .
The only viable hope of unseating Donald Trump is a presidential ticket crafted to tightly hug the political center , while fending off the demands animating progressive movements , whether to defund the police , or provide free universal health care , or introduce a sweeping Green New Deal .
Beating Trump is urgent , about that I have no doubt .
But while doing so is necessary to fend off naked authoritarianism in the White House , it is decidedly not enough to escape the many other intersecting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world : whether climate collapse , surging white supremacy , or widespread famine .
These unyielding political facts makes our path to a nonapocalyptic future distinctly less clear than it was one year ago .
And so the question : Is it ethical to expend energy dreaming of a another world when so many fires need extinguishing right now ?
On the other hand , if we stop talking about what winning actually looks like , isn ’ t that the same as giving up ?
Besides , are we so sure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has already ushered in changes few imagined or foretold just a few months ago .
Entire high-carbon , high-consumption industries are on their knees : cruise ships , airlines , fashion .
The Movement for Black Lives has redrawn the political map , and nurses are local heroes .
If this isn ’ t the time to advance a vision of the world governed by radically more humane and inclusive values , when is ?
We called Molly , who had been painting portraits of essential workers and projecting them on the sides @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conversation about the role of futurism in moments when so much seems lost .
Tentatively , we began to brainstorm about crafting a second “ Message From the Future , ” one shaped by burning cities and burning forests and , of course , a highly contagious and deadly virus .
Opal Tometi , a co-founder of Black Lives Matter and longtime migrant rights advocate , joined us as co-author and co-narrator .
And over the months of lockdown and deadly reopenings , a picture of a possible , beautiful future slowly came @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and perilous path to getting there .
We knew a few things from the start .
First , that in the midst of such a transnational set of crises , the film needed to feel and sound distinctly more global than the last one , where all of the action took place in the U.S. We also knew that we needed to show more fight this time — the street battles and the general strikes that must be escalated and won before any kind of safe , humane future is even a prospect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politician , no matter how progressive , could be the protagonist of the sequel .
This time , rank-and-file organizers and activists would be the stars .
Given the array of corporate powers resisting change , and the bleak electoral options on offer , social movements are now the only force left with the power to grab the wheel of history and veer us off our current deadly trajectory .
And not one or two movements , but an unprecedented convergence and collaboration of disparate and often divided political strains : organized labor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , feminist , disabled , migrant , queer , unhoused , worker cooperatives , and more .
Everyone locked out of the elite Great Gorging ( it ’ s not a Great Depression ) will be needed , along with a common vision that weaves together each of these movements ’ boldest and most transformational demands .
A short piece of art is not a political platform , and so it was never our goal to be comprehensive .
Rather , we looked for threads of connection in the hopes that they would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Covid-19 acts as a kind of character in the drama , almost like a tough teacher instructing humanity in a series of lessons that should have been obvious long ago .
Lessons about the essential labor that makes life possible and enjoyable — and yet has been so persistently discounted .
Lessons about systemic racism as an assault on the human body , one that makes it more vulnerable on every front .
Lessons about how community is our best technology , especially during times of crisis .
Lessons about how damage done @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back on us , whether in the form of disease or climate disruption or both .
Lessons , too , about the risks and deadly cruelty of warehousing human beings : in prisons , immigrant detention camps , and for-profit old-age homes , as well as in cavernous meatpacking plants and sprawling “ fulfillment centers.
” Hidden from prying eyes , so many people are packed together in these inhuman institutions — treated as if they have no inherent value whatsoever , in the case of prisons , or as if they are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plants , or animal carcasses they prepare for consumption .
It was in these places , already so sick , that the virus spread like wildfire .
Another Covid-19 lesson we wanted to highlight had to do with why the abuses that long predated the pandemic suddenly received so much more attention during it .
It ’ s a lesson , perhaps , about the relationship between speed and solidarity .
Because for those of us privileged enough to self-isolate , the virus forced a radical and sudden slowdown , a paring and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that was undertaken in a bid to stop the virus ’ s spread .
But that slowness had other , unintended effects as well .
It turns out that when the deafening roar of capitalism-as-usual quiets , even a little , our capacity to notice things that were hidden in plain view may grow and expand .
For some , that awareness has expanded to encompass the cruelty of those long-ignored human warehouses .
For others , it has stretched to include the previously drowned out sounds and sights of the natural world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terror and tenderness , ” as Opal and Avi put it in the script , a great many people found new capacity to stand up for Black lives in the face of unremitting state violence .
There is no one answer or simple explanation for why we find ourselves in the throes of the deepest and most sustained public reckoning in a half-century with the evil that is white supremacy .
But we can not discount the “ solidarity in vulnerability that the pandemic has generated , ” as Eddie Glaude Jr. put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ highly relevant biography of James Baldwin , “ Begin Again.
” In forcing all of us to confront the porousness of our own bodies in relationship to the vast web of other bodies that sustain us and the people we love — caregivers , farmers , supermarket clerks , street cleaners , and more — the coronavirus instantly exploded the cherished , market-manufactured myth of the individual as self-made island .
Consciousness of our own vulnerability , as Glaude says , can sow solidarity .
Especially when that consciousness is combined with more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the velocity of pre-pandemic life , endlessly striving and climbing , frantically making sure that we do not fall behind , busyness can act as a deadening agent .
There is no time to think about who makes our stuff or where our trash goes or what wars — domestic and international — are waged in our name .
And certainly , there is no time , or so we have so often been told , to look back at the past and present terror committed against Black and Indigenous peoples — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vast wealth on which contemporary capitalism rests .
A system that must always move faster , and grow bigger , or else face collapse .
For all of these reasons and more , as we searched for a unifying principle that could animate a future worth fighting for , we settled on “ The Years of Repair.
” The call to repair a deep brokenness has roots in many radical and religious traditions .
And it provides a framework expansive enough to connect the interlocking crises in our social , economic , political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Repair work speaks to the need to repair our broken infrastructures of care : the schools , hospitals , and elder care facilities serving the poor and working classes , infrastructures that failed the test of this virus again and again .
It also calls on us to repair the vast damage done to the natural world , to clean up toxic sites , rehabilitate wild landscapes , invest in nonpolluting energy sources .
It is also a call to begin to repair our stuff rather than endlessly replace it in an ever-accelerating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ film refers to as “ the right to repair.
” As we imagine it , the work of repair is intensely concrete and civic — it is armies of Community Care Corp workers and battalions of tree planters , rehabilitating scarred and charred landscapes .
But in heeding the seismic lessons of Covid-19 , repair work is also intensely inward and slightly ephemeral .
It is the practice of connecting , or re-pairing , those many crucial connections that our culture so systematically severs — between individuals and the communities that support them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that sustains all of life .
Even the broken connections between heart and mind that stand in the way of imagining these possible futures .
And running through it all , repair work is also the work of reparation .
A call to keep the long-denied and delayed rendezvous with history ’ s most brutal crimes and to reject , once and for all , the web of flattering and dangerous lies that passes for official history in so many parts of the world .
Drawing on the long-standing demands of Black and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Truth and Reparations Commission , as well as an Indigenous Land Back program , with both of them helping to shape the priorities of how and where we repair broken ecosystems , schools , transit systems , hospitals , and more .
At its most profound level , the Years of Repair are a call to repair the broken stories — of supremacy and dominance — that brought us to this harrowing precipice .
It is this work that is most vital as we confront the reality of ecological unraveling .
The truth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for human habitation is going to contract , even if we do everything right .
And as more and more of us are forced to migrate , inside countries and between them , committing ourselves , as never before , to the inherent value of life will be our only defense against eco-fascism .
These are revolutionary demands , but unlike some revolutionary movements , an ethos of repair reminds us that the cumulative impacts of centuries of violence and decades of what Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls “ organized abandonment ” will not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be steering us toward the promise of a fresh start , clean break , or reboot .
But a posture of repair , or what Rev .
William Barber has termed the “ Third Reconstruction , ” reminds us that before we advance — in order to advance — we first need to fix what is broken .
The communities left in ruins .
The spirits deliberately broken .
The broken stories of domination and dominion that provided the cover stories for this cruelty .
This is urgent work that nonetheless can not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not starting from anything near scratch .
Radical anti-colonial , racial justice , and Black feminist movements have been advancing these deeper meanings of repair for nearly two centuries , teasing out what reparation and true reconstruction can and should mean .
Climate justice activists , more recently , have been developing models that meet multiple reparative needs simultaneously ( which is the underlying philosophy of any transformative Green New Deal ) .
It is this work that animates the future world we portrayed on film .
