Greta Thunberg: why the usual attacks from the right do not bother her

Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, can now add another mark of distinction to her considerable and growing list of accomplishments: she was attacked by the chief troll.

On Monday evening, in response to Thunberg's passionate and passionate speech at the UN, President Trump tweeted sarcastically:[s]he seems to be a very happy girl hoping for a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see! "(Thunberg quickly edited his Twitter Bio to read: "A very happy girl hoping for a bright and wonderful future.")

Trump's sneering attack was launched in the midst of a torrent of often misogynist and capable violence against Thunberg since the speech, with conservatives attacking her behavior, her appearance, her mental health (she is autistic), and most of all her autonomy. , claiming that she is "brainwashing"Or victim of child abuse. Many compared his speeches to Nazi propaganda.

"She is ignorant, maniacal and is handled without mercy by climate-fueled adults funded by Putin," C-List climate minister Steve Milloy countered, inserting in a way all the conflicting stereotypes about powerful women in the world. that time.

What is remarkable about this is not that the right mud machine has been put to work against a new progressive threat. That's what it was designed for. What is remarkable is its inefficiency, its minimal impact on Thunberg and its extraordinary influence.

The tabloid on the right, Daily Wire, has published some of the most vilest articles on Thunberg. But when she sent Michael Knowles to Fox News to say that Thunberg is "a Swedish child suffering from mental illness, who is exploited by his parents and by the international left," Fox has taken the rare step of apologizing to viewers and to tell him that the book would no longer be available. .

In a women-led TV show, the only male guest ("Buck Sexton", I do not bother you) went in pursuit of Thunberg and was immediately reprimanded by his host for his "thrashing". # 39; s child ". In Canada, Maxime Bernier, from the far right The People's Party of Canada was obliged to apologize for calling Thunberg "mentally unstable".

Of course, these moments of responsibility right are rare – there are dozens, hundreds of other examples of attacks far more ugly than these that did not cause any setbacks. But they help illustrate that Thunberg has the rare ability to tap into something human, something that, at least sporadically, can break through the media filter pushing the public into partisan camps.

As for Thunberg, his reaction to his aggressors remains as perplexed and clinical as ever:

Even despite the madness of current events, Thunberg's story is remarkable, both human and political, as David Wallace-Wells aptly describes in his recent magazine article New York. It draws on the exhilarating sense of an exploding movement but also offers a clear glimpse of the extremely concentrated and extremely vulnerable teenager in her heated, white-hot center. Everyone should read it.

Here, I just want to go back to one theme of this play, namely the unlikely confluence of personal history and the characteristics that made Thunberg so politically powerful and so resistant to familiar smears from the right.

As she often does, it's important to note that Thunberg did not create this movement alone. It stands in front of and beside it on the shoulders of generations of activists, many of whom are of color, who are at least less likely to be adopted as icons by Westerners. (Look at that good thread on other extraordinary young climate activists.)

But it has been extremely powerful in crystallizing and focusing what has been a somewhat diffuse activist energy. She brought a frankness and simplicity to the movement she lacked. His influence grows, even as the right raises his barrage and moves them away from their thoughts.

Let's see why their usual tips do not work.

Greta avoids the trap of recommending specific policies

Companies, scientific institutions, investors and governments around the world unanimously recognize the urgent need to take action to combat climate change. Science has clearly shown that the status quo leads to disaster. Many debates remain on the best way forward, but the basic arguments for action have become impossible.

That is why most opponents of action – far-right coalitions fueled by a mixture of fossil fuel cronyism and populist ethnonationalism – do not assail it. They do everything they can to distract him.

This almost always involves attacking the messengers ("Al Gore has a big house") and their proposed solutions ("The Green New Deal will remove your hamburgers"). Scientists are after the grant; the activists are clandestine socialists; the chiefs are hypocrites; the reach of the walkers. Throwing doubt on the motives and authenticity of people struggling for progressive causes is the main political tool of the right, with efforts now being conducted outside the White House.

For climatologists and advocates, it's a familiar trap. Any political agenda sufficient to deal with large-scale climate change is, by definition, radical, allowing the right to reject it as being "far left". The decisive attack against the movement for the climate is that it is a "watermelon," Green on the outside and socialist inside – the change climate is only one political program coverage.

Thunberg avoided attacks on his motives by refraining almost entirely from supporting specific reforms or policies. "I can not really talk about things like [politics]She told Wallace-Wells, "no one would take me seriously."

She insisted on this point when she presented the IPCC report on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius instead of testifying in the House. Attached is a short letter stating, "I am presenting this report as a testimony because I do not want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to the scientists. And I want you to unite behind science. And then, I want you to act. She refuses to let her opinions become the center of interest.

Coming from almost any adult, this strategy would be vulnerable. Adults have a political worldview and very few have the discipline to keep them completely hidden. But Thunberg is, in her own words, a "teenager without education". She is 16 years old! It can not be expected to know what actions government agencies must take and it does not claim to do so.

