I just listened to a couple of you on MSNBC with Katy Tur and what I picked up was this:
We’re against climate change because Republicans are mean.
We’re for taking away everyone’s cars and coal sucks.
Also Republicans, Republicans, Republicans.
The reason we used to listen to college educated people who are politicians and college educated people who interview them is because they used to have critical thinking skills. I’m starting to think that these days, most of them don’t have those skills or, if they do, they’ve forgotten how to use them. However, many of us who aren’t on TV actually do have those skills so I offer this for your staff to dig into and see what you can do with it. I promise it will make you come across more convincingly.
Here’s what you should say when it comes to climate change.
Imagine you turn on the news and a wildfire has started in the county next to yours and you’re being urged to leave your home. The next day you do and two days later you come back and hope that some of your photo albums have survived because your house is toast. You have to move to your parents’ house in Corpus Christi. You don’t really understand the people there.
Imagine you’ve had four days notice that the hurricane is gonna hit and you decided to stay and you end up needing emergency rescue and they take you to a shelter where the food sucks, hygiene is gross, and everyone there has a story as sad as yours. You have to move to your cousin’s farm in Iowa. You don’t really understand the people there.
Imagine it hasn’t rained for a year and your crops aren’t coming in and your debts are piling up and then your tractor breaks and you can’t get a loan to fix it because you got no crops this year. You have to move to your daughter’s house in Eugene. You don’t really understand the people there.
Those are the things that are happening more and more. Climate change isn’t a partisan issue, it’s a human issue. We may can do something about it, but not as long as we keep electing people who just want to win and don’t understand on a fundamental level what climate change means.
Democrats want good environmental policy so that people don’t get displaced and don’t have to migrate if they don’t want to.
I know this is my second diary today and that annoys some people, but I think this is important enough to deal with annoyance. It’s really important that Democrats learn to talk about why this is important and stop saying, “If you believe in climate change, we’re gonna take away your cars and your jobs.” (I know it’s not all Dems, but the ones who were on TV today and Katy Tur’s questioning, oh my God, clueless. This is no time for clueless.)