Um, Fox News says 70% of voters want the government spending more on green energy. I think we might be winning the messaging battle on this one. Tweet by Bill McKibben @billmckibben Author, Educator, Environmentalist and Founder of http://350.org Opinions emphatically my own Vermont billmckibben.com
Now that Biden is the president-elect, the question that I keep asking myself is Why am I OK with Biden? More than OK really. Why do I think this political animal – this consummate insider – is going to bring much-needed change to the country? Besides Cognitive dissonance reduction, that is? But, first, as hard as I keep trying to push it to the bottom of the queue, Trump’s childish temper tantrums around his refusing to acknowledge the election results, keep bubbling to the top. I keep wondering What is the end game here? I get that Trump doesn’t like the results and is being a petulant child and I keep reading that his goal is to discredit the process so he can claim he didn’t lose but why are the Republicans, who won on the same ballot, humoring him?
BTW, as an interesting aside, Trump, ever the con-man, is using his claim of a fraudulent election to raise money but, when you read the small print, 60% of that money actually goes to pay down the Trump campaign’s bills, among other non-related activities. The longer he can stay in the game, raising money, the more the damage from his campaign mismanagement can be ameliorated and the more money he can raise for his 2024 run. End aside.
It is hard for me to believe – actually, the confirmed count, some of it in Republican-controlled states that tried to suppress the vote, make that impossible to believe – that this election is going to be turned around. How do the rational Trump supporters, like McConnell, think this is going to end? What do they seek to gain by discrediting the entire voting process? The damage being done frightens me.
Back in the real world, where Joseph R. Biden is the Presiden-elect, I feel optimistic. Yeah, cognitive dissonance reduction is part of it, and my being an optimist is part of it also, of course. But, Biden being an insider is also part of it; he should be much less susceptible to the “This is the way it’s always been done and it is the only possible way,” razzle-dazzle of entrenched Washington. Biden knows the country has to change, saying, in his acceptance speech, “America has always been shaped by inflection points” and then referencing both “Lincoln in 1860” and “F.D.R. in 1932,” in his acceptance speech. That Trump seems determined to leave the United States Government a smoking ruin might also help.
On the issue that concerns me the most, the growing Global Climate Change Disaster, Biden has repeatedly said that he understands that it real and man-made. and it helps that the polls show 70% of the electorate agrees. There is going to be a lot of pushback – from every fossil fuel lobbyist in the world, from most the Republicans, from Blue Dog Democrats including Nancy Pelosi, among others – but there is a lot a President Biden can do by executive order. He has already said he will get us back into the Paris Accord “on day one”, and he says he will call for a Climate Summit to accentuate the problem. He has said he will cut emission standards and cancel Trump’s energy rollbacks (so, if you really are worried that your dishwasher doesn’t use enough water and energy, one of Trump’s favorite laments, you better wash all your dishes now). None of these may have much real meaning besides a sort of ceremonial changing of the national priorities – maybe national myths would be a better descriptor – but they are a place to start.
I am also optimistic because, like Covid-19, the Global Climate Disaster is going to continue to get worse until we start actually dealing with it so the presssure to start working on solutions is not going away. My optimism, however, is tampered by what I think will be very strong Republican intransagence.
