Yglesias rightly points out the folly of so-called climate activists for attacking their allies in the climate fight. Biden's climate package is simultaneously the most aggressive attack on underlying climate issues that any president has attempted and insufficient to reach climate goals. There are many reasons why it's insufficient, but it can be reduced to "Republicans" when you get right down to it.
Rather than attack Republicans for obstructing more climate related reforms, the activists are naturally attacking Biden. If this has the effect of depressing turnout in 2022, then Republicans could win one or both houses of Congress, at which point there will be NO climate legislation passed.
This is just unbelievably stupid.
It reminds me a passage from a book I just read.
Burke believes that the attempt to apply what he calls metaphysical methods in politics confuses politicians and citizens about the purpose of politics - leading them to think that governing is about proving a point rather than advancing the interests and happiness of a nation.
I know I quoted this before, but it's just so spot-on. The problem with any extremist political stance or movement in a democracy is proved most dramatically by the Republican Party's descent into a form of maximalist culture war that has embraced authoritarianism as the culture leaves them behind. Because they see the "Democrat" Party as Satanic Communist Pedophiles, there's no reason to win elections by persuading voters, just prevent the "wrong" people from voting.
On the Left, we have factional purity politics that punishes allies for being insufficiently "right." We dissolve into intramural squabbles over how many letters come after LGBT or what is the proper way to refer to people from Latin America, while the Right pushes "conversion therapy" and family separation. Trump had the great ability to clarify the venal cruelty at the heart of the modern GOP. Now the "Resistance" is fracturing as it inevitably would.
No comments:
Post a Comment