A world with shuttered prisons , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with families fed by local farmers and housed in beautiful , green public housing , built to enhance community and break the barriers of isolation .
A world where the resources currently spent on the sprawling infrastructures of coercion , containment , and violence are shifted to a vast infrastructure of care and repair .
But it ’ s not all rosy .
Part of the story we tell in “ Message From the Future II ” involves things getting worse — more novel viruses , more ecological unraveling , more racist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ times to come is not based on any accelerationist longings on our part but rather on clear-eyed readings of climate models , market bubbles , and who has the guns .
Many future shocks are already locked in .
We didn ’ t , however , expect our forecasts to come true quite so soon .
In fact , we were already far enough along that storyboards were complete when huge swaths of the Western United States were devoured by September ’ s historic wildfires .
When photographs began circulating of an eerie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Signal Molly Crabapple to make sure she had seen that it precisely matched the color palette she had chosen for the opening of our film .
In truth , predicting a future that looks like our present , only worse , is dead easy .
Some version of that future has been the plotline of countless cli-fi books , films , and television series — many of them very good .
Gael García Bernal , one of our film ’ s narrators , has been cast in an upcoming miniseries adaptation of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , pandemic-themed novel , “ Station Eleven.
” And Emma Thompson , another of our narrators , co-stars in my favorite recent dystopian offering , HBO ’ s “ Years and Years.
” She is terrifying as a distinctly Trumpian U.K. Prime Minister , promising to bring back British glory even as she constructs an archipelago of refugee black sites .
The authors of these bleak narratives are trying to warn us .
The catch may be this : If the only portrayals of the future we ever see are of some mix-and-match @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forecasts can start to feel inevitable — less like warnings and more like prophecy .
Moreover , given the powerful positions occupied by Christian nationalists in the Trump administration ( and perhaps soon , the Supreme Court ) , it is always worth remembering that the most hardwired apocalyptic storyline in our culture is that of the Rapture , when a small group of believers are lifted up to a kingdom in the sky while nonbelievers are swallowed up in the hell they ( we ) deserve .
Seen through this lens , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ living through — the diseases , the droughts , the floods , the extinctions , the hunger , the political mayhem — are not warning signs at all .
On the contrary , they are salutory items on a preordained Rapture checklist — proof positive that the exciting end is nigh , so pray harder to make sure you are among the saved .
Apocalyptic fantasies , in other words , are part of what landed us here .
So as difficult as it may be right now to imagine a future that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we have to keep trying .
However , for futurism to be more than wild-eyed fantasy , there has to be a credible path to get there from here .
Which is why , once we had the script and the storyboards , Avi , Opal , and I started reaching out to groups whose organizing and theorizing shape the future portrayed in the film .
So today , as we send the film into the world , we are also able to announce a powerful launch coalition of groups and networks that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use it in their organizing .
This growing alliance includes : the Movement for Black Lives , Greenpeace International , Public Services International ( with its more than 700 member unions representing 30 million workers worldwide ) , La Vía Campesina ( representing some 200 million small farmers ) , NDN Collective ( organizing around a comprehensive vision of decolonization and Indigenous self-determination ) , Global Nurses United ( representing so many front-line health workers ) , Amazon Watch , One Billion Rising ( a global movement to end violence against women and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dream Defenders , as well as the Institute for Policy Studies ( which has long been advancing many of these ideas ) , and the organization Avi and I co-founded , The Leap .
For us , the beauty of “ Message From the Future II : The Years of Repair ” flows from the magic of Molly Crabapple ’ s paint brushes , as well as from directors Jim Batt and Kim Boekbinder ’ s expert editing and sound design .
But the true power and possibility of this project is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of movements that is fighting for this vision of radical repair every day .
If any of us still have the right to be hopeful , it is because of them .
This video was produced in partnership with The Leap .

Do we even have a right to be hopeful? With political and ecological fires raging all around, is it irresponsible to imagine a future world radically better than our own? A world without prisons? Of beautiful, green public housing? Of buried border walls? Of healed ecosystems? A world where governments fear the people instead of the other way around?
These are questions we wrestled with as we conceived of a sequel to last year’s Emmy-nominated short, “A Message From the Future with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.” The first film, co-written by the congresswoman and illustrated by Molly Crabapple, was set in a can-do, cli-fi future: one in which bold, progressive politicians joined with grassroots movements to launch the “Decade of the Green New Deal,” battling poverty, injustice, and climate disruption all at the same time. The film touched a nerve and ended up being viewed more than 12 million times, convincing our little team of the need for more art that departs from well-worn apocalyptic scripts.
Then Covid-19 hit.
About a month into the pandemic lockdown, I started talking with my partner Avi Lewis, who co-wrote and produced the last film, about whether the utopian imagination could possibly have a role to play in this markedly less optimistic political moment.
We honestly weren’t sure. Last time, we could see a clear if narrow political path to the hopeful future Molly Crabapple illustrated. The piece was conceived shortly after the Sunrise Movement stormed the halls of power in Washington, demanding a Green New Deal. That challenge was immediately picked up by Ocasio-Cortez and then quickly echoed by several of the top contenders to lead the Democratic Party — most notably, Bernie Sanders. “A Message From the Future” was an attempt to help viewers envision what the world could look like if the Green New Deal was actually the governing framework in the largest economy on the planet. Because, as Ocasio-Cortez said in the voiceover, “You can’t be what you can’t see.”
As we all know, U.S. politics is in a very different place today. Sanders lost the primaries, as did every other candidate who seemed to grasp the urgency of transformational policy. The only viable hope of unseating Donald Trump is a presidential ticket crafted to tightly hug the political center, while fending off the demands animating progressive movements, whether to defund the police, or provide free universal health care, or introduce a sweeping Green New Deal.
Beating Trump is urgent, about that I have no doubt. But while doing so is necessary to fend off naked authoritarianism in the White House, it is decidedly not enough to escape the many other intersecting crises bearing down on the country and the world: whether climate collapse, surging white supremacy, or widespread famine. These unyielding political facts makes our path to a nonapocalyptic future distinctly less clear than it was one year ago. And so the question: Is it ethical to expend energy dreaming of a another world when so many fires need extinguishing right now? On the other hand, if we stop talking about what winning actually looks like, isn’t that the same as giving up? Besides, are we so sure big wins are impossible? The coronavirus has already ushered in changes few imagined or foretold just a few months ago. Entire high-carbon, high-consumption industries are on their knees: cruise ships, airlines, fashion. The Movement for Black Lives has redrawn the political map, and nurses are local heroes. If this isn’t the time to advance a vision of the world governed by radically more humane and inclusive values, when is?
We called Molly, who had been painting portraits of essential workers and projecting them on the sides of Manhattan buildings, and started a conversation about the role of futurism in moments when so much seems lost. Tentatively, we began to brainstorm about crafting a second “Message From the Future,” one shaped by burning cities and burning forests and, of course, a highly contagious and deadly virus.
Opal Tometi, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter and longtime migrant rights advocate, joined us as co-author and co-narrator. And over the months of lockdown and deadly reopenings, a picture of a possible, beautiful future slowly came into focus, along with a steep and perilous path to getting there.
We knew a few things from the start. First, that in the midst of such a transnational set of crises, the film needed to feel and sound distinctly more global than the last one, where all of the action took place in the U.S. We also knew that we needed to show more fight this time — the street battles and the general strikes that must be escalated and won before any kind of safe, humane future is even a prospect.
Covid-19 acts as a kind of character in the drama, almost like a tough teacher instructing humanity in a series of lessons that should have been obvious long ago.
Finally, and relatedly, no politician, no matter how progressive, could be the protagonist of the sequel. This time, rank-and-file organizers and activists would be the stars. Given the array of corporate powers resisting change, and the bleak electoral options on offer, social movements are now the only force left with the power to grab the wheel of history and veer us off our current deadly trajectory. And not one or two movements, but an unprecedented convergence and collaboration of disparate and often divided political strains: organized labor, Black liberation, climate, Indigenous, feminist, disabled, migrant, queer, unhoused, worker cooperatives, and more. Everyone locked out of the elite Great Gorging (it’s not a Great Depression) will be needed, along with a common vision that weaves together each of these movements’ boldest and most transformational demands.
