Bipartisanship, global warming and the 1%
by digby
“What I’ve tried to do is find liberal middle-of-the-road Republicans and Democrats. In the Senate, Scott Brown, who single-handedly stopped the right-to-carry bill. You can question whether he’s too conservative. You can question, in my mind, whether she’s God’s gift to regulation, close the banks and get rid of corporate profits, and we’d all bring socialism back, or the U.S.S.R.”
Huh? I guess he might be saying that Warren isn’t a commie there, but it’s a mighty weird way of putting it. But that’s not the most nonsensical thing about it. It’s the idea that you can find liberal, middle of the road Republicans anywhere — or that Scott Brown is one of them.
The graph shows that while both parties have always been distinct in their ideology, since about World War 1 there’s at least been some slight overlap. All that changed in the early 70’s though, as successive Republican congresses became increasingly more conservative in their voting records, while Democratic congresses remained much the same. Today, there’s no ideological overlap between members of the two parties.
And it’s not getting any better.
Here’s a good example of how the problem is playing out in record time. David Roberts at Grist found this perfectly astonishing Youtube from the 1988 Vice Presidential debate on the question of global warming:
As Roberts says:
This is from 1988 — 24 years ago. The questioner doesn’t mamby-pamby around with he-said she-said, he states flatly that “most scientists” agree and that future generations are at risk.
And neither candidate bothers with dissembling or dodging. Both acknowledge the problem and promise to address it.
In 1988! In the ensuing 24 years, U.S. politics has moved backward on this issue…
Throughout the decade from 1998 to 2008, Democrats swung around more solidly behind climate concern, but Republican sentiment stayed roughly steady. Right around 2008, however, there was a sharp uptick in skepticism about climate change, almost exclusively among far-right conservatives.
Now, what happened in 2008 that might have turned conservatives against climate? Hm … thinking … wait, wasn’t there an election that year? Why yes, I believe there was. Black Democrat took office, as I recall.
The sharp conservative turn against climate was part and parcel of the Tea Party phenomenon. When Obama and congressional Democrats championed legislation to address climate change — legislation not that different from what McCain championed in 2008 — the right immediately aligned against it, like a school of fish. Once cap-and-trade failed spectacularly, the issue went underground. The right is united in implacable opposition to all solutions. Burdened with so many coal states, the Dem coalition doesn’t have the votes to overcome the right’s opposition. So there’s just nothing to say. There’s no margin in talking about it. It doesn’t get Dems any votes they don’t already have. It doesn’t — despite the festival of self-delusion going on lately — move any independent or undecided votes. And it activates furious right-wing activism. So … who has incentive to talk about it?
Who, indeed? (Certainly not the press, who cannot write anything without the words having fallen from the mouth of a politician or one of his flunkies first.)
Roberts agrees with Chris Hayes that it will take a mass movement of engaged citizens so that politicians have an incentive to tackle the issue. And that’s probably true. But I can’t help but think of another issue which brings no electoral upside to candidates of either party, but which politicians and the media nonetheless obsess over: the deficit. Of course, there is a constituency that’s mobilized on that issue. It’s not very big in numbers but it is the most valued constituency in American politics: the wealthy. They don’t have to take to the streets to get things done, they just have to take out their checkbooks.
If you want a bipartisan solution to a problem the most efficient way to do it is to convince rich people it’s in their interest to pursue it. Other than that, fuggedaboudit.
.