The World is Desperately Hoping for US Leadership on Climate Change — Buttigieg’s endorsement of Biden is deeply wrong
By: Ker Shus
Tags: Climate Change, Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, Election 2020, Bernie Sanders

The World is Desperately Hoping for US Leadership on Climate Change — Buttigieg’s endorsement of Biden is deeply wrong Ker Shus Mar 3, 2020·9 min read

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Dear Buttigieg supporters: Super Tuesday is a pivotal moment for the globe. I urge you to contemplate the anger of the downtrodden (and young) Bernie crowd, and reconsider your support for Joe Biden!

— Thoughts from a Norwegian Bernie-fan

Dear Pete Buttigieg supporters,

You may be receiving a lot of unwanted attention from annoying and impolite Bernie supporters in your time of grief, just after your candidate suddenly dropped out of the race. I understand that you resent the campaign that attracts a myriad of supporters calling your hero a “rat”, or worse. You are probably silently or vocally cursing all these “Bernie Bros”, and although I do not like the term (it is not at all representative of the majority of the broad and inclusive Bernie movement I have grown to love), I do understand where it is coming from. Even though there are “bad apples” in any campaign, I believe there lies an easily triggered anger among many Bernie supporters online, joined with a tendency to prematurely promote conspiracies where there might be none, which can be extremely annoying. Obviously, I could say much about the bad faith attacks from the “never Bernie” crowd also, including the seemingly coordinated use of the “Bernie Bros” term, but that is not the main topic here.

I am in any case not your typical Bernie Bro. For one, I am from Norway. Also, I am over 40, I am from the upper middle class, and I have a deeply christian upbringing, perhaps not unlike a typical Buttigieg supporter according to my preconceptions (except the Norway part). In Norwegian media, Pete Buttigieg is primarily known for two things: 1) as the presidential candidate that learned Norwegian in order to translate the books of the Norwegian author Erlend Loe, and 2) for being the gay candidate. Both of these have made him a bit of a media favorite in Norway, especially since he can interviewed in Norwegian.

Buttigieg has a respectful and intellectual way of talking, which for many people have been a sight for sore eyes after three years of the current buffoon-in-chief. Adding to that, his sincere christianity and the Rules on the Road he champions for his campaign, all of this makes it easy for me to understand why you are following him. It also makes it very easy to understand your disdain for the rash, angry, and outright derogatory remarks from many Bernie supporters all over social media, many of which are now trying to lure you over to them (which is of course also the reason I am writing this, but bear with me for a moment..). Conversely, in my experience, most Pete supporters have overall been a friendly and welcoming bunch. For instance, after the Iowa debacle, I was struck by the friendly way Pete supporters online were working in parallel and even collaborating with Bernie supporters to try to figure out who actually won, with the overall goals being transparency and correctness, all this at a time when their candidate was ridiculed all over social media.

I have been a Bernie supporter since he started winning in 2016, and I greatly admire his life-long fighting spirit, his idealism, and his long record of being on the right side of history (including LGBTQ support from way before it was popular). I remember watching a Norwegian news story about him years ago, which was a profile of the lone socialist in the US Senate, and it was remarkable to me that there was such a person there. Of course, even though I supported his views, I just assumed he would continue being a lone voice (as I am sure he himself envisioned). But there he was, in 2016, fighting for a transformation of the USA towards Norwegian-style social democracy, and he had tons of people attending his rallies, and all this enthusiasm from the American public. But most importantly for me, he was championing heavily for making USA the international leader against climate change. For as long as I can remember, the USA has always been the bad boy in the class (the western world) when it comes to environmental issues. You never even ratified the Kyoto Protocol for reduction of Greenhouse gases (from 2005 onwards), an agreement which now includes all UN member states except Andorra, South Sudan, Canada and the United States.

My environmental awakening came after the “Inconvenient Truth” by Al Gore, and I followed the Obama campaign with great enthusiasm and had high hopes for the Obama administration, only to see it all crumble into nothingness. I am especially disappointed that during the first two years, when the Democrats had the majority in both chambers of the Congress, he did little to ensure climate leadership from the USA. I firmly believe that we will not be able to tackle climate change globally without the US being in the forefront, and the only presidential candidate I see that are able to both win the nomination, the general election, and is able to take up such a position is Bernie Sanders. He has the backing of the majority of the environmental organizations (e.g., 350 Action, Sunrise Movement, and others). Joe Biden will, on the other hand, merely continue with the same old non-working solutions (perhaps in somewhat polished versions), and I don’t see Elisabeth Warren having any chance at getting the nomination at all.

So these are the stakes:

If we as a global community don’t enact drastic changes in greenhouse gas emissions, we will continue to see the world crumble around us in an ever-increasing rate, with mass extinction of species, large parts of the world becoming uninhabitable and an extreme increase in international conflicts at all levels.

I would actually go so far as to say that supporting Joe Biden at this point in time is unethical, as seen from the point of view of the rest of the planet. I will not argue against your belief that Pete Buttigieg generally makes wise decisions, but I urge you to please take some time to consider the wisdom in his decision to back Joe Biden. I cannot see how this decision fits in with his beliefs about environmental stewardship of the Earth.

