“Facts don’t care about your feelings.” They like saying that phrase. FAFO, I guess…
You know, I think the reaction by conservatives to climate change is fascinating by all that it can tell us.
First, environmental preservation has not always been a politically left issue. It’s got a lean that way because it often impacts how the commons are used, but there’s plenty of reasons why ecological conservation has found a home on the right in the past. And in this case, we’re talking about preserving habitability and stability of our civilization. There’s plenty of reasons why one could imagine this finding support of some kind on the right. Their solutions might be market-based neoliberal bullshit. Yet they’re not really even messing with that stuff (at least any more). They just want to kill this whole conversation with fire and throw it in a volcano. Why?
If you really drill down, I think the reason why people on the Christian Nationalist right in particular are trying not to acknowledge or deal with a civilizational threat despite the reckless madness involved is because they have a better understanding of what all this means for the future than most liberals or even leftists.
It means that their favorite “-isms” – Nationalism and Capitalism – are both facing mortal threats if this issue is ever addressed. They’ll phrase it as saying that climate crusaders want to impose Marxist open boarders and ban their very way of life. But while I don’t want to validate the most absurd parts of their fearmongering, they are fundamentally correct in some sense. Any successful response to climate change is inevitably going to upend the way we concentrate power and wealth, the way we pursue economic growth, and the way we draw boundaries across which people trade and migrate.
And most people will find the solutions quite persuasive. Why should jobs, the rich, and corporate dollars move freely, while people are trapped while they drown? Why should we watch a food system capable of feeding all crumble to protect the tastes of a vanishingly small minority of the extraordinarily selfish? Why can’t we all just live comfortable, modest lives with the abundance currently being hoarded?
If MAGA adherents genuinely believed it to be a hoax, they’d just fight for greater scientific inquiry. But all together, their actions – though terrifying – amount to a clear beacon signaling a recognition of the greatest weak-spot in the rise of neofacism.
If people learn about solutions to climate change, Christian nationalists expect to lose.
Food for thought.
lol. I have the opposite take. As increasingly drastic measures need to be taken, Trump 2.0 will win promising the bring down the prices of the Big Mac, pumping more oil for your pickup truck, and making every class room pray the heat away. Because the real problem is libs banning cow farts, emasculating your car, and trusting godless science.
Source: republicans will die before admitting they were wrong about anything.
Yeah I think this is a reasonable take.
The problem is the cognitive dissonance. They may not like the new reality but ignoring it is not going to stop it happening. Both allowing climate change to happen and preventing it will change the system they want to preserve. It’s basically like screaming into a hurricane.
The reality is they have very little control over this even if they do change the US position on it. All they will really do is cause harm to the US and slow progress but they can’t turn back the clock.
Much of the rest of the world is continuing on and the big basic shifts in renewable energy are happening anyway. Instead of the US leading this technology China and Europe are leading.
And other countries are leading the way on other technologies that will change the current order. Vertical hydroponic farms for example should produce good quality food, year round, and on or near cities, regardless of actual land quality. The US does not seem to be leading on this technology, and the US conservatives are in the pocket of the old subsidised farming industry.
The EV industry is become dominated by cheap Chinese products, thanks to a broken US car industry, EVs are reaching the point where they are cheaper to buy and run than petrol cars - we’re at the tipping point and the US rights solution is tariffs instead of trying to compete and accept reality. They’re handing the industry to China and maybe Europe of it gets it’s act together.
The US right is no longer in the hands of rational politicians but instead in the hands of idealogues. They will definitely reek damage on the US, it’s economy and it’s institutions but they can’t change reality.
Trump isn’t as horrifying to the rest of the world as people might think. He’s an opportunity for Europe, China and other economies to take a lead on the technologies that really matter for the future while the US drops the ball and is distracted by yet more infighting led by the Christian right.
Plenty of opportunities to stop him 🤷♂️
I bet Harris would have done the same thing /s
