Al Gore calls Trump ‘would-be-autocrat' in Harvard speech
Al Gore used his 2019 Harvard Class Day speech to indirectly criticize President Donald Trump and advocate for climate change regulation.
The former climate change activist, vice president, and presidential candidate shared many of his personal political beliefs in his commencement speech, which hit on the rise of autocracy and the hot topic of climate change, according to The Harvard Crimson.
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“Supporters of authoritarianism define loyalty to America’s core principles as treason against its new would-be sovereign,” Gore states. “This explains the appeal to would-be autocrats of multiple bromances with extreme authoritarians, at least one of whom, in our current time, has been allowed to sink his teeth into America’s democratic electoral process and play with it like a chew toy.”
Gore also alluded to the accusations of Trump’s collusion with Russia.
“We often say no man is above the law,” the former vice president said. “Although the U.S. Justice Department’s current policy carves out an exception to that principle for one and only one person.”
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Gore suggested that support for Trump is similar to “cultish devotion to a strong man.”
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“I am also here to recruit you,” Gore said later while discussing energy.
“The scientists have told us we are putting 110 million tons of man-made heat-trapping global warming pollution into the sky every day as if it is an open sewer,” the speaker explained. “The accumulated quantity now traps as much extra heat energy every day as would be released by 500 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs exploding every 24 hours.”
Gore spoke to the urgency of addressing climate change and called for Harvard to divest from fossil fuels.
He framed fossil fuels as a moral issue, comparing it to apartheid in South Africa and tobacco stocks.
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Gore’s speech comes shortly after Harvard students protested the university’s investment in fossil fuels. Harvard President Drew Faust announced that the university plans to be fossil fuel-free by 2050, according to the Harvard Crimson.
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