...he adopts an ecumenical approach. He canvases a wide set of policy proposals to fight environmental destruction, ranging from market incentives to central economic planning ... In many ways, Harris might be thought of as the left-wing alter ego to the liberal journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson ... What’s Left” is painful to read. Not because it is poorly written, or wrongheaded, or inadequately researched — but because its rationalism and its futurism belong to an era, an epoch, a framing that is no longer ours. Of course we may still prefer to discuss bold and sensible solutions. We probably should. But we have to reckon with a present reality that is not just more dangerous, but heading in a worse direction ... Whatever the world was in which it was possible to imagine American policy approaches to global problems — a world in which we debated the relative merits of Bidenomics versus Indigenous revolution — it is no longer ours ... In light of the mayhem unleashed by President Trump and the extraordinary lack of resistance from America’s core institutions, we surely need something more modest and, admittedly, conservative than what Harris suggests. In the immediate aftermath of this hopefully singular period, it won’t be time to build, revolt, grow or shrink. Instead, we’ll have to put ourselves to a humbler task: the profound reconstruction of America’s basic civil functions.
Readers of political philosophy, environmental studies, and history will find information about our ongoing discussions about climate change, along with alternative visions and reimagined practices worth considering.
