A Modest Proposal On How To Use Partisan Politics To Get Climate Legislation Through Congress

 

I gave up counting how many articles I’ve read on this site and really everywhere about the existential threat of climate change and why certain parties in America are doing nothing to stop it. None of them are telling you the actual reason which I figured out recently.

Nobody wants to.

No, I’m not just talking about the usual boogeymen: Republicans, the one percent, the corporate overlords, MAGA extremists. I mean every single person who lives in America, with the exception of the scientific community,  regardless of their opinion on climate change has no interest in doing anything to stop it. Not really.

I realize that the corporations, particularly the oil and gas companies in the world have a very real investment in not solving the problem. But while I won’t dare call them the heroes, they are straw men for the villains which is the same as everything: the American consumer.

Red staters have never been the only people buying cars in the last thirty years. I live in New York, which is the hub of public transportation and I’m pretty sure there are more cars here than say in Iowa or Oklahoma. Our population may claim to care as much about the threat of global warming, but there are few people who’d claim that the MTA or the LIRR are something you’d willingly ride. The taxicab business industry is big business here as is Uber and far too often that’s for short distances. We may not drive, but we sure as hell aren’t walking everywhere. Even the states that deal with public transportation the most – which are the bluest ones – no one will ever write a song to the glories of the subway system.

And the auto industry continues to thrive for the same reason that every corporation does: there’s a demand. That’s why I have the greatest degree of difficulty believing that all of these Gen Z and Millennials who are the angriest about the threat of climate change really care as deeply as they say they do. I think they’re only truly pissed because when the world ends, it will happen when they are still alive. If the threat was going to happen in another 200 years, I think they’d be as blasé about as the boomers they mock.

Because at the end of the day, today’s youth has no interest in sacrifice. It’s easy to blame the corporate overlords for the world we live in today, but as far as I can’t tell, they’re making the lion’s share of their noise on social media. They probably still order all their goods on Amazon prime, get most of their food on Grubhub, even take Ubers to get everywhere. Perhaps they think that the situation is so hopeless that their individual sacrifice means nothing but if they were to put a quarter of their energy that they do bitching about it into doing something they’d be able to do something. But it’s like everything else the young supposedly believe in; they only know what’s being done wrong, they have no idea what it would actually take to fix it.

That’s why I think their ridiculous ideas of ‘climate activism’ are as much political theater as everything else you hear pundits say. Do they really believe if they throw paint on the Constitution or interrupt Broadway performances they’re drawing attention to anything except themselves? Yes, it’s built out of frustration and rage about the world they live in, but it does nothing to actually solve the problem. It just gives them a momentary catharsis and relieves the outrage that they feel. That many of them then will argue about the outrage of the right as being false is a duality they never believe in.

And to be clear while the Republicans are at least partially a villain, the Democrats don’t deserve a halo. At their core, even if they could on their own, they wouldn’t solve climate change. It’s the ultimate wedge issue in today’s politics and in this case, the Democrats are like the Republicans: they want to win elections more than solve the problem. There’s also the fact that they have taken as much money from corporations to give them tax breaks and that the auto industry has been part of their base like the corporations have been part of the Republicans. This is as much a fundraising issue for them as anything else.

And this brings me to the biggest and what will likely be the most controversial part of this essay. Part of this may be my own flawed perception but having spent far too much time around the leftists and doomcryers on this site, I think there’s more than a grain of truth to it.

The loudest criers about climate change for the last twenty years have overwhelming been from the Democratic Party. Now take a look at the electoral map for every election of the 21^st century. (I’ve included 2012, but anyone will do.) I think most of you know without me having to show you what you will see.

Yep. When the icecaps melt and the oceans overflow it’s very clear which states will be submerged first. It’s also likely that all those states by the Great Lakes might well drown too.

Now I’m not saying that this mitigates the left’s concern about global warming one bit: one’s reasons for making an argument are rarely altruistic. But they’re probably playing on a fear so subtle that not even today’s progressives are aware of it. And indeed, perhaps that very fear might be the solution to make this problem go away – because in today’s bitter partisan politics, it’s probably the only thing that would equally terrify both sides.

Because the end result of this flooding would be one where the surviving progressives would envy the dead. A worst fate than drowning or having your home submerged or losing everything you might own – certainly based on so many leftist newsletters – would be having to relocate. And not just to relocate but to move inland.

To the heartland of America. To flyover country. To the red states where ‘nobody lives’.

Not that so many of the citizens of red America would be thrilled either. I can see proposals for National Guardsmen forming barbed wire fences in Kansas  or Wyoming. The last thing ‘real America’ wants is an invasion of ‘the coastal elites’.

To be clear this is the real dystopian nightmare that both sides are in  lockstep on. Because I’ve spent too much time among the wreckage of the extremists. And their greatest fear is not some kind of tidal waves or migrant caravans. It’s having their respective bubbles punctured.

I imagine both sides would believe that this only could lead to the civil war that they preach about but I imagine to some of them the alternative is more terrifying. One of the main reason this division in our society persists is because of the polarization between urban states on the Democratic side and rural states on the Republican side. If these two worlds were to merge…

… perhaps nothing would happen. Perhaps both Americas, forced into close proximity, would realize that they have more in common then they do apart. Perhaps a former Angeleno might begin attending church in Topeka and enjoying it. Perhaps a native of Tennessee might realize that there’s nothing wrong with drag queens giving story hour. Maybe everybody would get along.

And neither political party wants that to happen, certainly not the extremists. The Republicans would be forced to realize that the minority rule they’ve been forcing on America would fall apart now that Democrats were in every state in huge numbers. But Democrats would be just as unprepared, considering that they’ve spent the last twenty years spending all their time in swing states and none in red states.

 And the left would never be able to handle the idea of having to share platforms or even school board meetings with the people they’ve spent the last twenty years calling inhuman. For over a decade they’ve argued not only that the citizens in red states are worthless but deserve the squalid conditions they live in. Their sole reason for existence is for them to berate them for existing. They don’t want Republicans to have opinions at all. Can you imagine any of them living next door to them?

So clearly the only way to solve the crisis of climate change is not to make it less political but entirely political. Clearly the Democrats problem has been messaging.

The way to solve this problem is for Joe Biden to explain to every Republican in Congress in political terms. If the oceans flood and drown New York and California, I am going to immediately evacuate the residents to all of your states. I’m going to put them in Kentucky and Kansas and Wyoming. I’ll send a caravan to Ohio and Indiana. And by the way all of them will be accompanied by armed battalions with tanks and jets. Do you think your guns will help you against Hummers?

The thought of this will put the fear of Taylor Swift into Ted Cruz and Marjorie Taylor Greene alike. Joe Biden will then propose the most incredible and far sweeping plan for climate change possible. He’ll tell Donald Trump that if this happens all of his properties will be underwater and Mar-A-Lago will sink to the bottom of the ocean. I imagine it will get passed in a matter of minutes.

Of course the Squad and so many leftist congresspeople will try to stick on as many amendments as possible, from the minimum wage raised to expansion of the Supreme Court. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer will tell them that if they do anything to make this more than a climate change bill, the President will not only withdraw the bill but give tax breaks to any corporation that increases its fossil fuel consumption. They will then remind them of their districts are and tell them that when the flooding happens they will be among the first to be underwater.  They will also make it clear that when the redistricting comes in this new future, any Congresspeople who make this stink will be relocated to whatever districts are the most conservative remaining. Let’s see if AOC’s message plays in Montana.

Now I hear you saying: doesn’t all of this just maintain the status quo? All of the red states and blue states remaining the same in perpetuity? I have heard the cries of the doom-porn industry: that’s what they really want. Their only interest in saving the world is so that they can have more time to bitch that nothing ever changes. I imagine some would be disappointed about this bill being passed because it’ll put a dent in their income.

I know that this is only a solution to one problem. It may be the existential crisis of our time, but it doesn’t solve the rest of our issues. But let’s not kid ourselves. No one’s interested in actual solutions, only preserving the status quo. To actually solve the problems were facing would involve the kind of work that no one is willing to do or really wants to. The old adage of “It is easier to light a single candle then curse the darkness” no longer applies. America is so built on the darkness-cursing complex that  both sides would argue about the candle lobby being part of the problem.

I grant this is a ridiculous and implausible solution. It’s still more than I’ve heard either side give to any problem we’re facing today. I suspect I will be burned in effigy for not taking this existential crisis seriously or defaming one or both sides. I’ve read this site thoroughly. I can assure you. The biggest complainers aren’t interesting in solving the problem either. And I imagine they’ll be the angriest because for both sides, I’ve actually described the nightmare scenario.