Please be responsible for your own actions and words, and avoid blaming others or making excuses for your behavior. If you make a mistake, apologize and take steps to correct it.
- Manlobbi
Stocks A to Z / Stocks B / Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)
No. of Recommendations: 4
Now it's Ruy Texeira. This is the "the coming democrat majority" guy:
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-climate-movem...As the (still well-funded) climate movement fades slowly into irrelevance, Democrats need to realize one important thing: this is great! They’re being let out of climate jail to think freely about their program for the future. The party has been way too identified with the climate movement and hostility to fossil fuels; way too preoccupied with climate change goals in framing their economic policies; way too dismissive of ordinary voters’ concerns about costs and economic growth and way too responsive to the priorities of liberal, educated elites instead of working-class voters. There’s a big, beautiful world out there of economic and energy policies that can now be considered without the climate movement’s thumb on the scales.Yeah...about that.
liberal politicians aren't going to turn on a dime and start wearing Make Exxon Great Again hats. The climate fanatics that the democrats have cultivated over the years won't stand for it.
No. of Recommendations: 2
Now it's Ruy Texeira. This is the "the coming democrat majority" guy
I think you're late on Ruy Teixeira. He's been pushing back on the "groups" from the center left for years now.
The climate fanatics that the democrats have cultivated over the years won't stand for it.
I don't think it's even that. Fighting climate change has been one of the central pillars of "Who We Are" for the Democrats for the last twenty years. It was one of the most consequential parts of their agenda, perhaps the largest thing they were fighting for - especially once they fixed health care by enough to make that a back-burner issue. That's why it dominated the BBB/IRA bill so much. It's one of the main things that Democrats wanted to do, if they were elected!
That was always an electorally challenging position to take, given how little voters actually prioritize fighting climate change. But it was still a major pillar - perhaps the biggest pillar - of the platform. Democrats believed that since fighting climate change was (more) popular in other countries that didn't have major fossil fuel company/climate denier problems that once we got past the denial here, their positions would be popular. That shift in popularity didn't happen, and the lack of progress in most other countries has now revealed that support in other places was also only as deep as the measures appeared to be costless (or low-cost).
If the Democrats aren't the party of fighting climate change, what are they going to run on in terms of what they actually want to do with government? Not the goals they want to achieve ("more affordability! less inequality!"), but the actual policies they want to implement? That was their major policy proposal, the one big bill they might want to adopt. What's left of comparable size as The Big Democratic Project if that goes away?
No. of Recommendations: 3
If the Democrats aren't the party of fighting climate change, what are they going to run on in terms of what they actually want to do with government? Not the goals they want to achieve ("more affordability! less inequality!"), but the actual policies they want to implement? That was their major policy proposal, the one big bill they might want to adopt. What's left of comparable size as The Big Democratic Project if that goes away?
Welp, right now they're trying to pivot as far away from the Obama era's staple of Identity Politics and get back to a 21st century version of Hoover's "chicken in very pot, a car in every garage" messaging. They call it an "abundance agenda", whatever that means.
They're going to have to tack back to the center, hard: that means jettisoning Obama's foreign policy of Leading from Behind, stopping the flirtation with socialism, and a thorough rejection of the hard left identity politics they've been embracing. They're going to have to find a way to reconnect with unions and make them strong again but will need a lot of help from blue state governors to improve the business climates in their states (else any net new job creation happens in a Right to Work state with friendlier biz policies)...
No. of Recommendations: 6
They're going to have to tack back to the center, hard.
Maybe, but that's not even the important ting
What Democrats have to have is a big important issue that most of the public agrees with them on. Not just the substance of the issue, but the importance of the issue.
The GOP successfully did that with a few big issues: immigration border enforcement, law and order/crime (always a favorite of theirs), and pushing back on the most unpopular versions of DEI. They found popular issues (the 80/20 issues) and elevated their saliency.
Yes, it helped that the GOP moved towards the center, hard, by Trump all-but-abandoning their abortion absolutism (he genuinely doesn't seem to care much, and neither does RFK Jr.) and the desire to obliterate the popular social safety net (Trump genuinely doesn't seem to care about shrinking the popular SS and Medicaid entitlement programs as a political objective). But what's brought them electoral success was being able to promote other things as being the most important thing.
That's part of Trump's political skill - setting the agenda to be on issues he wants it to be about, even if the press is negative, rather than the stuff he doesn't. All these headlines about the excesses of ICE, critical opinion pieces on the National Guard? They're awesome for him, because it hammers home over and over again that he's the guy that wants to fight illegal immigration and crime. And even if people don't like the way he's doing it, it means the conversation is on the ground he wants it to be on.
No. of Recommendations: 3
That was always an electorally challenging position to take, given how little voters actually prioritize fighting climate change
Me. Don't get me wrong, I think climate change is very real. At some point I realized that we weren't going to make it, and we were going to conduct the big experiment and find out what climate change will do to the earth we live in. It was disappointing to find out that China didn't seem to be constrained at all and kept opening new coal plants. I did agree that regardless, we need to develop alternative energy. And I'm pro nuclear energy.
No. of Recommendations: 4
What Democrats have to have is a big important issue that most of the public agrees with them on. Not just the substance of the issue, but the importance of the issue.
