Skip to content Skip to footer

The US Is in the Midst of a “Shock-and-Awe Judicial Coup,” Naomi Klein

“The rolling judicial coup coming from this court is by no means over,” warned the author of “The Shock Doctrine.”

Protesters attend a candlelight vigil in front of the U.S. Supreme Court to denounce the court's decision to end federal abortion rights protections on June 26, 2022, in Washington, D.C.

Renowned environmentalist and author Naomi Klein argued Thursday that over the past week, the United States experienced the early stages of a “rolling judicial coup” as the Supreme Court took a sledgehammer to abortion rights, gun control laws, and the federal government’s authority to tackle greenhouse gas emissions that are fueling the global climate emergency.

“We have witnessed a shock-and-awe judicial coup,” Klein wrote in a column for The Intercept, pointing also to the right-wing high court’s decisions to weaken Indigenous sovereignty and further undermine the separation of church and state.

“And now this: a decision that eviscerates the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate a major source of the carbon emissions destabilizing our planet,” wrote Klein, who for years has explored the ways in which reactionary political forces and corporations have taken advantage of crises to impose their will — a method she has dubbed “The Shock Doctrine.”

West Virginia v. EPA marks a seismic win for such forces, which have spent decades coordinating and taking legal action against the federal government’s regulatory authority, particularly when it comes to challenging the ability of corporations to pollute and degrade the environment as they please.

“The rolling judicial coup coming from this court is by no means over,” Klein warned Thursday. “Next term, the Supreme Court will hear a redistricting case that could well make it far easier to concoct a legal pretense for overriding the popular vote in elections in favor of state-appointed electors — the very thing that Donald Trump attempted but failed to do, because enough people were afraid of ending up in jail.”

“There is no reason to believe that a group of people whose very presence on the bench required grotesque abuses of democracy would somehow draw the line at thwarting it,” she added. “The moment to stop them from getting the chance is right now.”

Klein argued that to combat the right-wing justices’ sweeping attacks on basic freedoms and the climate, President Joe Biden and the narrowly Democratic Congress must “challenge the underlying legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court and advance an aggressive climate action agenda.”

“History contains crossroads when a single set of decisions can alter the trajectory of a people — or even a planet,” Klein continued. “The Biden administration’s response to the Supreme Court’s 6-3 EPA ruling, hot on the heels of the other outrageous power grabs, is a moment like that.”

In the wake of the court’s decision Thursday, climate groups and progressive lawmakers made clear that Biden and Congress have at their disposal numerous executive and legislative tools to rein in fossil fuel use, slash planet-warming emissions, and bolster renewable energy production. Whether they opt to use them is a matter of political will.

“Biden and the Democrats are currently careening toward a wave of defeats,” Klein wrote. “But it’s not too late to get back on track. They have just been handed a winning platform: Use the Supreme Court’s attack on urgent carbon control as a catalyst to build a more meaningful democracy and take transformational climate action at the same time. If they decide to run with it, everybody on this planet wins. If they refuse, they deserve every loss coming their way.”

Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn

Dear Truthout Community,

If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.

We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.

Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.

There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.

Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?

It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.

We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.

We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.

Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.

We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.

With love, rage, and solidarity,

Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy