America Is Better Than This
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It’s no secret that many of us here at CleanTechnica are deeply concerned about the potential reelection of Donald Trump. Just from a clean technology perspective, his hostility towards everything from solar panels to supposedly carcinogenic wind turbines to electric vehicles is no secret. For those of us who want to save money, get better American energy independence, be better prepared for disasters, or address climate change (or some mix of these things), it would be a bad thing to see the United States government turn against these vital technologies and many others.
The fear of this is not only reasonable, but likely, and we can’t necessarily count on normal constitutional processes and protections to stop Trump this time. As everyone should know by now, Project 2025 contains a blueprint for throwing off the usual limitations on presidential power, and clean technologies are in the proverbial crosshairs. So, most of us (but not all) are committed to trying to prevent Trump from getting back into office.
This Violence Was Clearly Wrong, Though
While Trump needs to be stopped, there are obvious moral limits to what we should do to accomplish that goal.
Let’s get some perspective. We’re in July of an election year, which means that the election is still almost four months away. Despite Biden’s recent problems with a lousy debate performance, a lot can still happen in four months. Anything can happen. Even if Trump wins the election, he wouldn’t go into office until early 2025, another two months away. That leaves about half a year before we’d even be seeing Trump do anything of consequence.
Even then, there are an array of peaceful options at our disposal to oppose moves Trump would potentially take against clean technologies, civil rights, and democratic processes. Some of the more radical plans Republicans and the Heritage Foundation have espoused would probably be abandoned right from the beginning, as the burden of governance can get in the way of idealism. What remains can be fought via the courts, via lobbying, and via public protest and even civil disobedience.
This all adds up to a LOT of peaceful options that remain available to stop Trump without hurting anybody or even doing anything illegal.
Unlike some of my fellow writers, I’m not of the opinion that violence never has a place. Things like legitimate self-defense against criminal attacks, defense of community, legitimate police use of force, defensive military operations, and even resistance to things like tyranny and genocide are all good and moral uses of violence. But these uses of violence must be the minimum necessary to secure life, liberty, and our pursuit of happiness and must only be used when all other options are either exhausted or unavailable. Going to violence when peaceful options still exist is deeply immoral and even evil.
For this reason, I think I speak for everyone here when I say that there is no justification for the violent act against former president Trump this weekend. With all of these remaining peaceful options to stop Trump and the possibility that he’d soften his stances between now and January, there’s just no moral justification for killing. He hasn’t even had a chance to wrong us yet, so it makes no sense at all for people to start acting as judge, jury, and executioner.
The Attack Only Made Things Worse
If anything, the attempted cold-blooded murder of Donald Trump makes things worse for the goals of clean technology supporters, Democrats, and anyone else opposed to the Trump and Project 2025 Agenda. Today, a powerful image of Trump, bleeding from the side of his head, pumping his fist up in defiance with an American flag behind him, resulted. Trump now looks both like the victim of the violent, murderous far left* while also looking bulletproof and strong, despite being almost as old as President Biden (and often just as confused).
With the corporate media constantly reminding the public about Biden’s age and terrible debate performance, this image of strength puts Biden in an even worse spot. The exaggerated image of an elderly and confused Biden compared to a bulletproof Trump is exactly what Trump needs to get shallow voters to not focus on policy.
On top of that, he’s now likely to get at least some sympathy votes, while giving people who were leaning toward him some moral cover for the choice to being openly supporting him. For example, now Elon Musk is quite open about his support when he was trying to appear politically neutral just a few weeks ago.
I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery pic.twitter.com/ZdxkF63EqF
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 13, 2024
I doubt most committed progressives, others more far left, and even centrists who are deeply concerned about Trump will be swayed because they feel bad for him, but we will see a few fence-sitters and people who were hiding their feelings make the jump and build his coalition up.
I’ve seen a few fools say they wish the gunman had slightly better aim, but killing Donald Trump would have been even worse for the future of Clean Technologies. You can bet that Trump would be replaced as a candidate with someone even more committed to the Project 2025 agenda, and that candidate (selected by the RNC instead of primary voters) would likely be a puppet of groups like the Heritage Foundation.
If that were to happen, we wouldn’t be able to count on the easily distracted, narcissistic nature of Trump. Instead of seeing the government as a vehicle he could use to make personal financial and influential gain, a president committed to the ideological goals wouldn’t be so easily distracted or fought. So, a dead Trump would have only made things harder.
This Is A Time To Come Together & Defy The Would-Be Killer
If anything, this senseless and counterproductive violence should invite Americans to defy the man who did this. Instead of letting him drag us all into more senseless violence or civil war, we should prove once and for all that Americans aren’t bloodthirsty killers just looking for an excuse to engage in combat like drunken Klingons.
The best way to show the world that we’re better than him would be to conduct a free and fair election, conduct a peaceful transfer of power, and then continue to respect the rule of law instead of rule by bullet and fist. Regardless of who wins, if we can do that, we can truly win as a people.
Featured image by U.S. Army National Guard photo by Capt. Joe Legros, Public Domain. The use of defense imagery does not imply endorsement by the US DoD.
*Note that the young man who tried to kill Trump was a registered Republican.
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