No Is Not Enough
Section One: Interpretive Questions
1. In her first chapter, Klein enlightens us about how Trump was able to build up his super brand surrounding his name and his persona. I have watched documentaries that discuss this as well, about how Trump was able to remain a talked about topic even if it was for negative reasons. She notes how when Trump entered the political arena, one of the reasons that he was successfully able to defeat the numerous attacks brought up against him was because of his branding tactics, “Trump didn’t just enter politics as a so-called outsider, somebody who doesn’t play by the rules. He entered politics playing by a completely different set of rules – the rules of branding” (Klein, 2017:33).
a. How will this impact future elections? Will people who have built up their names and brands be able to win elections in the same way that Trump was able to? Or should political figures take after the rules of branding? How will branding and politics be able to be separated again?
2. In her second chapter, Klein discusses how the first family is entirely benefitting from Trump being in the highest office in the world. Many have pointed out that them continuing on their business adventures would be a complete conflict of interest. While this is true, and while they are seeming to give the illusion that they have handed off the reigns of their businesses to others, Klein brings up an important point when discussing the situation of Trump specifically, “anything that increases Donald Trump’s visibility, and the perception of him as all-powerful, actively increases the value of the Trump brand, and therefore increases how much clients will pay to be associated with it – to slap it on their new condo development, say, or, on a smaller scale, to play on his golf courses or buy one of his ties” (Klein, 2017:38).
a. Even if Trump is driven out of office, will that effect the power he has had of even holding this office on his brands? Or will he have gained a status of infamy that will allow him to hold onto this power that allows his brands to keep benefitting? Has the damage already been done by him being elected?
3. In her third chapter, Klein addresses the consumer culture that allowed Trump to achieve this feat of being elected into the highest office in the world. This consumer culture has a very tight relationship with the media, which is most likely what gave Trump the presidency, considering he had wall-to-wall coverage throughout the entire campaign. The only ‘real’ aspect to all of this, Klein points out, is the basis to this culture of consumerism that has risen. “That unquenchable hunger, that hollowness at the center, does speak to something real – to a profound emptiness at the heart of the very culture that spawned Donald Trump” (Klein, 2017:59).
a. It seems that many people are blaming Trump for being able to take advantage of this culture of consumerism and using it to gain himself the presidency. How can we turn the conversation to one that discusses how this culture of consumerism was already there before Trump, and how Trump merely played the game with what was given to him? In another sense, how do we address this issue while suppressing the urge to blame Trump?
Section Two: Reaction
I’ll be honest, I have been one of those people that will barely acknowledge the fact that Donald Trump is our current president. Even writing that sentence was extremely difficult for me. However, reading Klein’s book has been the answer to the question I didn’t even know I had, which is how to deal with all of this. I figured there was no way to deal with this reality. The way in which she educates her readers on how this happened and gives them both the background and the current news updates is a beautiful thing. It is exactly what someone in my position needed – an explanation, a way to make sense of all of this. She does an incredible job of this, and I have found myself not able to put her book down. She also differs from many of the authors we have read in the sense that she seems to have figured out a solution, instead of leaving me feeling incredibly depressed after each chapter. I feel as if many authors do a phenomenal job of acknowledging the problem at hand, but then only spending maybe one or two pages at the end of the book discussing a solution. She integrates the solutions into her chapters, which is something that I am really enjoying.
Section Three: Current Events
I found an article from the beginning of March that talked about this “Bridge Family”, which is a group of people that waits for Trump every time he comes and goes from the Mar-a-Lago property. I specifically looked up something to do with the Mar-a-Lago property because of what Klein talked about when she brought it up, especially with the “chance to see Mickey Mouse” bit. It seems that is exactly what is happening with this property, since people are literally lining up to see Trump when he is coming to and leaving the property. One woman is even quoted in the article as not throwing away a water bottle that she found there because it had Trump’s name on it. She is saving the water bottle because it is an item that seemingly connects her to Donald Trump somehow. It forges a connection for her, and she is going to hold onto that connection as tightly as she can.
