Climate Change Debate Too Hot for the DNC to Handle
Seventy three percent of Democrats and Democratic leaning voters say climate change is a top issue for them and one they want to hear about in the debates.
While health care and issues affecting women rank higher with Democrats, the grim future facing our planet represents the biggest divide with Republican voters. And since we’re looking at a primary season, you’d think talking about this topic would be a good way to motivate voters.
That said, here are three things worth noting:
On the same day that Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee’s environmentally focused campaign folded, a Democratic National Committee panel rejected a proposal to host a single-issue debate on the climate crisis. A senior adviser for presidential candidate Joe Biden, Simone Sanders. was among those urging a no vote on a climate debate, saying it would be “dangerous territory in the middle of a Democratic primary process.”
Environmental activist Nancy Casady announced a primary challenge to Congressman Scott Peters, who as of late has made dissing the very concept of a Green New Deal a centerpiece of his campaign. Instead, he’s offering up a package of “bi-partisan” proposals, meaning they’re reliant on the so-called invisible hand of the free market, incremental, and don’t acknowledge the intersectionality of the issue with racism and economic inequality.
But don’t worry folks, CNN has announced a town hall discussion
next Wednesday (8pm PDT) on climate change. UPDATE: The series of events is scheduled from 2pm to 9pm PDT, with each scheduled with various anchors for 40 minutes each. Before you celebrate, read the fine print. The candidates will appear one-at-a-time (to avoid the DNC guidelines on debates) over a SEVEN HOUR period.
In this post I’m going to focus on the now-rejected idea of a debate focused on climate. The vote of the full DNC was 222-137 against the idea.
The DNC drew criticism from activists over the weekend for striking down a proposal for a presidential debate focused on the climate crisis. Organizers in Sunrise Movement, a climate change activist group, hoped to use this chance to push for a presidential debate focusing specifically on the climate crisis.
“I don’t see the DNC as an ally. They’re an obstacle,” said Steven Marquardt, an organizer in Sunrise Movement. “I think they’re scared to be bold and to be progressive and to be leaders … It’s our job to continue to call on them, to call them out.”
Multiple candidates at the meeting, including Bernie Sanders and Tim Ryan, advocated for the party to take a stronger stance on climate and other issues.
“Playing it safe, according to the old rules, is the most dangerous course of all, and a course of action that could very well cost us this election,” Sanders said.
Some of the thinking against the idea is worth repeating, if for no other reason to understand why this idea would be controversial, especially since the vast majority of Democratic presidential candidates have endorsed the Green New Deal.
When you get down to brass tacks, there are not what the general public will be likely to recognize as big differences in outlooks between the candidates. I’m not sure any of the likely candidates for moderators at any network could ask meaningful and understandable questions.
Two elephants in the room are unlikely to be discussed, namely
1.Incrementalist solutions won’t pencil out to zero emissions. And they generally place the burden of adaptation on people less likely to benefit.
2. Far reaching solutions involve asking people to make sacrifices, something the dirty energy industry and their allies in both parties will use to build fear on the basis of a further decline of the middle class.
So what we’ve ended up with --in terms of the televised debates-- is doing nothing. Because the hard questions on this topic are complex and wouldn’t easily fit into a general purpose debate with too many candidates, we’ll get nothing but (mostly) climate denialist/GOP talking points.
Side Note: For a list of good questions that might be asked at such a debate, see this Salon article quoting David Turnbull of the activist group Oil Change U.S.
A snip on the broader picture from that article:
Debate moderators also tend to have very different priorities than parties or candidates: “gotcha” questions, alleged flip-flops and so on, all based on notions of “good television.” “Anything that might be too ‘boring’ or ‘in the weeds’ is looked on with suspicion that it will provoke viewers to flip the channel,” Hopkins added.
In short, everyone’s operating within institutional frameworks, acting “rationally” in terms of the options before them — or at least so the story goes. But the frameworks themselves have all failed catastrophically — as runaway inequality, democratic erosion and the climate crisis all vividly show. No wonder young people, not habituated to those frameworks, see their failures so clearly. No wonder they demand better.
Finally, there’s the money; fossil fuel money, that is. While the amount of dirty energy money flowing into the Democratic National Committee is small relative to today’s fundraising efforts, their willingness to change the rules to allow such donations is, I think, a very big deal.
From the anti-corruption publication Sludge:
Since January, the DNC has taken at least $60,750 from owners and executives of fossil fuel companies. The DNC’s fossil fuel industry donors include George Krumme, owner of Krumme Oil Company, who contributed $20,000, and Stephen Hightower, president and CEO of Hightower Petroleum Company, who contributed $35,500. Other donors include Duke Energy President CJ Triplette, Crystal Flash Energy executive Thomas Fehsenfeld, and Southern Petroleum Resources President David Simpkins.
Unlike the leading Democratic presidential candidates who have all signed the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge, a promise to reject campaign contributions over $200 from fossil fuel PACs, lobbyists, and executives, the DNC is welcoming fossil fuel money. In August 2018 it approved a resolution from Chairman Tom Perez stating that it will accept donations from fossil fuel industry employees and their political action committees. The resolution, which also references “America’s all-of-above-energy economy”—meaning the burning of coal, oil, and gas alongside renewable energy sources—was criticized by environmental groups for gutting an earlier resolution that barred the DNC from accepting contributions from fossil fuel PACs.
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Attention socialists (as defined by Republicans), here’s something fun to watch:
https://twitter.com/McGaucho/status/1166046941559570433?s=20
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Email me at DougPorter@WordsAndDeedsBlog.com
Lead image via Guardians of Democracy