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Count on one thing: Donald Trump wasn't kidding. I'm thinking of the moment when he insisted that he would be a "dictator" on "day one" of his next term in office. Or the time, after his 2020 election defeat, that he called for the "termination" of parts of the Constitution. ("A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution," he wrote. "Our great 'Founders' did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!") Or, for that matter, his recent call for the Army or National Guard to be deployed against "the enemy within" (that is, his opponents) this November 5th.
Of course, right now, he has no power to do such things. But next January, who knows, given how close the 2024 presidential election is expected to be. And were he to become president again, he's already made it all too clear that he plans to use the U.S. military in new ways -- and not just at the Mexican border. He would, he insists, deploy it against what he's come to call "the enemy within." As he put it recently, "We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they're the big -- and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can't let that happen."
And given his feelings about the "hoax" of climate change -- no matter that this country is being battered ever more severely by the weather on this distinctly overheating planet of ours -- or rather, as he called it in the wake of Hurricane Helene's devastating path across the Southeast, "one of the greatest scams of all time," you can just imagine how, in a second term, he might choose to deal with a growing crew of climate protestors. If you want a hint as to the direction he would be likely to take, let TomDispatch regular Stan Cox, author of The Green New Deal and Beyond, describe just how severe the penalties now being imposed on perfectly peaceful climate protestors are, especially in Republican-controlled states. It should already be a scandal and, if Donald Trump returns to the White House, believe me, it will be a scandal and a half in a world increasingly headed for hell on Earth. Tom
Outrageous Anti-Protest Laws Can't Silence the Climate Movement
But Will U.S. Protesters Face Even Greater Peril in 2025?
By Stan Cox
In August, climate activist and cellist John Mark Rozendaal was arrested and charged with criminal contempt for playing a few minutes of Bach outside Citibank's headquarters in New York City. Rozendaal, 63, was prominent in the "Summer of Heat on Wall Street" campaign that targeted Citibank for its prolific financing of fossil-fuel projects. He and a co-defendant now face up to seven years imprisonment if convicted.
Meanwhile in Atlanta, more than 50 justice and environmental activists are awaiting trial on domestic terrorism and other charges arising from their years-long defense of the city's South River Forest against the construction of an 85-acre police training center there. They are being prosecuted under Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) law. Any of them found guilty of "racketeering" would have five to 20 years of imprisonment added to their sentences for the alleged underlying crimes.
Such situations are symptomatic of a grim trend in both the United States and Europe. Nonviolent, nondestructive climate protest is increasingly being subjected to criminal prosecution, while punishments are being ratcheted up to levels befitting violent and far more serious crimes.
Across the Global South, such environmental protests are all too often being met by corporate and state forces with extreme extrajudicial violence, especially in Indigenous communities. Here in the Global North, however, the clampdown on protest has largely been through legal action, at least so far. But that might -- especially in an America with Donald Trump as its president again -- only be a prelude to more violent kinds of suppression as global warming accelerates.
For embattled American climate activists, this trend further raises the stakes of the November 5th election. The crackdowns on climate protest are so far being carried out by state and local governments. But the state abuses described in this article should be considered a preview of what is almost guaranteed to be even worse to come if Donald Trump does indeed retake the White House and the Republicans win majorities in the House and Senate. As recently as October 13th, in fact, Trump insisted that, once back in the White House, he'd call in the military to quash domestic dissent of any sort.
In addition, a Trumpian Congress would be likely to pass laws gutting federal climate policies and imposing extreme penalties on future climate protestors. Both prospects also feature prominently in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, produced in part by a gaggle of former Trump officials. That now-infamous blueprint for his possible second administration calls explicitly for -- as the Center for American Progress describes it -- "suppressing dissent and fomenting political violence." Among other things, Project 2025 suggests that a future President Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, which would indeed allow him to use the military to punish lawful nonviolent protest. And count on it, he's almost certain to exploit that act if he does indeed become president again.
Gas, Oil, and Cars Over People
Since 2016, 21 states have passed a total of 56 laws criminalizing protest or dramatically increasing the penalties for engaging in it. To be sure, John Mark Rozendaal was arrested in New York, a city located in a blue state, but all the states that have adopted new anti-protest laws are governed by Republican-majority legislatures. And the specific activity most frequently targeted for prosecution is protesting the construction or existence of oil and gas pipelines. (Note that all state laws mentioned below are described in detail in a recent report by the International Center for Not-For-Profit Law, or ICNL.)
The state of Alabama, for example, can now punish a person who simply enters an area containing "critical infrastructure," including such pipelines, with up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $6,000. If you go near a pipeline in Arkansas, you're at significantly higher risk: imprisonment of up to six years and a $10,000 fine. Impeding access to a pipeline or a pipeline construction site in Mississippi carries a sentence of up to seven years. Do that in North Carolina as a member of a group and you've got even bigger problems. As the ICNL reports, "[A] group of people protesting the construction of a fossil fuel pipeline could face more than 15 years in prison and a mandatory $250,000 fine if they impede or impair the construction of a pipeline."
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