A short piece of art is not a political platform, and so it was never our goal to be comprehensive. Rather, we looked for threads of connection in the hopes that they would inspire more. In the film, Covid-19 acts as a kind of character in the drama, almost like a tough teacher instructing humanity in a series of lessons that should have been obvious long ago. Lessons about the essential labor that makes life possible and enjoyable — and yet has been so persistently discounted. Lessons about systemic racism as an assault on the human body, one that makes it more vulnerable on every front. Lessons about how community is our best technology, especially during times of crisis. Lessons about how damage done to the natural world will invariably blow back on us, whether in the form of disease or climate disruption or both.
Still: Molly Crabapple
Lessons, too, about the risks and deadly cruelty of warehousing human beings: in prisons, immigrant detention camps, and for-profit old-age homes, as well as in cavernous meatpacking plants and sprawling “fulfillment centers.” Hidden from prying eyes, so many people are packed together in these inhuman institutions — treated as if they have no inherent value whatsoever, in the case of prisons, or as if they are distinctly less valuable than the products, plants, or animal carcasses they prepare for consumption. It was in these places, already so sick, that the virus spread like wildfire.
Another Covid-19 lesson we wanted to highlight had to do with why the abuses that long predated the pandemic suddenly received so much more attention during it. It’s a lesson, perhaps, about the relationship between speed and solidarity. Because for those of us privileged enough to self-isolate, the virus forced a radical and sudden slowdown, a paring and editing down of life to its essentials that was undertaken in a bid to stop the virus’s spread. But that slowness had other, unintended effects as well. It turns out that when the deafening roar of capitalism-as-usual quiets, even a little, our capacity to notice things that were hidden in plain view may grow and expand.
The coronavirus instantly exploded the cherished, market-manufactured myth of the individual as self-made island.
For some, that awareness has expanded to encompass the cruelty of those long-ignored human warehouses. For others, it has stretched to include the previously drowned out sounds and sights of the natural world. And during this time of “terror and tenderness,” as Opal and Avi put it in the script, a great many people found new capacity to stand up for Black lives in the face of unremitting state violence.
There is no one answer or simple explanation for why we find ourselves in the throes of the deepest and most sustained public reckoning in a half-century with the evil that is white supremacy. But we cannot discount the “solidarity in vulnerability that the pandemic has generated,” as Eddie Glaude Jr. put it, while discussing his brilliant and highly relevant biography of James Baldwin, “Begin Again.” In forcing all of us to confront the porousness of our own bodies in relationship to the vast web of other bodies that sustain us and the people we love — caregivers, farmers, supermarket clerks, street cleaners, and more — the coronavirus instantly exploded the cherished, market-manufactured myth of the individual as self-made island.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
Consciousness of our own vulnerability, as Glaude says, can sow solidarity. Especially when that consciousness is combined with more time. Because when we are moving at the velocity of pre-pandemic life, endlessly striving and climbing, frantically making sure that we do not fall behind, busyness can act as a deadening agent. There is no time to think about who makes our stuff or where our trash goes or what wars — domestic and international — are waged in our name. And certainly, there is no time, or so we have so often been told, to look back at the past and present terror committed against Black and Indigenous peoples — crimes so profitable that they produced the vast wealth on which contemporary capitalism rests. A system that must always move faster, and grow bigger, or else face collapse.
For all of these reasons and more, as we searched for a unifying principle that could animate a future worth fighting for, we settled on “The Years of Repair.” The call to repair a deep brokenness has roots in many radical and religious traditions. And it provides a framework expansive enough to connect the interlocking crises in our social, economic, political, informational, and ecological spheres.
Repair work speaks to the need to repair our broken infrastructures of care: the schools, hospitals, and elder care facilities serving the poor and working classes, infrastructures that failed the test of this virus again and again. It also calls on us to repair the vast damage done to the natural world, to clean up toxic sites, rehabilitate wild landscapes, invest in nonpolluting energy sources. It is also a call to begin to repair our stuff rather than endlessly replace it in an ever-accelerating cycle of planned obsolescence — what the film refers to as “the right to repair.”
Still: Molly Crabapple
As we imagine it, the work of repair is intensely concrete and civic — it is armies of Community Care Corp workers and battalions of tree planters, rehabilitating scarred and charred landscapes. But in heeding the seismic lessons of Covid-19, repair work is also intensely inward and slightly ephemeral. It is the practice of connecting, or re-pairing, those many crucial connections that our culture so systematically severs — between individuals and the communities that support them, between humans and the more-than-human world that sustains all of life. Even the broken connections between heart and mind that stand in the way of imagining these possible futures.
And running through it all, repair work is also the work of reparation. A call to keep the long-denied and delayed rendezvous with history’s most brutal crimes and to reject, once and for all, the web of flattering and dangerous lies that passes for official history in so many parts of the world. Drawing on the long-standing demands of Black and Indigenous movements, the film imagines a Truth and Reparations Commission, as well as an Indigenous Land Back program, with both of them helping to shape the priorities of how and where we repair broken ecosystems, schools, transit systems, hospitals, and more.
At its most profound level, the Years of Repair are a call to repair the broken stories — of supremacy and dominance — that brought us to this harrowing precipice. It is this work that is most vital as we confront the reality of ecological unraveling. The truth is that the amount of land fit for human habitation is going to contract, even if we do everything right. And as more and more of us are forced to migrate, inside countries and between them, committing ourselves, as never before, to the inherent value of life will be our only defense against eco-fascism.
These are revolutionary demands, but unlike some revolutionary movements, an ethos of repair reminds us that the cumulative impacts of centuries of violence and decades of what Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls “organized abandonment” will not be fixed overnight. Capitalism may always be steering us toward the promise of a fresh start, clean break, or reboot. But a posture of repair, or what Rev. William Barber has termed the “Third Reconstruction,” reminds us that before we advance — in order to advance — we first need to fix what is broken. The communities left in ruins. The spirits deliberately broken. The broken stories of domination and dominion that provided the cover stories for this cruelty. This is urgent work that nonetheless cannot be rushed.
Fortunately, we are not starting from anything near scratch. Radical anti-colonial, racial justice, and Black feminist movements have been advancing these deeper meanings of repair for nearly two centuries, teasing out what reparation and true reconstruction can and should mean. Climate justice activists, more recently, have been developing models that meet multiple reparative needs simultaneously (which is the underlying philosophy of any transformative Green New Deal).
It is this work that animates the future world we portrayed on film. A world with shuttered prisons, with far more land under Indigenous jurisdiction, with families fed by local farmers and housed in beautiful, green public housing, built to enhance community and break the barriers of isolation. A world where the resources currently spent on the sprawling infrastructures of coercion, containment, and violence are shifted to a vast infrastructure of care and repair.
But it’s not all rosy. Part of the story we tell in “Message From the Future II” involves things getting worse — more novel viruses, more ecological unraveling, more racist state violence. This preview of worse times to come is not based on any accelerationist longings on our part but rather on clear-eyed readings of climate models, market bubbles, and who has the guns. Many future shocks are already locked in.
We didn’t, however, expect our forecasts to come true quite so soon. In fact, we were already far enough along that storyboards were complete when huge swaths of the Western United States were devoured by September’s historic wildfires. When photographs began circulating of an eerie Mars-like sky over Oregon, I had to Signal Molly Crabapple to make sure she had seen that it precisely matched the color palette she had chosen for the opening of our film.
In truth, predicting a future that looks like our present, only worse, is dead easy. Some version of that future has been the plotline of countless cli-fi books, films, and television series — many of them very good. Gael García Bernal, one of our film’s narrators, has been cast in an upcoming miniseries adaptation of Emily St. John Mandel’s prophetic, pandemic-themed novel, “Station Eleven.” And Emma Thompson, another of our narrators, co-stars in my favorite recent dystopian offering, HBO’s “Years and Years.” She is terrifying as a distinctly Trumpian U.K. Prime Minister, promising to bring back British glory even as she constructs an archipelago of refugee black sites.
The authors of these bleak narratives are trying to warn us. The catch may be this: If the only portrayals of the future we ever see are of some mix-and-match of fascism and ecological collapse, the forecasts can start to feel inevitable — less like warnings and more like prophecy.
Moreover, given the powerful positions occupied by Christian nationalists in the Trump administration (and perhaps soon, the Supreme Court), it is always worth remembering that the most hardwired apocalyptic storyline in our culture is that of the Rapture, when a small group of believers are lifted up to a kingdom in the sky while nonbelievers are swallowed up in the hell they (we) deserve. Seen through this lens, the conflagration of crises we are currently living through — the diseases, the droughts, the floods, the extinctions, the hunger, the political mayhem — are not warning signs at all. On the contrary, they are salutory items on a preordained Rapture checklist — proof positive that the exciting end is nigh, so pray harder to make sure you are among the saved.
