How's The "New" GOP Climate Platform Different From MAGA? It's Not.
Last edited Sat Jun 4, 2022, 12:44 PM - Edit history (1)
Links at original, and hat tip to Climate Denier Roundup at Kos - good contributor if you follow all things disinformation.
As we pointed out in the last week of May, the GOP is ramping up its election-season push to pretend it cares about climate change so that suburban women will vote for its candidates. BloombergGov fell for it, though it did report the true aim is to flip seats to elect more Republicans to Congress and thereby prevent real climate action, while Politico Pro/E&E credulously suggested an intentionally impossible policy proposal of a carbon tariff without a domestic carbon tax represents progress for the GOP. And now we know why, as both stories were the build-up to the GOP's release of a supposedly "new" energy policy platform that addresses centrist voters' climate concerns without actually addressing the fossil fuel emissions that are causing climate change (and funding the GOP).
The key question that reporters should be asking Republicans claiming a new climate conversion is: Will this plan enable the U.S. to meet its commitments to the Paris Agreement and help put the world on a path to limit warming to 1.5°C? But, that's a really serious question, with a simple "no" answer, and we know political reporters need some sugar to help the medicine go down, so here's another: How is this a break from Trump's MAGA agenda, in terms of actual policy changes? Clearly the messaging of climate change is real but not that bad so we should burn more fossil fuels is slightly different from Trump's approach of climate change is a hoax so we should burn more fossil fuels, but the policy platform has remained exactly the same.
And they're not even shy about it! Back in 2020, you may recall us pointing out, Louisiana Rep. Garret Graves reassured conservatives in his party that what they're "asking members to do is to double down… so it's not like we've gone out there to the Freedom Caucus to say 'We are asking you to take a hard left turn.'" Perhaps someone, like Josh Seigel who got that quote from Graves for the Washington Examiner back in 2020 and just wrote basically the same story Politico in 2022 (with some skepticism this time, at least), should ask Graves if this new change is a doubling-down on the MAGA agenda.
The answer is obvious, but it highlights the bind Republicans are in. If they say they've changed, to appeal to moderate voters who considered MAGA too extreme, then they risk losing the support of the MAGA, racist, misogynist, climate deniers that compose the GOP base. If they admit it's just a doubling-down, like Graves did to members, then those moderate voters might recognize that different messaging but the same policies does not, in fact, represent a change.
EDIT
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/3/2102064/-How-s-The-New-GOP-Climate-Platform-Different-From-MAGA-It-s-Not#view-story
= new reply since forum marked as read
or IMPRISONED or DEPORTED, I was not kidding and I was RIGHT!
Now it is not important who was right, but what IS important is the need for
DRASTIC
LOUD
ABRASIVE
LANGUAGE and/or BEHAVIOR
from our side to WAKE THE PEOPLE up before November. 
