The Green New Deal and the left’s grand plan [Part I]
There’s a lot of derision on the right about the Green New Deal. It goes something like this: it’s so stupid, and so against what the American people want, that it exposes the left to ridicule and will ultimately facilitate the re-election of Donald Trump.
Well, maybe. Maybe that will happen. But I have grave doubts, and I don’t think the GND is stupid. Yes, it may be stupid in the sense of violating our current knowledge about energy generation, or what is practical, as well as financial reality, and the like. But it’s not meant to make sense in that way; it’s meant to make political sense.
But how can that be, if most people can see through it? My answer is that I don’t think most people can see through it, and certainly not enough to make it a losing proposition for most Democratic candidates to hop on board.
But how can I say that? Isn’t it very very extreme, so extreme it will alienate people? For the answer, just do what I did: spend a few hours reading MSM sites and seeing reactions from Democrats. It’s an education in how the GND is being responded to, and why the Democratic candidates have all hopped aboard the extremist green social justice jobs for everyone train.
Last night I watched a clip of some liberal spokesperson or other being quizzed by a conservative as to what she agreed with in the details of the GND. “Its spirit” was all she could come up with, but for her it was enough. She seemed embarrassed when asked about particulars and couldn’t endorse any, but she pooh-poohed—almost ridiculed—the need for details.
I doubt there are many Democratic politicians able to defend many (if any) of the GND manifesto’s specific provisions. And yet many have endorsed it. Why is that? For example, Kamala Harris is all in; she is the proposal’s co-sponsor, and tweeted this after its release:
California senator Kamala Harris (D.) has signed on as a cosponsor of Green New Deal legislation unveiled on Thursday morning, writing in an email to supporters that climate change is an “existential threat to our country, our planet, and our future.”Harris announced her support for the plan shortly after she launched her presidential run last month, but the details of the proposed federal government-led economic overhaul of the country were not released until Friday…“Bold action takes bold leadership,” said the 2020 presidential contender, “and I’m grateful to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [D., N.Y.] and Senator Ed Markey [D., Mass.] for leading the charge on this critical resolution.”
Nancy Pelosi is no dummmy; she seemed on the one hand to look down on the GND, but on the other hand she apparently set the tone for the spokesperson I saw on the show (liking the spirit). Pelosi had stated this:
“Frankly, I haven’t seen it, but I do know it’s enthusiastic, and I welcome all the enthusiasm,” Pelosi told reporters, just hours before Green New Deal sponsors Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) held their own press conference…It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive,” Pelosi told Politico. “The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it right?”
See? She is playing both ends here, and AOC played her own part of the game quite well in response:
…I think it is a green dream. I don’t consider to be that a dismissive term,” she said. “Nancy Pelosi is a leader on climate, has always been a leader on climate, and I will not allow our caucus to be divided up by silly notions of whatever narrative. We are in this together.”
The article makes it clear that Pelosi wants some climate change legislation. My guess is that it’s just as I wrote yesterday—hers will seem mild compared to AOC’s. They are indeed in this together.
Since virtually all the Democratic candidates are on board with the GND, this should be used in 2020 by Republicans in the campaign against them. That’s obvious. So why are so many Democratic candidates doing it (and read this article for a refresher on how awful the GND is)?
They know their base will love it—especially young people, but more about that later. And Democrats are counting on the notion that most of the rest of the public will not be paying much attention to the details of the GND, or at least will like the “enthusiasm.”
I was very curious how on earth the MSM would spin this to make it sound plausible. I had little doubt that they would, however, because their goal has been to support the Democrats. I decided to read this New Yorker piece as an example, and I learned exactly what I wanted to know.
If you had read it without reading the Green New Deal text, you’d think the GND to be a rather moderate, ho-hum, slight extension of things that had gone before (ABC took a similar approach). You would have no idea of its lunacy, its extreme radicalism and sweep, and its utter impossibility of implementation without beggaring the country. And of course, most people will almost certainly not read the text of the Green New Deal; they will rely on the MSM to tell them what it really is, and the MSM will keep the focus soft and fuzzy and friendly.
From that article:
It is an even clearer sign than growing Democratic support for single-payer health care that the era of Clintonian triangulation is over—that the question leading Democrats are asking is not whether the Party should move left but how far left it should go.The resolution is also in keeping with the Democratic Party’s longstanding strategy on climate—the Party has long assumed, probably correctly, that major climate action is unlikely unless addressing the crisis is woven securely into the Party’s economic agenda. A job guarantee, as radical as it seems, is an extension of the same logic that led the Obama Administration to tout the creation of green jobs.
The job guarantee is not some thing that was arbitrarily tacked on; it is integral and a way to sweeten the attraction to the average voter. Another big clue is here:
Of course, no bill they propose will be taken up unless Democrats win the White House in 2020, unseating a President who has claimed repeatedly that climate change is a hoax.
Got it? This GND initiative is a counter to Trump, that troglodyte non-believer in AGW. The GND is not meant to be serious legislation for now, but to burnish the Democrats’ reputation as caring about climate change and the Republicans’ reputation for not caring. And the Democrats are counting on just about no one—except the right, and the far left—to read what’s actually in the GND.
Meanwhile, think about this: the Democratic Party wins these days by appealing to blocs of voters who will vote nearly monolithically for Democrats. Just as one example, black voters. “Young people” are also a bloc that puts Democrats over the top in many races. And many many of today’s young people are terrified of AGW. They have been taught in school from early grades on that it is a dire problem staring us in the face, and that—as AOC has helpfully pointed out prior to releasing the GND—the planet is at risk in the next decade and something drastic must be done or the world is in dire peril. If a person believes that, and believes that science supports it, that person will almost certainly vote for people advocating extreme measures—particularly if that person is unaware of the science and math and history that make those measures very very dangerous as well as unlikely to succeed. The idea is that desperate measures require desperate defenses, and the Democrats are at least willing to take measures that the GOP will not.
Do not estimate the powerful appeal of this to many many people. The Democrats have no intention of passing anything like these proposals for now. The plan for now is to use it all for a cudgel in 2020 and gain more power, and then they can do just about anything they want.
It may not work, but it’s not stupid—not if your goal is power and control.
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