Apocalyptic fantasies, in other words, are part of what landed us here. So as difficult as it may be right now to imagine a future that is genuinely better than our present, we have to keep trying. However, for futurism to be more than wild-eyed fantasy, there has to be a credible path to get there from here.
Which is why, once we had the script and the storyboards, Avi, Opal, and I started reaching out to groups whose organizing and theorizing shape the future portrayed in the film. So today, as we send the film into the world, we are also able to announce a powerful launch coalition of groups and networks that have united to push it out and use it in their organizing. This growing alliance includes: the Movement for Black Lives, Greenpeace International, Public Services International (with its more than 700 member unions representing 30 million workers worldwide), La Vía Campesina (representing some 200 million small farmers), NDN Collective (organizing around a comprehensive vision of decolonization and Indigenous self-determination), Global Nurses United (representing so many front-line health workers), Amazon Watch, One Billion Rising (a global movement to end violence against women and girls), the Sunrise Movement, Dream Defenders, as well as the Institute for Policy Studies (which has long been advancing many of these ideas), and the organization Avi and I co-founded, The Leap.
For us, the beauty of “Message From the Future II: The Years of Repair” flows from the magic of Molly Crabapple’s paint brushes, as well as from directors Jim Batt and Kim Boekbinder’s expert editing and sound design. But the true power and possibility of this project is not onscreen. That resides in the movement of movements that is fighting for this vision of radical repair every day.
If any of us still have the right to be hopeful, it is because of them.
This video was produced in partnership with The Leap.


theintercept--2020-10-03--In Key Election for Climate, Sen. Steve Daines Deceives Montana on His Public Lands Record

presidential debate moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News asked President Donald Trump , “ Do you believe that human pollution — greenhouse gas emissions — contributes to the global warming of the planet ?
” “ I think to an extent , yes , but I also think we have to do better management of our forests , ” the president said .
“ Every year , I get the call : California ’ s burning , California ’ s burning .
If that was cleaned , if you had forest management — good forest management — you wouldn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s a frequent refrain for Trump , but not only for Trump .
A day earlier , Sen. Steve Daines , R-Mont.
, who is locked in a tight reelection race with Montana ’ s Democratic Gov .
Steve Bullock , had gotten a similar question .
And Daines gave a similar response : “ Humans play a role in terms of a variable on climate change , ” he said , and pointed to bipartisan “ forest management ” legislation he co-sponsored with Sen. Diane Feinstein , a Democrat from California @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on timber harvests but does not meaningfully address the defining role of climate change .
It ’ s a dual talking point that has become doctrine for politicians seeking to protect the oil , gas , and coal industries from the inescapable reality of the climate crisis — and one that highlights sharp contrasts between the candidates in both the presidential election and the Montana Senate race , one of a handful of battleground elections that will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the U.S. Senate .
Scientists say that dramatic reductions in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the next 10 years to avoid the most life-transforming impacts of the climate crisis .
Much has been made of how important the presidential election will be in determining whether the scientific guidelines on the climate crisis will be followed .
But the contest for who controls the U.S. Senate is hugely important as well , since only Congress can pass ambitious climate legislation needed to confront the problem , and , so far , only Democrats have shown an openness to follow scientists ’ urgent appeals .
With the House of Representatives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a handful of close Senate races , like the one in Montana , are poised to define the U.S. ’ s climate change policies .
“ If Biden and Harris win the White House , we need to net three Senate seats in order to flip to a pro-environment majority , ” said League of Conservation Voters National Press Secretary Emily Samsel , referring to the Democratic presidential ticket of Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris of California .
“ Montana is one of our best opportunities to net a pro-environment Senate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ neck with most polls showing it within the margin of error.
” Daines is betting the race against Bullock on convincing Montanans that he will protect the state ’ s iconic lands and waters .
His campaign ads feature sweeping images of Montana ’ s spectacular mountains and rivers and snapshots of the senator ’ s fishing and hiking trips .
Daines has repeatedly touted his recent role in passing a law providing permanent funding for the popular Land and Water Conservation Fund , which uses money from offshore oil production to pay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the senator ’ s record undermines his claims of protecting public lands .
In years when he wasn ’ t running a tough reelection campaign , he voted against reauthorization for the LWCF and to cut its funds .
Nothing , however , reveals the senator ’ s shortcomings on the environment like his refusal to address the climate crisis , instead working to serve the industries hastening it .
Enter the “ forest management ” trope , a favorite theme throughout Daines ’ s Senate tenure .
He has repeatedly blamed “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that without environmental groups ’ lawsuits , “ tree thinning ” could benefit the timber industry while simultaneously quelling the fires — a win-win situation .
It ’ s a scenario that does not match reality , said Cathy Whitlock , director of Montana State University ’ s Paleoecology Lab and lead author of the landmark Montana Climate Assessment .
“ It ’ s really easy to say that our forests are mismanaged , and that is the cause of these fires , but that ’ s just not true , ” she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fires are climate-driven.
” Montana has already heated faster than the rest of the nation .
Average temperatures have gone up 2 to 3 degrees depending on where you are in the state and have already melted most of Glacier National Park ’ s namesake glaciers , made streams too warm for fishing during certain periods , shifted elk migration patterns , and exacerbated wildfires that destroy homes and businesses .
At the heart of the Montana Climate Assessment are two different options for Montana ’ s future , which depend solely on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
On one end of the spectrum , scientists examined what would happen if , within 10 to 20 years , across the entire globe , humans have stopped adding any new carbon dioxide to the atmosphere .
By 2100 , temperatures would still rise more than 5 degrees , the study found , and Montanans would deal with between a week and a month of additional days at or above 90 degrees .
On the other end of the spectrum , the scientists looked at what would happen if current fossil fuel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ possible despite tepid moves to cut emissions .
Under the business-as-usual scenario , Montana temperatures could rise nearly 10 degrees , and residents will get between 34 and 54 more 90-degree days .
Not only would the rises mean that those who can not afford air conditioning will experience more oppressive heat , but one of the state ’ s leading industries , agriculture , would also be deeply affected .
“ In terms of agriculture , it will mean a lot , ” said Whitlock .
In the business-as-usual scenario , rising @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fewer below-freezing days , meaning much less snow .
“ The snow is like a water tower at the tops of our mountains .
As long as you can keep things in snow , and melt the snow slowly , then you have water through the spring and into the middle of the summer , ” Whitlock explained .
“ If you don ’ t get that snow , because it turned to rain , it will be lost from that water tower really quickly .
So we end up with water towers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they ’ re also draining really fast.
” By the time the hot days come , water sources will already be dry , so droughts will be more severe and fires will burn more intensely .
Climate change will affect the state ’ s legendary landscape for outdoor recreation — from snow sports to fishing to just hiking and camping in the mountains — especially without proper management .
And crises elsewhere could lead to climate refugees arriving in cooler , high-altitude Montana , which could in turn bring economic growth but also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be transformed .
“ My granddaughter — boy , she ’ s going to live in a different world , and I ’ m not sure I will be able to share anything I enjoy with her because everything is changing so fast , ” said Whitlock .
“ We ’ re really at the point where we need action now.
” As Monday ’ s debate continued , Daines , who has accepted $ 467,049 in oil and gas donations during the 2020 election cycle so far , suggested that “ American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emissions cuts .
“ We need to keep coal , oil , and natural gas in this all-of-the-above energy portfolio , ” he said .
The science disagrees .
“ It ’ s pretty clear that we have to just get off of using fossil fuels and move to renewables by midcentury , ” Whitlock said .
A letter from Daines to Trump in 2016 , when he was transitioning to the presidency , demonstrates how unlikely the Montana senator is to do the work to reduce emissions .
He provided a list @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would make .
Daines urged Trump to kill the Clean Power Plan , the Obama administration ’ s primary policy to address the climate crisis ; end the moratorium on federal coal leasing ; approve new coal export terminals ; eliminate a rule that would reduce pollution from methane , a major greenhouse gas ; and approve the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline , a project that is key to allowing Canadian companies to continue to pump out some of the most high-polluting oil in the world .
Trump followed through on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bullock , Daines ’ s opponent , is not exactly an environmentalist icon .
He accepted $ 32,103 in oil and gas donations during his failed campaign for president and $ 63,310 for his Senate campaign .
As governor , he allowed construction to move forward on the Keystone XL pipeline during the height of the pandemic , and , during his presidential bid , he said he was open to supporting the project “ if it ’ s done right ” — something Indigenous-led opponents of the pipeline say is impossible .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ package of climate and economic polices known as the Green New Deal ; does not want to ban oil and gas drilling on public land ; and does not support a fracking ban .
