Many of the elites will bend the knee to Our Fair Future
Politicians, billionaires and corporate leaders are spineless
The NYT is running a detailed profile of Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency: How Lee Zeldin Went From Environmental Moderate to Dismantling the E.P.A.
The article catalogues the ways Zeldin has sought to destroy the agency and the protections it offers ordinary people from the polluters:
Over the past nine weeks, Mr. Zeldin has withheld billions of dollars in climate funds approved by Congress, tried to fire hundreds of employees, recommended the elimination of thousands more E.P.A. scientists, and started trying to repeal dozens of environmental regulations that limit toxic pollution. He has filled the leadership ranks at the agency with lobbyists and lawyers from industries that have fought environmental regulations.
But the article also notes that in previous work, Zeldin was a moderate on environmental issues:
A lawyer, leukemia survivor and a former Army captain who is now a reservist, Mr. Zeldin comes from a small coastal community on Long Island that borders a national wildlife refuge and is struggling with rising sea levels linked to climate change. During four years in the New York State Legislature and four terms on Capitol Hill, he was a moderate on environmental issues. Mr. Zeldin joined a bipartisan caucus to address climate change and supported solar energy and offshore wind. He voted to protect the E.P.A.’s budget and against a Republican effort to restrict the agency’s ability to curb carbon dioxide emissions.
What can explain this flip, and indeed those of all the other supposedly progressive billionaires and corporations who have bent the knee to Trump? And what can we learn from it about what happens when Our Fair Future takes power (2032 US and 2034 UK elections in play!).
Most politicians, billionaires and corporate leaders are just looking out for themselves: they’re trying to identify whatever works best for them in any particular moment to make another buck and curry favour. In other words, many of those who are bending the knee to Trump today probably don’t care much for the ideology, but they do care about their position in the status quo.
When Our Fair Future takes power, those politicians, billionaires and corporate leaders will be given two choices that look something like this:
Because we believe in the power of redemption, you can get with our program and enjoy a transitional window of, say, two years to reorient your operations toward life: if you do this, your past crimes will be forgiven, and you will be celebrated as part of the new order
Because we believe in the power of corrective force in service to life, you can choose not to get with our program and continue to promote death and spend the rest of your life in prison
Most politicians, billionaires and corporate leaders will take the first choice assuming it has been presented in a way that makes it look genuine: it’s that simple. There will of course be a significant core of polluters who hold out, and that is where the fight will be. But most of the polluters’ enablers will flee like rats on a sinking ship.