Section One: Interpretive Questions
1. In the end of Chapter 4, Klein introduces a very important idea that I think many of us needed to hear, which summarized the debates surrounding climate change today. Conservatives have been notoriously against accepting climate change and passing legislation that would help to reverse the effects of industry on the climate, because not only are they protecting their money, “they are also defending something even more precious to them: an entire ideological project – neoliberalism – which holds that the market is always right, regulation is always wrong, private is good and public is bad, and taxes that support public services are the worst of all” (Klein: 2017:79). When this facet of the conservative agenda is understood, it paints a much clearer picture as to what needs to be done – recognize neoliberalism and begin the long journey of disseminating it. However, as Klein acknowledges, “to admit that the climate crisis is real is to admit the end of the neoliberal project” (Klein, 2017:81).
a. If the climate crisis is finally recognized by conservatives and neoliberalism falls, what is next for this country? What systems and ideologies would take over, and what would the transition look like? Would it be something we have seen before, like socialism or communism, or would it be an entirely new type of system?
2. In Chapter 5, Klein addresses the issue that seems to have continuously prevented a successful uprising against the colonial facets that have made capitalism and neoliberalism as strong as they are today – the division of people through various strategies. She turns to the author of The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander, to help explain how elites have used race to divide people and discourage multiracial alliances. They agree that “there has been no more effective way to convince white voters to support the defunding of schools, bus systems, and welfare than by telling them (however wrongly) that most of the beneficiaries of those services are darker-skinned people, many of them ‘illegal,’ out to scam the system” (Klein, 2017:96). By pushing forth this racist agenda, elites, politicians, and the government have been able to suppress an uprising that would be all-inclusive and therefore, mostly likely successful.
a. When Karl Marx discusses his idea that the proletariat will rise up against the bourgeoisie when they band together to stick up for themselves, did he not foresee this public relations campaign of “divide and conquer”? Will there ever be a successful proletariat uprising in the face of this strategy? Or will public relation campaigns such as these continue to have the strong influence they’ve held until today? Can workers and those damaged by the capitalistic system join across lines of gender and race successfully?
3. In Chapter 6, Klein turns to the facts that groups such as the Clinton Foundation and the Gates Foundation have started to implant the idea in people’s minds that the rich can solve problems if they direct their money to issues such as infectious disease (rather than merely paying their fair share of taxes). This builds on the neoliberal idea that private is better than public, since the rich have the option of doing this in their own time and in their own way, rather than giving this money to the government so that it would benefit the majority of people in the public sphere in the ways that the government sees fit. This allowed Trump to be able to use that idea as his main campaign strategy – being rich qualifies him to get things done. This ideology went so far that “a great many of us who would never have voted for him have grown numbly accustomed to the notion that the mere fact of an individual having a large bank account (or many bank accounts, lots of them hidden offshore) somehow means they have bottomless expertise” (Klein, 2017:118).
a. What implications does this line of thinking have on the chances of being able to redistribute wealth? Does this send the message that things are okay as they are right now, that as long as the rich do something good for people who need it, that is it okay for them to make their money however they do?
Section Two: Reaction
I think I enjoyed Part 2 of this book more because Klein addressed neoliberalism in a very real and tangible way. She discussed the implications that neoliberalism is having on issues we are facing in our country, such as climate change. This opened my eyes and my line of thinking into ways that we can address neoliberalism, rather than just going after conservatives or republicans. I also enjoyed her bit on Bernie Sanders and what happened there. I wish that chapter was longer than 7 pages though, because I felt that there was so much more to talk about with what happened between him and the Democratic National Convention, and that Klein could have gone into a lot more detail concerning mistakes he made on the campaign trail (such as appearing to dismiss issues that Black voters and women were facing). However, it did make me a lot more curious about the relationship between identity politics and economics, and so I hope she addresses that more in the last sections of this book.
Section Three: Current Events
I found an article from this week published by The Guardian that focused mainly on an environmental group called Friends of the Earth Netherlands threatening to bring legal action against Shell, citing that their current business plan does not do enough to curb their greenhouse gas emission levels. This caught my eye because after reading about why conservatives and corporations are denying climate change (because it would call for the end of the neoliberal agenda), I was curious to see how action could still be taken against them in the meantime and more importantly, how they would react to action being taken against them. The quote that Shell offered in response was especially intriguing, “we believe climate change is a complex societal challenge that should be addressed through sound government policy and cultural change to drive low-carbon choices for business and consumers, not by the courts” (The Guardian, 2018:1). To me, this quote both denounced climate change as a legitimate reason to change business practices (also it took away from the severity of climate change by calling it a “complex societal challenge,” whatever that is supposed to mean) as well as stated that essentially the market should drive changes, not court cases. Well, since the market is set up to currently benefit corporations like Shell and other energy companies, it appears that the only route left would be through the courts. This article was interesting to me also because I’ve learned in other classes that sometimes the way to begin social change is through the judicial system, which it appears is the avenue these environmental groups have recognized is best.
