Give Friedman credit for raising the issue. If the punditocracy is beginning to take Climate Change seriously, it must be getting too big to ignore. I have several issues with the headlines though.
Democrats have been casting about for a big idea to propel them in 2020. My free advice: If Democratic socialism or Democratic Trotskyism or abolishing ICE — the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency — is what will get you elected as a Democrat in your district in 2018, go for it. The Democrats must take the House back. But Trump would feast on those issues in a national election.
However, if in 2020 we’re in the midst of even more damaging droughts and storms than we are today, Democrats may be able to run against Trump’s make-America-polluted-again environmental strategy and his refusal to either acknowledge the threat of climate change or seize the incredible opportunity it offers America to become richer, healthier, more secure and more respected by leading the world in clean energy technologies.
Whether or not you agree with Friedman on his past “Flat Earth” metaphor, or give him any credibility after his horrendous record on the Iraq invasion, he is at least thinking globally here while proposing local action. He’s in the right ball park with his concerns even if his answers should be taken with a huge grain of salt.
The western US is burning, the eastern US is flooding — and it’s not getting better. Democrats at the state and local level can point to what is happening right where people live, and ask: how do we deal with this now? What are we going to do about it in the future? They don’t have to make it about Trump or the GOP directly; all they have to do is have answers because Republicans have nothing.
Point out that it is going to take billions of dollars of government spending at every level to deal with this. ‘Free markets’ can’t and won’t address this; the public good always takes a back seat to making money. Tax cuts for the rich will not help anyone who has lost everything in a natural disaster — and that’s a growing bipartisan demographic.
There is no choice because you can’t vote to stop having floods or fires; you can only vote for people you trust to deal with them — and that means effective government.
Recovery, mitigation, and adaptation will create massive amounts of good-paying jobs. The work that needs to be done is essential, and it’s too important to leave to the markets whose only concern is profits, not the public interest. It’s an investment in infrastructure that will ripple through the whole economy — and the private sector can’t thrive in a world where whole towns burn and roads keep flooding and washing out.
Unlike tax cuts, the tax money spent to deal with climate change will go right back into the economy for goods, services, jobs, infrastructure — not stock buy-backs. It’s money that will be going to Main Street over Wall Street. As Friedman summarizes:
Clean power, clean cars, clean manufacturing and efficient buildings make everything we want to achieve in our society easier. They can lower our health care costs, cut heating bills for the poor, drive 21st-century innovation, foster decent jobs, mitigate climate change, create more competitive export industries, weaken petro-dictators — and enhance U.S. national security and moral leadership.
He could also mention the thousands of miles of roads and streets that no longer have adequate drainage, along with the rest of our infrastructure designed for a world that no longer exists. It all needs to be upgraded ASAP.
If Democrats/Progressives frame this right, we can make addressing climate change non-partisan — as it once was. We can tie it to things people are now experiencing in their daily lives. We can frame it with positive imagery and messaging. We need to remember good ideas are not enough — they also have to be sold to the voters. This should not be hard if we work at it. Here’s some sound bites to replace the boring policy wonkery for which cliché Democratic candidates are ridiculed. (Note that they could be split between the front and back of t-shirts.)
- We CAN solve our problems — we are not a nation of quitters and defeatists.
- We KNOW what to do — all we have to do is start doing it.
- We DO NOT have to surrender to Climate Change — we can fight it together.
- We DO NOT have to live in fear of disaster — we can meet it together.
- We CAN make America better for all — no one gets left behind.
- We CAN lead the world on this — because that is what the Real America does.
We must invest in our future, because that’s where we are going to spend the rest of our lives. And we can start right where people live.
They can see what’s happening around them. Even people who deny climate change can’t deny things are happening and that something needs to be done — especially when it is happening to them. A drowning man will not reject a life preserver thrown to him even if it comes from the government. Someone caught in a burning house will not demand bids go out for a free-market solution when a municipal fire department is right there with fire hoses at the ready.
Heard of Disaster Capitalism? Think of this as its mirror image: Disaster Socialism. Climate change is both a challenge and an opportunity. Let’s make the most of it. We really don’t have a choice. It is the great test of our times.
“I've always thought tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift. To fail the test is a misfortune. But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune.”
UPDATE: I’m seeing a particular theme in comments arguing that Climate Change is simply not important enough to enough people to get them to vote Democratic, that it’s the economy that matters, people who care about it already vote Democratic so we don’t need to mention it, etc. etc. These comments don’t exactly align with the poll results, so I’m taking them as outliers.
I’d like to pose a question to those making those arguments.
Explain to me when and how we ended up arguing over Mexicans taking all our jobs, Muslim terrorists sneaking into the country, widespread persecution of Christians and white males, the need to have guns everywhere at all times, the holocaust of millions of babies being slaughtered, the deep state, the fake news press, and all the other boogey men Republicans run their campaigns on? They have a media machine that runs 24/7, they have message discipline, and they’re not afraid to use it.
Fear works. Anger works. Democrats don’t like to deal with that reality but we ignore it at our peril. It’s how Republicans have to turn out their base. They’re now starting to talk about Climate Change as not just a liberal conspiracy to increase the power of Big Government, raise taxes, etc., they’re starting to blame liberals for what Climate Change is doing to the country.
It’s a stretch, but blaming others for their sins is what they do. It doesn’t have to make sense. Look at all the crazy stuff their base already believes: QAnon; child sex slaves in pizza parlors, California sending all its fire-fighting water out to the ocean, and so on.
To put it another way, if people are not angry and afraid over what the climate is doing to them, those are people who don’t know what’s going on or what to believe. The ones who DO know what’s going on want to hear it talked about and they want to hear solutions. Voter education is a key part of politics — and Democrats have the advantage of working with actual facts to reinforce beliefs.
- FACT: Climate Change is real and its happening now. Not 50 years from now — now.
- FACT: Climate Change is making weather events worse — and that trend is picking up.
- FACT: Climate Change costs the US economy billions of dollars and thousands of lives every year — and it’s not going to get better if we ignore it.
- FACT: Climate Change is putting our food supply at risk — here and around the world.
- FACT: The US is failing to mitigate and adapt to Climate Change — we are falling behind the rest of the world and doing nothing is costing us money as the damage mounts.
- FACT: Spending money to address Climate Change will create jobs, will remake America for the 21st century, and ensure that America has a viable future.
- FACT: Climate Change is a national security threat, it’s global, and you can’t take it out with bombs or stop it with walls.
If the Democratic Party either won’t or can’t use those facts to motivate voters and offer them solutions they can believe in, they don’t deserve to hold office. Chasing what people think matters when you can show them something that actually does matter is too damn passive. Political parties are supposed to be about organizing voters to come together under their banner, not trying to harvest them like fruit.
To build on the Disaster Socialism meme, never let a crisis go to waste.