Mark Green's Atheopaganism Blog

The cruelty will be the point. The incompetence, we get for free.

Today is the last day of the Joe Biden Presidency in the US. By all factual accounts, Biden has done a sterling job: orchestrating a “soft landing” for the US economy after the plunge of the pandemic, shrinking unemployment and promoting unions, providing unprecedented leadership on climate change and conservation, reestablishing credibility with allies, and pushing through the largest investment in clean energy and US infrastructure since the creation of the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s.

But right-wing media and propaganda are an increasing presence in our lives, and first Biden, and then Vice President Harris were trashed with specious claims about inflated prices they had nothing to do with, enabling the racist demagogue and convicted felon Donald Trump to return to the White House tomorrow.

The agenda for Trump’s second term is intentionally punitive of his opponents and supposed “enemies”, include massive deportations of immigrants and deliberate dismantling of much of what has been achieved over the past century in the way of social, worker and environmental protection.

Trump’s first term was marked by incompetence at a grand scale. Many of the harmful things he tried to do were defanged by court rulings or sheer failure on the part of the toadies he appointed to positions of power. His appointees this time around appear to be in the same mold, but there does seem to be more danger that he will actually be able to carry some of his more draconian proposals out.

Meanwhile, as he departs President Biden is doing what he can to batten down the hatches for the accomplishments of himself and former President Obama, whom Trump particularly loathes. One such final action was the designation of two new national monuments protecting about 820,000 acres in California. In my professional life, I lead an organization, CalWild, that did a great deal of work to advance these monument proposals, and as I result, I was invited to the White House to meet the President and witness the signing of these monuments into law.

That’s me with the President in the Oval Office, second from the left. Others shown are Moises Cisneros of Sierra Club, and three other Executive Directors besides myself: Jun Bando of California Native Plant Society, Laura Deehan of Environment California, and Janessa Goldbeck of Vet Voice.

This was pretty thrilling, of course.

But in a larger sense, the celebrations afterwards were like attending a funeral. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland–the first Native American ever to hold that position–choked up as she thanked her staff and her colleagues in the administration by name. Others from US Department of Agriculture, the White House Council on Environmental Quality and other agencies recounted the many achievements of this administration even as they are walking out the door to be replaced by unconscionable brutality and disregard for the public good.

So what does any of this have to do with Atheopaganism?

I write all this because now those of us in the US who care about the planet and our fellow humans must mount a vigorous defense. We have seen decency, competence and compassion rejected by an electorate which is uneducated, propagandized, angry and selfish, and must now fight to keep the flame alive through a dark period in our history.

We Atheopagans are good at holding something beautiful in our hearts even when it’s not safe to express it. We’re a religious minority both in being Pagans and in being atheists. We aspire to a better, kinder world, and know we can help to build it even when confronted with avarice and cruelty.

I spent last week in Washington with hundreds of goodhearted people deeply invested in that better world, who have devoted their lives to helping to implement a vision for how we can live in relation to our planet home. It warmed me despite the frigid temperatures to know that so many, in so many places and organizations, are working to advance these values as hard as they can.

They may not identify as Atheopagans, but I’d bet a lot of them might if they had ever heard of us.

So I say this: find and build alliances. Build community around shared values, even if it’s just a dinner club that meets once a month to share food and talk about something important. Stand up for those the Trump regime will target. Don’t make it easy for them. Live the Atheopagan Principles and be a beacon for those around you. Care for yourself and your communities with rituals and kindness and generosity.

These are hard times. I won’t deny it. The pathway to a better future is obscured by dark clouds and hard to discern. But I remain certain that it exists.

It exists.

And you’re a part of it, and I am. We all are.

Tomorrow, surrounded by billionaire cronies, Donald Trump will place his hand on a bible he has no regard for and lie his way through the oath of office. Again.

They have power, but so do we.

Be of stout heart. Engage with this community for support, to be seen and known.

We will endure, first, and then thrive.