On 30 August, US presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders nailed the big problem with both Republicans and establishment Democrats. And he did it in just one tweet:
If the environment were a bank it would have been saved already.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August 30, 2019
Remember when Bush and Obama used taxpayers’ money to bail out the banks, but not ordinary people?
In 2008, in the midst of the capitalist crash, Barack Obama backed George W Bush’s $700bn bank bailout. And he continued it when he became president. He even gave Wall Street insiders (i.e. the very people behind the crisis) prominent roles in his administration. Millions of people, meanwhile, lost their homes and/or jobs. But Obama’s support for them was pitiful in comparison to the bank bailout.
In short, Democratic bigwigs failed to bail out working-class Americans, pandering to financial elites instead. (Note: they’re still doing it today.) Obama, meanwhile, proved to be very far from a ‘progressive champion’. And the lack of any meaningful challenge to establishment interests paved the way for Donald Trump.
Between the Bush/Obama bailout and Trump’s tax cuts and deregulation, Common Dreams wrote in 2018, the five largest US banks “have raked in more than $583 billion in combined profits over the past decade”.
Iceland, meanwhile, took a different path. As Truthdig explained:
In 2008, they jailed the bankers, let the banks fail without taking on their debt and put controls in place to protect the economy. They recovered more quickly than other countries and with less pain.
So there was always an alternative. Republicans and Democratic elites just chose to side with the rich and powerful. And it’s the same story when it comes to the climate crisis:
NEW: The DNC, which voted yesterday against holding a climate debate, has taken at least $60,750 from fossil fuel executives since the beginning of the year. https://t.co/VKrI1WNGcL
— Sludge (@Sludge) August 23, 2019
Of course the US can afford a Green New Deal. But it’s a matter of political will.
The bold progressive idea of a ‘Green New Deal’ (GND) looks to boost the economy and job growth by building up environmentally friendly infrastructure; it would tax emissions, encourage renewable energy projects, and end fossil-fuel subsidies. Polls show that around 60% of US voters support a GND.
As key GND champion Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told Grist in 2018:
The Green New Deal we are proposing will be similar in scale to the mobilization efforts seen in World War II…
It will require the investment of trillions of dollars and the creation of millions of high-wage jobs.
Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, was the first presidential hopeful to back the GND. And he has pledged to fund it with $16.3tn of public money. At the start of his comprehensive plan, he says:
The climate crisis is not only the single greatest challenge facing our country; it is also our single greatest opportunity to build a more just and equitable future, but we must act immediately.
That's true. But if we continue to allow fracking and fossil fuel exports, the planet will never recover.
We don't have time for a middle ground approach. We need a Green New Deal. https://t.co/Z1y5chWNR9
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August 30, 2019
Sanders clearly believes that, if the US government can afford to bail out powerful private institutions like banks, it can also afford to launch a profoundly transformational project to save the planet and create well-paid jobs in the process. And while Republican and Democratic elites may disagree, it looks like it’s a very popular idea among voters.
Featured image via Gage Skidmore
