President Trump’s campaign team must have loved Thursday night’s 2020 Democratic presidential debate. After all, Trump’s 2020 opponent was almost certainly on the stage last night. But when asked how far they would go to fight climate change, each of the Democrats gave a variation on the same answer.
And not an answer that will serve them well in the general election.
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Front-runner Joe Biden went on about charging stations to nowhere. But the former vice president’s most stunning moment came when he was asked whether he would accept the loss of hundreds of thousands of blue-collar jobs to pursue green energy policies. “The answer is yes,” Biden said. As Saagar Enjeti pointed out on Twitter, that’s a made-for-many-Trump-2020-ads moment.
Still, Biden was just one of the pack. The others were equally extreme. Bernie Sanders channeled Greta Thunberg and described climate change as an existential calamity, arguing that no possible consequence was not worth suffering. Elizabeth Warren portrayed destroying the U.S. energy economy as an exciting opportunity for the government to do what it does best. Amy Klobuchar talked about a fridge. And Tom Steyer talked about impeachment.
Whoever the Democratic nominee ends up being, their climate change antics on Thursday will come back to haunt them.
The problem for Democrats is not that Americans don’t care about climate change, nor is it that Americans would refuse to support certain economic and regulatory policies designed to reduce carbon emissions. The problem for Democrats is that most Americans are going to hesitant to vote to make themselves unemployed, or poorer, or face significantly increased energy prices as a cost of climate change policies.
And they are right to be hesitant. After all, the U.S. energy revolution is making Americans wealthier, safer (yes, from Vladimir Putin), and more able to find good employment. If and until China decides to stop playing games with carbon reduction, only an idiotic president would destroy our economy without being able to accomplish any meaningful reduction in net global carbon emissions anyway.
Trump only needs to say that. If he does, he’ll win the plurality on this issue. Democrats need new talking points.
