They keep telling us that the issue of ‘climate change’ is super important. They did this in 2016. And 2012. And 2008. They keep telling us that it should be super important during general elections and mid-terms. During state and local elections. Yet, it rarely ends up on the front pages of those who keep telling us it is important
2020 is team oil vs. team climate change. There’s no middle.
As Americans gas up for the start of the summer driving season, they’ll pay the highest Memorial Day prices at the pump since 2014. And they’ll have trouble finding any sort of middle lane in the oil wars of American politics.
Voters in 2020 can choose President Donald Trump, who brags about oil production — the fact that the United States is now the largest producer of oil on Earth.
Or voters can opt for the Democratic presidential candidate, whoever it ends up being. All of them agree that humans contribute to climate change — which is nearly universally described as an existential threat — and that the US must do something about carbon emissions immediately.
Nearly every Democrat or Democratic-leaning voter – 96% in a CNN poll in April — wants a candidate who will take aggressive action on climate change.
It’s a far less important issue for most Republicans. An NBC News poll in December found 71% of Democrats saying climate change required immediate action compared with 15% of Republicans.
CNN’s Zachary B Wolf is kind of correct that it appears that it is one or the other. In theory on the Democrat side, of course, because where it breaks down is putting this in practice, something even most Warmists do not want when those rules, regs, and laws will personally affect their own lives negatively. Further, when you start getting deep into the primaries, and certainly the general election, people want to hear more about the “pocketbook” issues, the bread and butter issues, not bad weather which has always happened and taxing the hell out of their lives, especially when it would make it harder to travel.
The same people whining about oil will be using a lot of it this weekend, as will the people campaigning on ‘climate change.’
Just as Trump’s climate change denials led him to isolate the US by withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, any Democrat who beat him in 2020 would, presumably, jump back in immediately, an epic whipsaw.
Ultimately in 2020, if it’s an election decided in the middle, the question that will be answered is whether the country will do something about climate change or nothing at all.
If ‘climate change’ becomes that big of an issue in this election, the Warmists will lose, like they lose at the ballot box the vast majority of the time. Does anyone think Trump won’t attack the Warmists as pushing big government policies that will spike the cost of living and restrict liberty? How will the Democrats respond to that?
