Democrats: Don't Let Republican Narratives Define You
by John Lawrence, November 9, 2020
Labels and sloganeering are not important. Global warming is not a question of Left and Right. It's a question of Smart and Dumb. If science shows that we have to get to net zero carbon emissions by 2035, then we have to do whatever it takes to get there. It's not enough to compromise to get half way there. Half way is not good enough. Half way means that the destruction of the earth is a certainty. This is not a political football. It's something that needs to be done post haste. That's why it's important to force the appropriate legislation through Congress based on the power to do so. If Democrats win the 2 Senate runoff races in Georgia, they will have the power to do so. If not Republicans will still control Congress, and all bets are off.
Republicans are adept at defining people and issues with labels, and then getting us to fight over the labels even defining the labels as too far left or too far right or meeting in the middle. How is a Green New Deal too far left if it saves the planet from global warming? It is not constructive to fight over this label. We just have to do what needs to be done. Already we are seeing the destructive power of nature caused by global warming with intense and widespread wild fires all over the world and relentless, destructive hurricanes and flooding in the Gulf states and elsewhere. This year alone several powerful hurricanes have hit the Gulf states, and they are still coming. They are coming so frequently that people have not recovered from ones 3 hurricanes ago. We have to go full steam ahead on attacking global warming not half speed ahead. Call it a Green New Deal or a Biden Green Deal or whatever you want to call it. The label is unimportant. The action taken is.
What put Trump over the top in 2016 was his appeal to working class voters. Trump's support of the fossil fuel industry appealed to all the workers in that industry especially in Pennsylvania and Texas. Let's be clear. Workers in this industry are not wedded to that industry; they are wedded to their jobs. They don't want their jobs to go away. If Joe Biden and the Democrats guarantee fossil fuel workers jobs in the renewable energy industry at higher wages, they will abandon whatever allegiance they had to fossil fuels in a heartbeat. This needs to be the message. And with it will come a flip of Texas from red to blue. Pennsylvania will stay squarely in the Democratic column. Republicans know this so they will do whatever they can to obfuscate, confuse, demonize and obstruct a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. That's why it's so important for Democrats to control the Senate. Otherwise, Mitch McConnell will block any progressive legislation including legislation designed to get us to net zero carbon emissions by 2035.
Republicans obviously don't care about the issue of global warming. Their tactic is to demonize the label: "Green New Deal." That's how they operate. They have money at stake in fossil fuels. They could care less about the workers. They care about the investors and the financial class that's invested in fossil fuels. The Democratic strategy should be to care about the workers by guaranteeing them jobs in the renewable energy field and let the investing class fend for themselves. Once they see the profits to be made in renewable energy they also will flip in a minute and abandon fossil fuels investments. Already many of them are divesting. When humans discovered the efficacy of metals they left the stone age and left the remaining stones in the ground. We need to do the same thing with fossil fuels: leave them in the ground.
Joe Biden has been very careful about the slogan: Defund the Police. Republicans are trying to hang that label around the Democrats' necks also. Nobody in his right mind wants to defund the police. Allocate more funds to social workers who may be better able to deescalate mental health situations? Of course. So nuance is important, but Republicans don't deal in nuance; they deal in labels and in particular the use of labels to demonize the other side. Joe Biden has threaded the needle very agilely. Also Republicans have not demonized Joe like they did Hillary for 25 years or more. That's why Joe is considered "more likable." In the final analysis labels are not important. The label - socialism - is not important. What is important is to make contructive - I will not even say progressive - change in this country, first to save the earth from global warming, and, secondly, to put the US on a more constructive track with regard to a host of other issues. Let Smart win over Dumb!
