The Week’s Ryan Cooper takes exactly the wrong message away from the election, but, hey, I’m good with this, because it means even more Democrat losses
Why the Democrats need to get radical on climate change
The Democratic Party leadership that set up Hillary Clinton as the 2016 nominee is one of the all-time failures in American political history. Not only did they bobble an easily winnable presidential election, they have overseen a virtual collapse of the party at the state and local levels. Now a climate denier will take office at a time when aggressive climate policy is literally a matter of life and death. (By the way, global sea ice coverage is right now something like eight standard deviations below the average.)
But more than that, Democrats must admit that their previous climate record was also pathetically inadequate. If they wish to preserve the United States in its current form, or perhaps even at all, hardcore climate radicalism must become an ironclad party commitment. (snip)
All this means that when Democrats do manage to claw back power, climate policy is going to have to be aggressive on the order of a total war mobilization to get emissions down in time.
If they get hardcore on Hotcoldwetdry, they might not see power. When stacked against other issues, particularly bread and butter types, it almost always comes in last or next to last. When people have nothing better to do, they might care. Tell them that all the policies to stop Hotcoldwetdry will increase their cost of living, increase their energy bill, increase the cost of food, increase the cost of homes, restrict their freedom, etc and so on, citizens mostly say “no thanks!”
But, hey, Dems, keep pushing things people want nothing to do with. They can end up like the Labor Party in Queensland, Australia.
