No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need
by Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein is responsible for some of the most import and in-depth reporting on the left. Ever since I saw her on the Corporation documentary more than 10 years ago, I’ve tried to follow her reporting. She’s surprisingly not in the mainstream very much. Her previous work No Logo is a phenomenal look into the outsourcing of mainstream brands and how that’s essentially supplementing the poverty in foreign countries. Then, her book Shock Doctrine was another in-depth work, but this time dissecting how catastrophes are the ideal backdrop for implementation of neo-liberal policies.
Her latest book is called No is Not Enough and, as Klein herself admits, it’s more conversational and unfortunately less in-depth than her previous books. While No Logo and Shock Doctrine took years to write and provide very in-depth analysis, this book brushes over the significance of the Trump victory and what that means for the environment. It most certainly is an easier book to read and here Klein covers the Trump campaign, his policies, his nominations for his cabinets (which are, unfortunately, already way out of date), and goes through the ideas behind the Shock Doctrine once again. No Is Not Enough has some great ideas but most of it is not new for people who are even remotely familiar with environmental policies or liberal publications. In that sense, this book is a bit vague and preaches to the choir.
Klein focuses the final part of her book on the tactical aspects of bringing change. She talks about organizing at the grassroots levels, the positives that have come out of public protests (like the short-lived Dakota pipeline victory), and the drafting of the LEAP Manifesto. Although her heart is in the right place, and the manifesto should be recognized for being a reflection of what citizens want, it has very vague in tactics and is more what our society would look like generations from now under ideal circumstances. Also, the mystic fairy tale language is hard to take seriously and probably hurts the manifesto from being taken seriously more than anything.
Not Klein’s strongest book, but then again, maybe it wasn’t meant to be.
Get it from Haymarket.