However , as governor , he did launch the Montana Climate Solutions Caucus , which issued a plan last month with dozens of concrete steps the state will make to address the crisis .
And he filed a successful lawsuit to oust the acting director of the federal Bureau of Land Management , William Perry Pendley , who had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lands for more than a year without ever being confirmed by the Senate .
In 2016 , Pendley called for the sale of nearly all — if not all — federal public lands to the states , a move that would pave the way for extractive industries .
( Neither the Daines nor Bullock campaigns responded to requests for comment . )
In contrast to Bullock , Daines supported Pendley ’ s appointment as recently as 2019 , but declared that he was undecided on Pendley ’ s nomination as the acting BLM @ @ @ @ @ @ @ away from fossil fuels won ’ t be easy for Montana : The state ’ s tax revenue is heavily dependent on the fossil fuel industry .
“ There ’ s going to be some tough transitions for some economies in the state , but there are huge opportunities for economic innovations , ” Whitlock said .
“ We have our head in the sand if we think coal is going to be prominent in our future , and we need to help those communities dependent on it transition out , so they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proudly assert their Montana roots , ” Whitlock said , “ and it ’ s really time for us to get serious about the next generation .
”

On Tuesday, presidential debate moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News asked President Donald Trump, “Do you believe that human pollution — greenhouse gas emissions — contributes to the global warming of the planet?”
“I think to an extent, yes, but I also think we have to do better management of our forests,” the president said. “Every year, I get the call: California’s burning, California’s burning. If that was cleaned, if you had forest management — good forest management — you wouldn’t be getting those calls.”
It’s a frequent refrain for Trump, but not only for Trump. A day earlier, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who is locked in a tight reelection race with Montana’s Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock, had gotten a similar question. And Daines gave a similar response: “Humans play a role in terms of a variable on climate change,” he said, and pointed to bipartisan “forest management” legislation he co-sponsored with Sen. Diane Feinstein, a Democrat from California. The bill would lessen some restrictions on timber harvests but does not meaningfully address the defining role of climate change.
It’s a dual talking point that has become doctrine for politicians seeking to protect the oil, gas, and coal industries from the inescapable reality of the climate crisis — and one that highlights sharp contrasts between the candidates in both the presidential election and the Montana Senate race, one of a handful of battleground elections that will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the U.S. Senate.
Scientists say that dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions must be made over the next 10 years to avoid the most life-transforming impacts of the climate crisis. Much has been made of how important the presidential election will be in determining whether the scientific guidelines on the climate crisis will be followed. But the contest for who controls the U.S. Senate is hugely important as well, since only Congress can pass ambitious climate legislation needed to confront the problem, and, so far, only Democrats have shown an openness to follow scientists’ urgent appeals.
With the House of Representatives likely to remain under a Democratic majority, a handful of close Senate races, like the one in Montana, are poised to define the U.S.’s climate change policies.
“Montana is one of our best opportunities to net a pro-environment Senate seat. The race is neck and neck with most polls showing it within the margin of error.”
“If Biden and Harris win the White House, we need to net three Senate seats in order to flip to a pro-environment majority,” said League of Conservation Voters National Press Secretary Emily Samsel, referring to the Democratic presidential ticket of Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris of California. “Montana is one of our best opportunities to net a pro-environment Senate seat. The race is neck and neck with most polls showing it within the margin of error.”
Daines is betting the race against Bullock on convincing Montanans that he will protect the state’s iconic lands and waters. His campaign ads feature sweeping images of Montana’s spectacular mountains and rivers and snapshots of the senator’s fishing and hiking trips. Daines has repeatedly touted his recent role in passing a law providing permanent funding for the popular Land and Water Conservation Fund, which uses money from offshore oil production to pay for conservation projects.
But much of the senator’s record undermines his claims of protecting public lands. In years when he wasn’t running a tough reelection campaign, he voted against reauthorization for the LWCF and to cut its funds. Nothing, however, reveals the senator’s shortcomings on the environment like his refusal to address the climate crisis, instead working to serve the industries hastening it.
Enter the “forest management” trope, a favorite theme throughout Daines’s Senate tenure. He has repeatedly blamed “environmental extremists” for wildfires, claiming that without environmental groups’ lawsuits, “tree thinning” could benefit the timber industry while simultaneously quelling the fires — a win-win situation.
It’s a scenario that does not match reality, said Cathy Whitlock, director of Montana State University’s Paleoecology Lab and lead author of the landmark Montana Climate Assessment. “It’s really easy to say that our forests are mismanaged, and that is the cause of these fires, but that’s just not true,” she told The Intercept. “These large fires are climate-driven.”
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., listens as Chuck Roady, vice president and general manager of F.H. Stoltze Land & Lumber Company, speaks during the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on the Grizzly Bear State Management Act on Sept. 9, 2020. Photo: Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images
Montana Transformed
Montana has already heated faster than the rest of the nation. Average temperatures have gone up 2 to 3 degrees depending on where you are in the state and have already melted most of Glacier National Park’s namesake glaciers, made streams too warm for fishing during certain periods, shifted elk migration patterns, and exacerbated wildfires that destroy homes and businesses.
At the heart of the Montana Climate Assessment are two different options for Montana’s future, which depend solely on how much fossil fuel emissions are reduced. On one end of the spectrum, scientists examined what would happen if, within 10 to 20 years, across the entire globe, humans have stopped adding any new carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. By 2100, temperatures would still rise more than 5 degrees, the study found, and Montanans would deal with between a week and a month of additional days at or above 90 degrees.
On the other end of the spectrum, the scientists looked at what would happen if current fossil fuel use persists, something that remains very possible despite tepid moves to cut emissions. Under the business-as-usual scenario, Montana temperatures could rise nearly 10 degrees, and residents will get between 34 and 54 more 90-degree days. Not only would the rises mean that those who cannot afford air conditioning will experience more oppressive heat, but one of the state’s leading industries, agriculture, would also be deeply affected. “In terms of agriculture, it will mean a lot,” said Whitlock.
“My granddaughter — boy, she’s going to live in a different world, and I’m not sure I will be able to share anything I enjoy with her.”
In the business-as-usual scenario, rising temperature would mean between 55 and 70 fewer below-freezing days, meaning much less snow. “The snow is like a water tower at the tops of our mountains. As long as you can keep things in snow, and melt the snow slowly, then you have water through the spring and into the middle of the summer,” Whitlock explained. “If you don’t get that snow, because it turned to rain, it will be lost from that water tower really quickly. So we end up with water towers that are not as full, and they’re also draining really fast.” By the time the hot days come, water sources will already be dry, so droughts will be more severe and fires will burn more intensely.
Climate change will affect the state’s legendary landscape for outdoor recreation — from snow sports to fishing to just hiking and camping in the mountains — especially without proper management. And crises elsewhere could lead to climate refugees arriving in cooler, high-altitude Montana, which could in turn bring economic growth but also strains on resources. The state will be transformed.
“My granddaughter — boy, she’s going to live in a different world, and I’m not sure I will be able to share anything I enjoy with her because everything is changing so fast,” said Whitlock. “We’re really at the point where we need action now.”
Daines’s Policies Worsen the Crisis
As Monday’s debate continued, Daines, who has accepted $467,049 in oil and gas donations during the 2020 election cycle so far, suggested that “American innovation” was already leading to sufficient emissions cuts. “We need to keep coal, oil, and natural gas in this all-of-the-above energy portfolio,” he said.
The science disagrees. “It’s pretty clear that we have to just get off of using fossil fuels and move to renewables by midcentury,” Whitlock said.
A letter from Daines to Trump in 2016, when he was transitioning to the presidency, demonstrates how unlikely the Montana senator is to do the work to reduce emissions. He provided a list of policy moves he hoped the president would make. Daines urged Trump to kill the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s primary policy to address the climate crisis; end the moratorium on federal coal leasing; approve new coal export terminals; eliminate a rule that would reduce pollution from methane, a major greenhouse gas; and approve the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline, a project that is key to allowing Canadian companies to continue to pump out some of the most high-polluting oil in the world. Trump followed through on almost all of those requests.
Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, left, and Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., prepare their notes before the beginning of their televised debate at the KUFM-TV studio in Missoula, Mont., on Sept. 28, 2020. Photo: Ben Allan Smith/The Missoulian/AP
Steve Bullock, Daines’s opponent, is not exactly an environmentalist icon. He accepted $32,103 in oil and gas donations during his failed campaign for president and $63,310 for his Senate campaign. As governor, he allowed construction to move forward on the Keystone XL pipeline during the height of the pandemic, and, during his presidential bid, he said he was open to supporting the project “if it’s done right” — something Indigenous-led opponents of the pipeline say is impossible. Bullock has also declined to support the package of climate and economic polices known as the Green New Deal; does not want to ban oil and gas drilling on public land; and does not support a fracking ban.
“Both candidates proudly assert their Montana roots,” Whitlock said, “and it’s really time for us to get serious about the next generation.”
However, as governor, he did launch the Montana Climate Solutions Caucus, which issued a plan last month with dozens of concrete steps the state will make to address the crisis. And he filed a successful lawsuit to oust the acting director of the federal Bureau of Land Management, William Perry Pendley, who had been put in charge of managing federal lands for more than a year without ever being confirmed by the Senate. In 2016, Pendley called for the sale of nearly all — if not all — federal public lands to the states, a move that would pave the way for extractive industries. (Neither the Daines nor Bullock campaigns responded to requests for comment.)
In contrast to Bullock, Daines supported Pendley’s appointment as recently as 2019, but declared that he was undecided on Pendley’s nomination as the acting BLM director’s popularity sank.
Shifting away from fossil fuels won’t be easy for Montana: The state’s tax revenue is heavily dependent on the fossil fuel industry. “There’s going to be some tough transitions for some economies in the state, but there are huge opportunities for economic innovations,” Whitlock said. “We have our head in the sand if we think coal is going to be prominent in our future, and we need to help those communities dependent on it transition out, so they can be successful.”
“Both candidates proudly assert their Montana roots,” Whitlock said, “and it’s really time for us to get serious about the next generation.”


theintercept--2020-10-03--Trump’s Turn From Immigration to the Enemy Within

Donald Trump describe the U.S. in 2016 was to hear a story of a nation in peril of losing its identity to waves of brown-skinned invaders .
Immigration and the border , particularly the urgent need to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico , dominated Trump ’ s campaign rhetoric .
Once in office , the president ’ s top immigration adviser , Stephen Miller , rammed through one punishing initiative after another , banning travelers from Muslim-majority countries , separating immigrant children from their parents to deter others from making the journey north , forcing tens of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases in the border ’ s most dangerous cities , and plowing through protected lands to stand up towering new sections of border wall .
Today , asylum at the border is effectively dead , and Trump ’ s Department of Homeland Security is using the coronavirus as a pretext to boot immigrants out of the country — including families , children , and babies — as swiftly as possible .
So it may have come as a surprise to some that immigration hardly came up at all in the first presidential debate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ partially due to the fact that the Trump administration ’ s framing of its priorities has evolved over the past several months , as waves of protests challenging the power and brutality of American policing have swept the country .
Without question , the anti-immigrant machinery marches on .
In July , the Migration Policy Institute catalogued more than 400 executive actions the administration has taken on immigration since Trump ’ s inauguration .
Those policies continue to impact countless individuals and families across the country and around the world every day , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ top DHS official are true , Miller has an immigration campaign of “ shock and awe ” drawn up and ready to go should Trump remain in office .
But with those efforts simultaneously in motion , the Trump administration has increasingly and prominently centered purported threats posed by leftists , anarchists , and anti-fascists in its bid to hold onto power .
This widening of the threat aperture is straight out of the authoritarian playbook , said Jason Stanley , a professor of philosophy at Yale University and author of “ How @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Them.
” “ You begin with something that separates citizens from noncitizens , ” Stanley told The Intercept , explaining how fascistic power grabs often take place .
“ You have your colonial war , your war on terror , your imperialist war that focuses on distinguishing between citizens and noncitizens , and then you direct that force inwards against your political opponents.
” In the case of Trump , the first three years of the administration featured talk of threats from MS-13 gang members , migrant caravans marching north through Mexico @ @ @ @ @ @ @ populations and more — all were couched in terms of threats to the homeland , an “ invasion ” that posed a danger to national security and warranted decisive law enforcement and military responses .
In some cases , such as the October 2018 migrant caravans that led to military deployments to the border during the midterm elections , the supposedly increased severity of the threat coincided with important electoral moments .
From the outset , the White House has argued that certain jurisdictions , so-called sanctuary cities typically run by members of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , provide cover for dangerous outsiders .
In response , DHS has launched high-profile blitzes into these cities , at times deploying militarized Border Patrol tactical units to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations deep in urban settings and often producing media-ready photo and video packages to illustrate the president ’ s resolve .
The administration ’ s framing of its adversaries entered a new phase with the killing of George Floyd and the protests that followed , as the country witnessed a challenge to the legitimacy of policing unlike anything in recent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those protests followed the traditional nonviolent civil rights model , the uprising began with a police precinct being set ablaze , and to this day , a considerable number of protesters remain unapologetic when it comes to the militancy of their demands and actions .
Against the backdrop of this upheaval , the Trump administration has embraced what Stanley would describe as the second phase of a fascistic power grab : the turn inward .
The president has described the leaderless anti-fascist movement known as antifa as a terrorist organization and the conservative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him .
As The Intercept reported in July and as a senior DHS whistleblower attested to last month , the nation ’ s top Homeland Security officials have downplayed the lethal threat from right-wing extremists and white supremacists amid the unrest , while boosting the president ’ s talk of threats from the left .
A number of the Democrat-led communities that were sanctuary cities at the beginning of the year have now been declared “ anarchist jurisdictions , ” and Border Patrol tactical teams , among other specialized federal units , have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mission .
Stanley ’ s argument is not that the U.S. currently has a fascist government — at least not yet .
Instead , he draws attention to the concerning features of Trumpism .
“ It ’ s a cult of the leader , all about Trump , ” he said .
“ It ’ s a fascist social and political movement.
” The identification of enemies is central to such movements , he argued , and quite often involves creating linkages between criminalized immigrant populations and the political left .
“ It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Stanley said , explaining the roots of Trump ’ s line of argumentation .
“ The Ku Klux Klan says Marxist Jews are trying to provoke a race war with Black Americans and they ’ re trying to bring immigrants and destroy the white race.
” Variations on this argument have become known as the “ great replacement theory , ” and it has made its way into the manifestos and online rants of murderous racist terrorists from El Paso and Pittsburgh to Norway and New Zealand .
“ The idea is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the white race , ” Stanley said .
“ Immigration is a communist plot to destroy the racial character of the nation so that the communists can take over.
” In the United States , the DHS , the nation ’ s largest law enforcement agency by far , would present an attractive tool to any would-be authoritarian looking to stem this takeover .
Customs and Border Protection alone , one of the department ’ s nearly two-dozen component agencies , has an aircraft fleet roughly the size of the Brazilian air force @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law enforcement “ fusion centers ” designed to inform state and local partners about the threats officers might face in the field .
As The Intercept reported in July , the DHS intelligence shop distributing much of that information — the same office that top DHS officials are accused of manipulating in Trump ’ s favor — has repeatedly disseminated reports describing opponents of the president ’ s border and immigration policies as domestic terrorists .
“ We have this massive quasi-military organization devoted to targeting noncitizens and vilifying them as terrorists , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ve got to do is move that over one little notch to focus on political opponents.
” In the face of the recent protests , the politicization of DHS operations that defined Trump ’ s first three and a half years in office , primarily through immigration enforcement , has soared to new heights .
Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli , the two men leading the department — both illegally occupying their posts , according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office — have repeatedly leaned into Trump ’ s argument that antifa @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , despite evidence produced by their own office and other federal law enforcement agencies that groups on the far right present the most persistent and ongoing domestic terror threat in the country .
Under their leadership , DHS immigration enforcement personnel , including Border Patrol and ICE agents , were deployed to Portland , Oregon , a site of ongoing Black Lives Matter protests , against the wishes of local elected leaders .
The move was repeatedly criticized for exacerbating rather than calming the unrest .
The ascent of Wolf and Cuccinelli is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leadership at DHS , which has effectively left in place only those who are loyal to the lone survivor of Trump ’ s original 2016 brain trust : Stephen Miller .
“ The Democratic Party for a long time historically has been the party of secession — what you ’ re seeing today is the Democratic Party returning to its roots , ” Miller told Fox News talk-show host Tucker Carlson in July , when asked about the protests in Portland .
“ The mayors of these cities that have engaged in these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , against immigration enforcement , have engaged in unprecedented activity , and this administration , for the first time in history , has taken action to restore immigration enforcement after five decades of bipartisan betrayal of the American worker.