Section One: Interpretive Questions
1. In Chapter 9, Klein highlights how courts did not allow Trump to go through with his immigration ban, and how that was a success on the part of the people. I’ve learned in political science classes that some view the court system as a means for ensuring justice and safety from those who don’t have adequate resources to stand up to corporate (or in this case, presidential) bullies. However, we seem to be dealing with an entirely different beast in this case. Klein points out that while judges have stood up to Trump so far, and “as much as they position themselves as neutral arbiters, courts are not immune to public hysteria” (Klein, 2017:165). She is referencing the fact that Trump has displayed a power to light a fire under the public with vicious tweets and blame; the ability to conjure up a crisis, essentially.
a. How do we hold on to continuous support in the court system, and maintain it as one of the areas of government most likely to keep Trump in line while he is in office? How do we effectively spread the message that the crisis is not what it may seem?
2. In Chapter 11, Klein addresses the generation that I think this book might have the most effect on – mine. This also most likely include some of those in the generation above us, but essentially she recognizes that “generations who had grown up under neoliberalism struggled to picture something, anything, other than what they had always known” (Klein, 2017:219). This is a problem I think many of my peers face – trying to picture something other than what we’ve grown up in and been taught. Unfortunately, as she points out, “in the West, there is little popular memory of any other kind of economic system” (Klein, 2017:220). As Klein notes, having an image of what we want instead of simply rejecting the current system is essential to being successful.
a. What tools are necessary to make implementing this notion plausible? What are ways we can begin to do this, at the grassroots level, in our everyday lives?
3. In Chapter 13, Klein finally offers the account of what occurred when constructing the Leap Manifesto, which provides fundamental steps and ideas to build a future we want to see. There was finally a room where people came together to draft something that they would be proud and willing to sign. This was in order to rethink the ways in which they had been living and teaching future generations to live, and to question the narrative that had been fed to them for so long. By looking at the common themes, they were able to endorse an idea that encompassed needs from everyone’s crises. However, she notes that “though we can and must look for points of unity and commonality across very different experiences and issues, everything cannot be blended into an indecipherable must of lowest-common-denominator platitudes” (Klein, 2017:243).
a. How can we ensure that everyone’s crises are “reflected and protected” as we all come together? How do we avoid conflicts arising from trying to put everything together, and how do we make sure that no one is left out?
Section Two: Reaction
I know I mentioned it in the first discussion guide for this book, but I am enjoying a new tone on the issues we are facing. This book is a breath of fresh air in terms of arming those who read it with the necessary knowledge and tools to move forward in the right direction towards radical cultural change. I felt inspired and awakened by the end of the book, and truthfully during the last chapter was almost moved to tears. I was in awe at the the fact that I had finally found what I was looking for in this book – a blueprint for social change. It finally didn’t overwhelm me or leave me feeling depressed. It inspired me to think of how I wanted to see our culture and country, and what could be done to get there. The daunting task of changing our culture loses its menace through her knowledge and experience. It was a great book that fully addressed the issues we face equally with solutions. The only part that slightly upset me was that I had never heard of the Leap Movement until I read this book.
Section Three: Current Events
In an article published recently by NBC News, the results of a joint NBC/WSJ “social trends” poll are discussed. The article addresses each of the issues that are brought up, and highlights the percentage of people from each political background that are saying they are upset enough about an issue that they would hold up a protest sign for it. However, the major flaw that was glaring me in the face the entire time I read the information that was presented was that the article completely reinforced separate siloes. It compartmentalized each issue, and presented them differently. This is the root of the problem that we are currently facing, and this is further proof that it is simply embedded in our way of life. Honestly I wasn’t looking for an article that did this, but when I noticed it – I couldn’t not see it. Every issue we discuss has been this way for so long, and that is a radical change that needs to happen quickly. I feel less enthusiastic now than I did when I wrote my reaction section, because I’ve realized how incredibly difficult this is going to be.
