(Editor’s note: I am seeing this from Florida, a frontline state both in climate change and in the fight against Fascism)
During the big Sep 17 climate march in NYC, a young activist from Korea spoke on the destruction caused by fossil fuel colonialism. At the end of her speech, she directly warned Biden to either stop approving fossil fuel projects, or risk an electoral boycott by young people.
Note that such a boycott hands the White House to Trump or DeSantis who also favor fossil fuels, but the entire two-party system is rigged to generate exactly this effect. Biden knows voters concerned about eminent domain pipelines and climate change have “nowhere to go” except home or to 3ed parties who are structurally blocked from ever taking power. Knowing that, the Democrats treat threats like this as bluffs. They DO however still face the threat that if Biden demotivates a major sector of voters, many who are on the line anyway of voting or not will stay home.
Election boycotts are normally associated with strong movements of extra-parliamentry opposition or outright insurgencies such as in Iran, where the objective is not to give legitimacy to a false choice.
The overall situation is quite ugly: Biden is considered unlikely to be able to defeat Trump, and policies like this that demotivate his base are one of the reasons. Many say he should pre-empt this by stepping down.
While there is little difference between Trump and Biden on fossil fuels, a Trump or still worse DeSantis win would impose the most genocidal anti-LGBTQ hate laws and racist policies of Flordia and Texas nationally.
No matter who wins the 2024 election, it will take tough fighting in the field to destroy projects like the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The final defeat of Huntingdon Life Sciences after 20 years of fighting shows the way. If Trump or DeSantis gets in, many won’t be ABLE to fight over pipelines as they will be too busy fighting to stay out of conversion therapy camps and prisons over their sexuality, or to escape ramped-up police brutality and witch-hunts over the color of their skin.
We cannot win ANYTHING in the 2024 election but we sure as hell can lose a lot.