The keynote speaker for the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival 2017, Naomi Klein, told audience members at War Memorial Hall Saturday that too much energy is going into opposing Trump at the expense of efforts to battle climate change and other crises.
“It is symbolic of what I am most afraid of about what will happen in the Trump years – that we will be purely defensive in response and any idea of moving forward beyond just stopping the worst of what Trump is doing will be off the agenda,” said Klein. “I’m not saying to not say no but it is not enough. Say no and at the same time use the urgency that is this crisis to go further faster in fighting for that leap – for that punctuated transformation that moves us forward on all fronts.”
Klein is the author of several bestselling books including No Logo, The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything.
She is also a co-author of the Leap Manifesto, a blueprint for social, economic and political change that includes a rapid transition off of fossil fuels.
Her latest book No Is Not Enough is a response to the election of US President Donald Trump.
While the book draws on more than 20 years of research she said it was written quicker than anything she has written before.
“It kind of poured out of me,” said Klein. “I have to be honest that it was coming from a place of fear and I felt like I couldn’t waste a minute.”
The event Saturday was presented as a conversation between Klein and award-winning Toronto Star reporter Tanya Talaga.
Klein explained how she wrote No is Not Enough to deflate and dispel the Trump mythology created by both his supporters and critics.
“I just wanted to put Trump in context,” she said. “I was worried about this narrative that was treating him as a Martian who landed here from another planet. As long as that’s the story then the response to him is only going to be superficial.”
She cautioned about looking for simple solutions that could make things worse.
“I actually think there are more dangerous presidents than Trump that could be elected,” she said. “There is this idea that if we can impeach him everything will be fine. That’s a narrative that set in early and I wanted to put him in the context of the trends that created him and made him possible.”
She said Trump’s success as a reality television celebrity and his obsession with professional wrestling is reflective of his image and message as president.
“Reality television is a performance of reality,” she said. “It’s a suspension of disbelief on the part of the audience. Wrestling is exactly the same. Everyone knows it is rigged. You don’t have to worry about the consequences. They specialize in fake reality and now he is doing the same thing as president. That is why he has this relationship with facts that is so creative.”
Klein said we should view Trump’s presidency as a form of dystopian art – as a cautionary tale but avoid getting too smug in our criticism.
“There is a section in the book about killing your inner Trump because I think there is a little bit of Trump in everyone,” she said. “I don’t think anybody gets off the hook.”
She encouraged everyone to get actively involved in “winning the world we need” and cited grassroots initiatives inspired by the Leap Manifesto in Thunder Bay, Los Angeles and other places as examples.
“There are Leap groups all over the place – Peterborough, Victoria, Toronto,” she said. “I don’t think there is a Guelph Leap group which is kind of shocking. I mean Guelph, the most progressive community in Canada and they are being out-radicalled by Peterborough.”