It only reminds, again and again, the topic that adults want to avoid: the need for immediate action and their long-standing failure to take it.

(The right has spread an image of Thunberg with his parents wearing "anti-fascist star" t-shirts, claiming that this exposes his politics from the left.) Media reflection. Think for a moment about what she says is an opposition to the right, politically compromising fascism.)

Personal defamation attempts against Greta have turned against us

The first reflex of the right-wing media is to denigrate the messenger, to find a behavior on which to hang a charge of hypocrisy or a venal motive that would undermine the moral authority. They have done the same to all those who have taken the lead on climate change (starting with Al Gore) for several decades now, searching through stolen emails, filing lawsuits and ruining careers.

But that's where Thunberg's autism proved, as she said, a kind of superpower. She has Asperger's syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder that makes her indifferent, often blind, to social cues and social motivations, as well as inclined to focus on a single subject, a tendency that, according to Thunberg, is exacerbated by obsessive-compulsive disorder.

As Wallace-Wells notes, Thunberg fell into a depression when she was younger after being informed about climate change and had spent a few years without friends eating and talking little, barely motivated to leave home . In his own words, his activism for the climate has given him a sense of concentration and meaning that will help him out of depression.

(I am far from being the first to establish a connection between Thunberg's autism, its authenticity and its effectiveness.) Steve Silberman spoke about it here on Vox, Naomi Klein and Liza Featherstone, among others, the 39 have explained well Thunberg herself has done.)

Typically, the European and American right tried to use Thunberg's mental health against her, but this attempt largely turned against her. On the one hand, it is virtually impossible to watch her talk for long and to believe in good faith that she is responding to the social pressure of adults. It is obviously authentic, direct in a unique way among public figures, no more prone to flattery than to coercion.

Witness of the totally indifferent reception of Thunberg in front of the praises which the democrats of the Congress lavish on him. "If you like, keep your praise," she said. "We do not want it. Do not invite us here to tell us how inspiring we are without doing anything about it. It does not lead to anything. "

She is not intimidated or dazzled by the social hierarchy. She just traps, again and again, her attention to what she herself does not want to say: the need for immediate action and her long-standing failure.

Whatever the attempt of the right, his personal story remains perfectly relatable. It was a child who discovered that the world in which she was born was sinking into crisis and suffering and that no one was doing much about it. It depressed her. And that ended up motivating her to act.

The question is not why she was depressed and driven to action, but why other children are not.

When Greta ignores social cues, it sends a social signal.

The reason is simple: social cues. Children do not see the adults around them acting as if climate change was a crisis, so they did not do it either. For most people, these social cues and affiliations – the building blocks of identity – are far more significant than "the facts" as they are conveyed by distant and disinterested authorities.

But, partly because of their indifference to social cues, people with autism have a unique ability to deal with facts clearly. And the facts about climate change are terribly terrifying.

This, I think, helps to explain why Thunberg has inspired so many people, especially many young people: There is a kind of courage to ignore the ubiquitous social pressure to calm climate change. She takes the facts seriously, even when very few adults show how to do it, even when the situation is uncomfortable or embarrassing for those around her. She is vegan, she will not steal, and she spends her young life inciting adults to act – the accusations of hypocrisy and default duplicity of the right just do not fit.

The right has created a social environment in which talking about climate change leads to intimidation and shame, but these tactics just do not seem to work for Thunberg. And without them, the right has no right of appeal (none of the hundreds of attacks launched against it has the courage to directly challenge the IPCC report it has presented).

By ignoring social cues, Thunberg has become one: a signal to other young people around the world: yes, it's really an emergency, and yes, they can and must really speak up.

Photo credit should match TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP / Getty Images

The power of Greta will be to make more Gretas

Until now, Thunberg has played her game expertly – mainly by ignoring almost completely the other games that are unfolding around her – and I hope she'll do it as long as she can. possible. I hope that she will continue to refrain from political recommendations, lead a low-carbon life and bring back light on science. She has achieved a political miracle and I do not want it to end more than anyone.

But the problem is that, although Thunberg may now seem to be a transparent lens, she focuses on climate science without the distractions of her personal baggage, she is in fact a human being, a 16-year-old girl, and she can stay forever. in the strange social position where she is. Sooner or later, she will do something, join something or say something that will force her to leave the incredibly apolitical space she now occupies – and the public tends not to forgive women who disappoint their expectations. , even the youngest. No human can survive the full intensity of the right-hand smear machine.

If Thunberg is to have a significant long-term effect, it can not remain in the spotlight. It has to come from others who are part of their concentration, determination and courage, learning to ignore social pressures that dispel their fear and anger and prevent them from talking, connecting and find hope from each other. It will come from other people – especially those in positions of power with access to social capital – who listen to him and deal with the threat to the future of his generation.