Personally, I still remember the sinking feeling in my stomach when Obama declared his first cabinet in 2008, as it was filled with Wall Street and establishment figures, contrary to what we, his supporters were made to believe. I still held on to the belief that he would work from within the system, somehow, but as we now know, the cabinet appointment was a clear forewarning of the disappointment his administration would prove to be; he did not produce the structural change his campaign promised. Similarly, I do have an intuition that Pete overstating his support from black leaders, holding the wine cellar fundraiser, his premature Iowa victory speeches, and now his endorsement of Joe Biden are all similar forewarnings. I suspect Buttigieg might just be a bit too eager to advance his own candidacy and position and is not properly considering the whole picture.

This is not saying that he is not a good and decent man, and I might be wrong about his motives. But on the other hand, Pete Buttigieg might also be wrong in bringing his supporters over to Biden. This decision might mean that we are losing our best global bet at battling the climate change and species extinction crises. If I could chose, I would have given you some time to grieve before posting this. However, I do believe Super Tuesday is a global event and too important for that.

As to the Bernie movement: There is a lot of anger there! The movement is in its core a class struggle, gathering working people that have experienced the economic hardships of the everyday American, with a lack of affordable health care, and living under the everyday scare of suddenly losing everything due to a medical emergency. They have been offered Hope and Change by candidate after candidate, and they tend to view Pete Buttigieg as just one in the line of politicians that will end up disappointing them, as Obama did. The young generation is increasingly feeling they have gotten the rotten end of the deal, as the Boomers have got all the opportunities and at the same time have created the environmental mess that they will have to live in. Not to mention that the current environmental crisis is the fault of large corporations such as Exxon Mobile, who knew about the climate change since the eighties, but instead of trying to fix it, they spent tons on money on climate change denial campaigns. Adding to this is the many wars that USA has fought with the lives of the working class, wars that have been fought under varying pretences, in addition to the various opposition groups your government have supported in a large number of countries, some of them very extreme. Strangely, US access to oil seems to always been at the center of things.

So why should not people be angry? I agree that one should be polite (and most Berners actually are), one should not call opponents for“rats”, and one should be able to take part in rational discourse, and when Bernie supporters are not doing this, it has the effect that many potential supporters are pushed away. But it is also possible to take the higher ground, to take a hard look through the noise and try to see the whole picture: The reason angry Bernie supporters seems to be everywhere is also the reason Bernie will be able to win! Bernie is popular across the American society, especially among the working class and the younger generations, across racial and sexual differences, and this also includes angry millennials, immature Reddit Trolls, independents, as well as many republicans (take a look at the comment section of his highly watched interview on the Joe Rogan show). He beats Trump decisively in as good as every head-to-head poll. And most importantly, I truly believe Bernie is in this campaign not for himself, but because he is in the position that he might be able to provide structural change, power and dignity to the people.

That is his goal: Not Me. Us.

The political revolution might not always look pretty, but everyday people are not always pretty. On the contrary, when you gather a large crowd, any crowd, but especially a crowd of people that are not used to be heard, who have all this anger pent up over years and years, it is not strange if it appears to be a noisy, annoying, and condescending bunch. But it is also a affectionate, enthusiastic and deeply hopeful crowd!

In the words of the always dignified Leonard Cohen:

Democracy

It’s coming through a hole in the air

From those nights in Tiananmen Square

It’s coming from the feel

That this ain’t exactly real

Or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there

From the wars against disorder

From the sirens night and day

From the fires of the homeless

From the ashes of the gay

Democracy is coming to the USA

It’s coming through a crack in the wall

On a visionary flood of alcohol

From the staggering account

Of the Sermon on the Mount

Which I don’t pretend to understand at all

It’s coming from the silence

On the dock of the bay,

From the brave, the bold, the battered

Heart of Chevrolet

Democracy is coming to the USA

It’s coming from the sorrow in the street

The holy places where the races meet

From the homicidal bitchin’

That goes down in every kitchen

To determine who will serve and who will eat

From the wells of disappointment

Where the women kneel to pray

For the grace of God in the desert here

And the desert far away:

Democracy is coming to the USA

Sail on, sail on

O mighty Ship of State

To the Shores of Need

Past the Reefs of Greed

Through the Squalls of Hate

Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on

It’s coming to America first

The cradle of the best and of the worst

It’s here they got the range

And the machinery for change

And it’s here they got the spiritual thirst

It’s here the family’s broken

And it’s here the lonely say

That the heart has got to open

In a fundamental way

Democracy is coming to the USA

It’s coming from the women and the men

O baby, we’ll be making love again

We’ll be going down so deep

The river’s going to weep,

And the mountain’s going to shout Amen

It’s coming like the tidal flood

Beneath the lunar sway

Imperial, mysterious

In amorous array

Democracy is coming to the USA

Sail on, sail on..

I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean

I love the country but I can’t stand the scene

And I’m neither left or right

I’m just staying home tonight

Getting lost in that hopeless little screen

But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags

That Time cannot decay

I’m junk but I’m still holding up

This little wild bouquet:

Democracy is coming to the USA