” He added : “ This is about the survival of this country and we will not back down.
” Though best known for his war on immigrants , Miller ’ s political awakening is in fact rooted in bone-deep anti-leftism .
“ One of Stephen Miller ’ s main strengths and his original @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Jean Guerrero , an investigative journalist and author of “ Hatemonger : Stephen Miller , Donald Trump , and the White Nationalist Agenda , ” told The Intercept .
“ The focus on the left is the logical conclusion of Miller ’ s ideology.
” In her account of Miller ’ s upbringing in southern California , Guerrero details how a teenage Miller came up under David Horowitz , a man who renounced his ties to groups like the Black Panthers in the 1960s and 1970s and devoted the rest of his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ left .
In college , Guerrero explains , Miller ’ s anti-leftism became bound up in great replacement theorizing , which in turn laid the foundation for his views on immigration and border security .
“ It boils down to the idea that the United States faces an existential threat in the form of the Democratic Party partnering with Muslims and other people of color , ” Guerrero said .
“ He saw the immigration system as a way of realizing this white nationalist agenda.
” In 2015 , as an aide to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Breitbart ’ s right-wing news site to write about “ The Camp of the Saints , ” a racist French novel rooted in great replacement theory .
In addition to describing immigrants in grotesquely dehumanizing terms , the book argues that the downfall of Western civilization can be traced to the political left , particularly the “ anti-racists , ” “ agitators ” and “ anarchists , ” who stand in solidarity with refugees .
For Guerrero , it is these passages that sound increasingly relevant today .
“ A lot of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of color , which it does , ” she said .
“ But one of the most striking things to me is the echoes in the rhetoric about anti-racists in the book and what we now see in Trump ’ s reelection rhetoric , describing anti-racist protesters as agitators and anarchists and trying to paint the entire left as a mob that wants to destroy this country , which is essentially the white genocide theory.
” Among the most troubling of the president ’ s actions is his courting of armed , right-wing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nation ’ s security forces are not apolitical institutions , but rather eager and engaged supporters of his “ law and order ” agenda .
“ Stand back and stand by , ” Trump told the Proud Boys , a neo-fascist street-fighting gang , during Tuesday night ’ s debate .
The comment was widely seen as an order from the commander-in-chief to an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as a hate group , including among the group ’ s own leaders and members .
Trump also weighed in on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ self-described anti-fascist , by law enforcement in Oregon last month .
In an interview published by Vice News shortly before his death , Reinoehl said he shot and killed Aaron J. Danielson , a supporter of far-right group Patriot Prayer , days earlier in an effort to defend a friend .
An eyewitness has claimed that Reinoehl was gunned down without warning .
Referencing the killing in Tuesday night ’ s debate , Trump said law enforcement “ took care of business.
” He previously called the killing an act of “ retribution.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a 17-year-old fan of the president and the police accused of murdering two Black Lives Matter protesters and wounding a third in Kenosha , Wisconsin .
Echoing the president ’ s line , documents obtained by NBC News this week revealed that DHS personnel were directed to make sympathetic comments about the accused shooter and told that the media was falsely painting Patriot Prayer as a racist organization .
Both Danielson and Rittenhouse have achieved martyr status on the far right .
Their names were invoked again and again at a Proud @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Though small in numbers , the rally was drenched in the rhetoric of civil conflict and allegiance to the president and the nation ’ s security forces .
“ Thin Blue Line ” flags were ubiquitous at the event , as were the letters “ RWDS , ” short for the words “ right-wing death squads.
” The blurring of lines between his support in right-wing paramilitary groups and law enforcement agencies has been a consistent feature of Trump ’ s presidency .
In July , Vice President Mike Pence ’ s visit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ featured members of the local Proud Boys chapter .
Meanwhile , violent “ Back the Blue ” protests in Arizona have featured participants fantasizing about the murder of their leftist political opponents .
In an exchange Tuesday night , Trump pressed Biden to name one law enforcement agency that ’ s come out in support of his campaign .
Biden did not .
Trump , meanwhile , has enjoyed extensive support from law enforcement unions across the country , from those representing Border Patrol agents and ICE deportation officers , to the Fraternal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s been wooing the security forces his entire term , ” Stanley said .
As Tuesday night ’ s debate wrapped up , Trump explicitly encouraged his supporters to head to election polls and be on the lookout for suspicious activity in what he predicted would be “ a fraud like you ’ ve never seen.
” Courting paramilitary groups and loyal security services , calling the integrity of the election into question , and urging his supporters to take it upon themselves to respond are “ classic fascist tactics , ” Stanley @ @ @ @ @ @ @ using fascist tactics , unquestionably , and he ’ s already transformed many of these things into policy , particularly around immigration , ” he said .
“ Now he ’ s turning to his political opponents , so now we ’ re really facing the concern about transformation into a fascist regime .
”

Listening to Donald Trump describe the U.S. in 2016 was to hear a story of a nation in peril of losing its identity to waves of brown-skinned invaders. Immigration and the border, particularly the urgent need to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, dominated Trump’s campaign rhetoric. Once in office, the president’s top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, rammed through one punishing initiative after another, banning travelers from Muslim-majority countries, separating immigrant children from their parents to deter others from making the journey north, forcing tens of thousands of asylum-seekers to wait out their cases in the border’s most dangerous cities, and plowing through protected lands to stand up towering new sections of border wall. Today, asylum at the border is effectively dead, and Trump’s Department of Homeland Security is using the coronavirus as a pretext to boot immigrants out of the country — including families, children, and babies — as swiftly as possible.
So it may have come as a surprise to some that immigration hardly came up at all in the first presidential debate of 2020. This is at least partially due to the fact that the Trump administration’s framing of its priorities has evolved over the past several months, as waves of protests challenging the power and brutality of American policing have swept the country. Without question, the anti-immigrant machinery marches on. In July, the Migration Policy Institute catalogued more than 400 executive actions the administration has taken on immigration since Trump’s inauguration. Those policies continue to impact countless individuals and families across the country and around the world every day, and if the claims of a former top DHS official are true, Miller has an immigration campaign of “shock and awe” drawn up and ready to go should Trump remain in office. But with those efforts simultaneously in motion, the Trump administration has increasingly and prominently centered purported threats posed by leftists, anarchists, and anti-fascists in its bid to hold onto power. This widening of the threat aperture is straight out of the authoritarian playbook, said Jason Stanley, a professor of philosophy at Yale University and author of “How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them.”
“You begin with something that separates citizens from noncitizens,” Stanley told The Intercept, explaining how fascistic power grabs often take place. “You have your colonial war, your war on terror, your imperialist war that focuses on distinguishing between citizens and noncitizens, and then you direct that force inwards against your political opponents.”
The Trump administration has increasingly and prominently centered purported threats posed by leftists, anarchists, and anti-fascists in its bid to hold onto power.
In the case of Trump, the first three years of the administration featured talk of threats from MS-13 gang members, migrant caravans marching north through Mexico, Islamic State killers hidden among refugee populations and more — all were couched in terms of threats to the homeland, an “invasion” that posed a danger to national security and warranted decisive law enforcement and military responses. In some cases, such as the October 2018 migrant caravans that led to military deployments to the border during the midterm elections, the supposedly increased severity of the threat coincided with important electoral moments. From the outset, the White House has argued that certain jurisdictions, so-called sanctuary cities typically run by members of the president’s opposing political party, provide cover for dangerous outsiders. In response, DHS has launched high-profile blitzes into these cities, at times deploying militarized Border Patrol tactical units to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations deep in urban settings and often producing media-ready photo and video packages to illustrate the president’s resolve.
The administration’s framing of its adversaries entered a new phase with the killing of George Floyd and the protests that followed, as the country witnessed a challenge to the legitimacy of policing unlike anything in recent memory. While the vast majority of those protests followed the traditional nonviolent civil rights model, the uprising began with a police precinct being set ablaze, and to this day, a considerable number of protesters remain unapologetic when it comes to the militancy of their demands and actions. Against the backdrop of this upheaval, the Trump administration has embraced what Stanley would describe as the second phase of a fascistic power grab: the turn inward.
Anti-racist and anti-fascist protesters fight over a Confederate flag with members of far-right militias in a white pride organization rally near Stone Mountain Park in Stone Mountain, Ga., on Aug. 15, 2020. Photo: Logan Cyrus/AFP/Getty Images
The president has described the leaderless anti-fascist movement known as antifa as a terrorist organization and the conservative media ecosystem has fallen in line behind him. As The Intercept reported in July and as a senior DHS whistleblower attested to last month, the nation’s top Homeland Security officials have downplayed the lethal threat from right-wing extremists and white supremacists amid the unrest, while boosting the president’s talk of threats from the left. A number of the Democrat-led communities that were sanctuary cities at the beginning of the year have now been declared “anarchist jurisdictions,” and Border Patrol tactical teams, among other specialized federal units, have deployed to those cities with a revised mission.
