The Real Reason Some People Are Angry About the Stonehenge Protest

None of this is wrong, per se. But yelling at Biden’s critics on the left isn’t good for much other than endearing yourself to his inner circle or, perhaps more importantly, cathartic release. Leftist critics won’t be the reason Biden loses, just like flashy, controversial protests won’t be the reason the world doesn’t limit global warming below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Regrettably, the U.S. left doesn’t have enough power to influence presidential election outcomes much, one way or the other. And there are many reasons why adequate climate action has been extraordinarily difficult to come by here and abroad—the ubiquity and extraordinary political clout of the fossil fuel industry; a decades-long turn away from the sorts of economic planning that could help manage a holistic energy transition; the state’s overwhelming reliance on for-profit actors to deliver unprofitable public policy outcomes. To say that spraying Stonehenge orange is beside the point is an understatement. Punching left has been a favorite elite liberal pastime for about as long as there have been elite liberals. Yet whatever libidinal energies are being loaded into their complaints about the left now don’t fully explain why so many of them are so enthusiastically attacking Biden’s critics online, or gloating that a candidate backed by Republican donors ousted a progressive Democratic incumbent. Here’s my theory. Feeling unable to stop something awful from happening, people want to yell at something or someone they feel like they have control over. That the objects of that derision are relatively powerless—as compared to people who regularly publish their thoughts in The New York Times or The Washington Post—is kind of the point. At the risk of painting with too broad a brush: The left is propelled by a belief in both the need for deep, structural changes to our political and economic systems and the capacity of sufficiently organized people to make them. If instead, like some elite liberals, you wholeheartedly believe there is no deep rot at the heart of this country’s institutions, that nothing fundamental needs to change, or can, then the current moment—in terms of both global warming and Trump’s increasing chances of victory—must feel especially hopeless and infuriating.