My two cents of consolation for those devastated by the US elections result, or other recent elections around the world…
Many who work in the fields of sustainability, impact, human rights, civil rights, women’s rights, and so on, had high hopes for Harris winning the US presidential election - as a precondition for more action on the global ecological crisis and other issues close to our hearts.
I suggest we take some solace in realising our hopes were always misplaced in the first place, and focus on some upsides to help us retain our sense of agency and priorities.
If you read into the science, you may quickly conclude that in order to retain liveable conditions for humanity later this century, we need to pull of a radical systemic change, implemented globally, within years. That’s what it takes to steer towards a better trajectory.
Slightly more stringent corporate disclosure requirements, or any kind of law increasing expectations on incremental action (nota bene entering into power within years from now) - those are just noise.
And therefore, neither the prospects of a liveable future - nor the prospects of future viability of a global economy or business continuity for multinational corporations - can be secured via the electoral process-as-usual in time.
For that to be possible, political parties with a program of swift systemic change would have to have won majorities in respective legislative bodies (in democratic political establishments), years ago, so their new laws could be entering into force around now, with a few years of lead time of large scale economic transformation to kick-in. (We spell out the logic and the timeline in the arkH3 Theory of Change, which is easily googlable).
This should make common sense. Many of us keep exclaiming we are in a planetary emergency. But an emergency means switching to crisis management protocols. We haven't done that.
One of the reasons is that the electoral and policy making processes (as we know them) hardly ever cater to what’s best for the electorate. For systemic reasons.
This is an inconvenient truth.
Yes. Seeing another seemingly sane and coherent woman left behind by a frail white man who doesn’t seem to score high on either of those attributes, regardless of programs, is painful. And yet it’s another sign of the current system delivering as designed.
Now to the upsides!
1) This awareness can liberate us from high expectations from election results - and can help us invest our hopes, effort, and energy in more effective ways, towards more plausible theories of change.
2) Trump may unwittingly be a destroyer of the current system. Systemic change means the current system being dismantled and replaced by another one. The current system cracking in seams and discrediting itself is part of the change. Contrary to beliefs manifested by stock markets around the world, the last thing I’d expect Trump to deliver is stability for the current system.
(cont'd in 1st comment).