They tried social equity and climate change but ran right into the walls of human nature and technical reality. So what's left?
Health care.
They have an opportunity to connect with the voters on an emotional level in ways that the GOP can't...so long as they can reconcile the warts that are in Obamacare *and* not step on the rake of funding health care for illegals.
No. of Recommendations: 3
At some point I realized that we weren't going to make it, and we were going to conduct the big experiment and find out what climate change will do to the earth we live in. It was disappointing to find out that China didn't seem to be constrained at all and kept opening new coal plants. I did agree that regardless, we need to develop alternative energy. And I'm pro nuclear energy.
The sensible approach on energy is:
*Regionally appropriate means of generating power
*Nuclear power everywhere
*Changeout of coal for energy to coal for less-bad fuel (you make methanol with coal and steam, and you can drive a car on it)
*Embrace natural gas
...while exploring renewables as gap-filing options. Had the democrats proposed that while doing all the icky boring things like upgrading the nation's electrical grid to be more efficient (we lose something like 30%+ of the power we generate in transmission and conversion losses)...they would have had a terrific and pro-growth agenda to stand next to.
But no. They went all in on Scare Tactics (all the polar bears are going to drown and our cities will be underwater by 2010), if hurricanes don't wipe the US off the map then forest fires will, etc. Apocalyptic stuff.
One of the main reason why the democrats are so unpopular is just...fatigue. They sit there and frame absolutely everything in the most End Times terminology possible. That's a great strategy for a short-term burst of energy but an absolute disaster of a recipe for long term success.
No. of Recommendations: 6
The sensible approach on energy is:
*Regionally appropriate means of generating power
*Nuclear power everywhere
*Changeout of coal for energy to coal for less-bad fuel (you make methanol with coal and steam, and you can drive a car on it)
*Embrace natural gas
...while exploring renewables as gap-filing options.
The problem with that "sensible" approach, though, is that it won't reduce emissions all that much. Electrical power generation is only about 25% of U.S. GHG emissions. U.S. emissions are only about 11% of the global total. So even if you could eliminate all U.S. emissions from electrical power generation, it would reduce global emissions by less than 3%. Which is what the ROW adds to emissions in only a few years. And the "sensible" approach to energy won't reduce even electrical power generation emissions all that much.
There's no way around it. If you want to reduce carbon emissions by enough to materially affect future climate responses to GHG, you need to do a lot of very painful stuff. Including paying a lot of money to China, India, and other developing nations so that they do a lot of very painful stuff also without having to pay the cost.
The Democrats weren't wrong, or unsensible, in fashioning a policy to try to fight climate change.
Where they screwed up is that there's no political appetite for that. Democrats thought there was, which was hopeful but foolish. That hope is now fading. Doing something that can fight climate change will be enormously unpopular. Doing stuff that pretends to fight climate change but doesn't actually do it (like the "sensible" approach above) isn't likely to be much more popular, because the folks who care about climate change will know that it won't work and they'll publicly say so.
No. of Recommendations: 1
The sensible approach on energy is:
*Regionally appropriate means of generating power
You think it isn't? Little things like greens disliking nuclear power and oil and coal kings wanting to keep their moola source do get in the way.
*Nuclear power everywhere
You just used the words "regionally appropriate" above. I think it wouldn't be appropriate if you have geothermal power that generates enough, for starters. But we first have to dismantle the regulatory overburden to make it less costly, in spite of the greens.
*Changeout of coal for energy to coal for less-bad fuel (you make methanol with coal and steam, and you can drive a car on it)
You are up against the coal forces here. We've been experimenting (in our creative destruction way) with what works, and we don't seem to have settled on a winner yet.
*Embrace natural gas
It's embraced, but we also have a natural gas cloud over several states. We need to look at/invest in ways to plug it, and if it can't be plugged, can we use it somehow?
...while exploring renewables as gap-filing options. Had the democrats proposed that while doing all the icky boring things like upgrading the nation's electrical grid to be more efficient (we lose something like 30%+ of the power we generate in transmission and conversion losses)...they would have had a terrific and pro-growth agenda to stand next to.
30% isn't bad, once you consider how we built it. :) And BTW, Texas has money and went off the grid and has had a piss poor performance due to cronyism.
But no. They went all in on Scare Tactics (all the polar bears are going to drown and our cities will be underwater by 2010), if hurricanes don't wipe the US off the map then forest fires will, etc. Apocalyptic stuff.
The oil companies spent a lot of money getting the word out that climate change wasn't real, after spending the money to show it was there. There is no immediate effect to climate change, we just hurt future generations, and the person who can't afford a car doesn't care. We've been working on efficiency, but we still change the climate. We will go up 2 or more degrees, it's in the cards, our coast lines will change, but since we were talking over 100 years even people who acknowledge climate change balk at the price. It's a no win situation, but we're stuck.
No. of Recommendations: 0
yes Dope, 1 big important issue is what Dems need. (Trump hasn't milked a bunch of little minor 80-20 issuesl...oh noooooooo)
Trouble is with "one big idea"----it's hard to go somewhere if they are being diluted by the Coastal Snob set and Pronoun Bullies.
