Republicans Would Rather "Own The Libs" Than Save The Planet
-by Patrick Toomey
Here’s what happened when a Faux News moderator asked 8 GOP presidential candidates whether they believed that human behavior was causing climate change:
That’s right, not ONE of them raised his/her hand in response. I wonder how many would’ve raised their hands if the moderator asked them if they believed that the earth orbited around the sun. At this stage, not acknowledging that our species is seriously screwing up this planet is like not acknowledging that Copernicus was correct and the Book of Genesis got it wrong. Not a single candidate present— even “truth teller” Chris Christie and “moderate” Asa Hutchinson, would acknowledged this inconvenient truth.
We know that the GOP candidate who was absent because he was busy preparing for his upcoming mug shot in Atlanta wouldn’t have raised his hand either had he shown up. That’s 0/9 on climate change with the presumed cream of the GOP crop, if you’re keeping score at home.
Moments like this raise the question as to why so many Dems are convinced that bipartisanship is desirable. The pursuit of bipartisanship is something of a holy grail for their current (nominal) standard bearer (who the party mandarins have decreed should remain in that position for— hopefully— another 4 years). It was an article of faith for the prior party standard bearer who pulled various strings to help the current standard bearer in the 2020 primaries.
This moment also confirms the fact that Donald J. Trump is merely a symptom of the GOP’s much more toxic disease. The rot goes far deeper than 1 man. There are SO many issues on which the GOP is so wrong in so many ways, but none of them threaten the very concept of the continued existence of what passes for human civilization the way that climate change does. Upper-bracket tax cuts pay for themselves, the 2d Amendment confers an individual right to assemble an armory in your garage, market-oriented “solutions” always work best, Ronald Reagan single-handedly brought down the Berlin Wall with his bare hands—those myths are all bad enough, but they don’t pose the existential threat that climate change poses.
The Dems’ approach on climate change is a mixed bag at best, but at least they acknowledge that a problem exists. Like an alcoholic in deep denial, the GOP won’t acknowledge this worsening crisis. Pretending that they’re a legitimate opposition party with which you can find common ground only enables their denial. Trying to meet utterly crazy halfway makes one, at best, half sane.
For the good of this country, the GOP needs to be put in the kind of exile now that FDR placed it in the 1930’s (and which it was briefly in during the mid-1960’s). The goal should not be for Biden to wheeze his way across the finish line in the Battle of the Addled II. The goal should be to convince a solid majority that the GOP, as an institution, is dangerous to the future survival of remotely civilized society. A good start in that direction would be for Democratic-affiliated groups to run ads highlighting the GOP’s utter insanity on climate change with that excerpt from that debate.
I only wish that this perspective were shared at the party’s upper echelons. It scares me for myself and my kids that it’s not shared at that level.
