Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse recently gave an important speech on the Senate floor in which he said, “We as a Congress are not shepherding the country through the serious debates we must have about the future of this great nation. We all know deep down that the political class is unpopular not because of our relentless truth-telling, but because of politicians’ habit of regularized pandering to those who already agree with us.”

This is an important message to keep in mind. Democrats love to use the line that “Republicans don’t believe in climate change.” It’s a cheap, albeit pandering, applause line. Some Republicans are also guilty of using these broad generalizations. Former New York Governor George Pataki recently said, “One of the things that troubles me about the Republican Party is too often we question science that everyone accepts.” Senator Lindsey Graham said of climate change, “I am not a scientist but I’ve talked to the climatologists of the world and 90 percent of them are telling me that the greenhouse gas effect is real.”