by Mitch Jones and Mark Schlosberg

Republicans are gathering in Milwaukee this week for their convention, but you don’t need to watch the speeches to know what they stand for. All you have to do is look at their platform — what’s in it, and, as importantly, what’s missing.

It’s a love letter to Big Oil, agribusiness, and profiteers. And it totally ignores our food, water, and climate. With Trump’s selection of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, the party looks ready to double down on pro-oil and gas, pro-billionaire agenda.

“Drill, Baby, Drill!”

As most of the country is blanketed by extreme heat, grappling with wildfires, enduring drought, cleaning up from severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, and flooding, or recovering from a hurricane, the platform gives a bear hug to the fossil fuel industry. 

It literally says “drill, baby, drill,” refers to oil and fracked gas as “liquid gold,” and promises to get rid of regulations for oil, fracked gas, and coal. It also declares war on electric vehicles, promising to end the “EV mandate.” (Hint — there is no EV mandate.) It’s as though the fossil fuel industry wrote it themselves.

Guts Regulations

The platform promises the party will be “slashing regulation,” though it doesn’t specify what these regulations are. But for those unfamiliar — regulations are those pesky things that prevent large corporations from polluting your water, compromising food safety, abusing workers, and taking shortcuts that compromise public health. 

In short, regulations protect people and the environment — and the Republican Party platform says “Let’s get rid of those!” Let’s be clear, cutting regulations makes us unsafe so that corporations and their billionaire owners can make more money. This platform literally puts profit over people.

What Goes Unsaid Speaks Even Louder

While what’s in the platform is scary, what’s not in there is potentially even scarier. 

The platform doesn’t mention climate or pollution even once. The Republican Party has no platform or program for stopping pollution or ensuring a livable climate. It exists in a fantasyland that ignores the reality of the climate crisis millions of Americans are experiencing right now. 

The platform doesn’t mention toxics, PFAS forever chemicals, or cancer even once. The Republican Party has no program for preventing, treating, or curing cancer, never mind preventing cancer-causing chemicals from flooding our communities and our environment. 

The platform doesn’t mention the word “rural” once and has no program for helping small- and medium-sized farmers. The Republican Party has no platform for rural America, other than platitudes. There is no plan to build a resilient food system that benefits farmers, families, and our environment

The platform only mentions water once — and that’s in the context of creating a so-called “Fentanyl blockade on the waters of our Region.” There is nothing about ensuring all people have clean drinking water or the need to stop water pollution. No mention of needing to replace lead water pipes or protect our waterways from sewage overflows.

Finally, the platform doesn’t mention corporate greed or profiteering — a huge source of high food and gas prices. But this is far from surprising. These large corporations are the Republican Party’s base!

Together, We Can Prevent This Platform From Becoming Policy

A political party’s platform is a statement of values, and the Republican Party platform speaks volumes. What it ignores says as much as what it says out loud. And this only covers food, water, and climate — on a panoply of other issues, the Party is proposing a dangerous and destructive agenda. 

We cannot allow this corporate polluter wishlist to become government policy.

Together, we’ve overcome long odds to achieve real and positive change. This election is not about just who is at the top of the ticket. It’s about competing visions for our society and our future. We cannot allow a Trump presidency and Republican Congress and all that they stand for. 

We face a stark contrast between two contrary visions for our future. One will seek to rein in fossil fuels, expand clean energy, build a resilient food system, and provide clean water for all. The other will promote more fossil fuels, stifle clean energy, push for more consolidation in our food system, promote factory farms, and ignore our water crisis.

It’s up to us to come together — across differences and against all odds — and fight like Hell for our shared future and the future of generations to come. We need to fight like we live here — through November and beyond!