Stanley’s argument is not that the U.S. currently has a fascist government — at least not yet. Instead, he draws attention to the concerning features of Trumpism. “It’s a cult of the leader, all about Trump,” he said. “It’s a fascist social and political movement.” The identification of enemies is central to such movements, he argued, and quite often involves creating linkages between criminalized immigrant populations and the political left. “It’s the KKK ideology,” Stanley said, explaining the roots of Trump’s line of argumentation. “The Ku Klux Klan says Marxist Jews are trying to provoke a race war with Black Americans and they’re trying to bring immigrants and destroy the white race.” Variations on this argument have become known as the “great replacement theory,” and it has made its way into the manifestos and online rants of murderous racist terrorists from El Paso and Pittsburgh to Norway and New Zealand. “The idea is that leftists are bringing immigrants in to destroy the white race,” Stanley said. “Immigration is a communist plot to destroy the racial character of the nation so that the communists can take over.”
“The idea is that leftists are bringing immigrants in to destroy the white race. Immigration is a communist plot to destroy the racial character of the nation so that the communists can take over.”
In the United States, the DHS, the nation’s largest law enforcement agency by far, would present an attractive tool to any would-be authoritarian looking to stem this takeover. Customs and Border Protection alone, one of the department’s nearly two-dozen component agencies, has an aircraft fleet roughly the size of the Brazilian air force. DHS operates a nationwide network of law enforcement “fusion centers” designed to inform state and local partners about the threats officers might face in the field. As The Intercept reported in July, the DHS intelligence shop distributing much of that information — the same office that top DHS officials are accused of manipulating in Trump’s favor — has repeatedly disseminated reports describing opponents of the president’s border and immigration policies as domestic terrorists.
“We have this massive quasi-military organization devoted to targeting noncitizens and vilifying them as terrorists,” Stanley said. “All you’ve got to do is move that over one little notch to focus on political opponents.”
Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution about “anarchist violence” in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 4, 2020. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Targeting the Left
In the face of the recent protests, the politicization of DHS operations that defined Trump’s first three and a half years in office, primarily through immigration enforcement, has soared to new heights. Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, the two men leading the department — both illegally occupying their posts, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office — have repeatedly leaned into Trump’s argument that antifa poses a profound danger to national security, despite evidence produced by their own office and other federal law enforcement agencies that groups on the far right present the most persistent and ongoing domestic terror threat in the country. Under their leadership, DHS immigration enforcement personnel, including Border Patrol and ICE agents, were deployed to Portland, Oregon, a site of ongoing Black Lives Matter protests, against the wishes of local elected leaders. The move was repeatedly criticized for exacerbating rather than calming the unrest.
The ascent of Wolf and Cuccinelli is part of a broader hollowing out of leadership at DHS, which has effectively left in place only those who are loyal to the lone survivor of Trump’s original 2016 brain trust: Stephen Miller.
“The Democratic Party for a long time historically has been the party of secession — what you’re seeing today is the Democratic Party returning to its roots,” Miller told Fox News talk-show host Tucker Carlson in July, when asked about the protests in Portland. “The mayors of these cities that have engaged in these kinds of lawless rebellions against federal law, against immigration enforcement, have engaged in unprecedented activity, and this administration, for the first time in history, has taken action to restore immigration enforcement after five decades of bipartisan betrayal of the American worker.” He added: “This is about the survival of this country and we will not back down.”
Though best known for his war on immigrants, Miller’s political awakening is in fact rooted in bone-deep anti-leftism. “One of Stephen Miller’s main strengths and his original philosophy was about attacking the left,” Jean Guerrero, an investigative journalist and author of “Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda,” told The Intercept. “The focus on the left is the logical conclusion of Miller’s ideology.”
“The focus on the left is the logical conclusion of Miller’s ideology.”
In her account of Miller’s upbringing in southern California, Guerrero details how a teenage Miller came up under David Horowitz, a man who renounced his ties to groups like the Black Panthers in the 1960s and 1970s and devoted the rest of his life to a war on the political left. In college, Guerrero explains, Miller’s anti-leftism became bound up in great replacement theorizing, which in turn laid the foundation for his views on immigration and border security. “It boils down to the idea that the United States faces an existential threat in the form of the Democratic Party partnering with Muslims and other people of color,” Guerrero said. “He saw the immigration system as a way of realizing this white nationalist agenda.” In 2015, as an aide to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, Miller encouraged reporters at Breitbart’s right-wing news site to write about “The Camp of the Saints,” a racist French novel rooted in great replacement theory.
In addition to describing immigrants in grotesquely dehumanizing terms, the book argues that the downfall of Western civilization can be traced to the political left, particularly the “anti-racists,” “agitators” and “anarchists,” who stand in solidarity with refugees. For Guerrero, it is these passages that sound increasingly relevant today. “A lot of people talk about how it demonizes people of color, which it does,” she said. “But one of the most striking things to me is the echoes in the rhetoric about anti-racists in the book and what we now see in Trump’s reelection rhetoric, describing anti-racist protesters as agitators and anarchists and trying to paint the entire left as a mob that wants to destroy this country, which is essentially the white genocide theory.”
The Proud Boys, a far-right pro-Trump group, gather with their allies in a rally called “End Domestic Terrorism Against Antifa” in Portland, Ore., on Sept. 26, 2020. Photo: John Rudoff/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images.
Stand Back and Stand By
Among the most troubling of the president’s actions is his courting of armed, right-wing paramilitary groups and his confidence that the nation’s security forces are not apolitical institutions, but rather eager and engaged supporters of his “law and order” agenda.
“Stand back and stand by,” Trump told the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist street-fighting gang, during Tuesday night’s debate. The comment was widely seen as an order from the commander-in-chief to an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as a hate group, including among the group’s own leaders and members. Trump also weighed in on the killing of Michael Reinoehl, a self-described anti-fascist, by law enforcement in Oregon last month. In an interview published by Vice News shortly before his death, Reinoehl said he shot and killed Aaron J. Danielson, a supporter of far-right group Patriot Prayer, days earlier in an effort to defend a friend. An eyewitness has claimed that Reinoehl was gunned down without warning. Referencing the killing in Tuesday night’s debate, Trump said law enforcement “took care of business.” He previously called the killing an act of “retribution.”
Trump has similarly defended Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old fan of the president and the police accused of murdering two Black Lives Matter protesters and wounding a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Echoing the president’s line, documents obtained by NBC News this week revealed that DHS personnel were directed to make sympathetic comments about the accused shooter and told that the media was falsely painting Patriot Prayer as a racist organization. Both Danielson and Rittenhouse have achieved martyr status on the far right. Their names were invoked again and again at a Proud Boys rally in Portland last weekend. Though small in numbers, the rally was drenched in the rhetoric of civil conflict and allegiance to the president and the nation’s security forces. “Thin Blue Line” flags were ubiquitous at the event, as were the letters “RWDS,” short for the words “right-wing death squads.”
The blurring of lines between his support in right-wing paramilitary groups and law enforcement agencies has been a consistent feature of Trump’s presidency. In July, Vice President Mike Pence’s visit with Philadelphia’s police union also featured members of the local Proud Boys chapter. Meanwhile, violent “Back the Blue” protests in Arizona have featured participants fantasizing about the murder of their leftist political opponents. In an exchange Tuesday night, Trump pressed Biden to name one law enforcement agency that’s come out in support of his campaign. Biden did not. Trump, meanwhile, has enjoyed extensive support from law enforcement unions across the country, from those representing Border Patrol agents and ICE deportation officers, to the Fraternal Order of Police.
“He’s been wooing the security forces his entire term,” Stanley said. As Tuesday night’s debate wrapped up, Trump explicitly encouraged his supporters to head to election polls and be on the lookout for suspicious activity in what he predicted would be “a fraud like you’ve never seen.” Courting paramilitary groups and loyal security services, calling the integrity of the election into question, and urging his supporters to take it upon themselves to respond are “classic fascist tactics,” Stanley argued.
“He’s been using fascist tactics, unquestionably, and he’s already transformed many of these things into policy, particularly around immigration,” he said. “Now he’s turning to his political opponents, so now we’re really facing the concern about transformation into a fascist regime.”