Why Are Republicans the Only Climate-Science-Denying Party in the World? Maybe It’s Simple Supply and Demand.

From this article written in 2015: On Tuesday, Jeb Bush proposed to eliminate the Obama administration’s regulation of carbon pollution, and, in keeping with his self-styled goal of “growth at all cost,” proposes to make any further climate regulation essentially impossible. In any other democracy in the world, a Jeb Bush would be an isolated loon, operating outside the major parties, perhaps carrying on at conferences with fellow cranks, but having no prospects of seeing his vision carried out in government. But the United States is different. Here in America, ideas like Bush’s fit comfortably within one of the two major political parties. Indeed, the greatest barrier to Bush claiming his party’s nomination is the quite possibly justified sense that he is too sober and moderate to suit the GOP.

Of course, things have only gotten worse over the intervening five years, during which the Trump administration has rolled back no fewer than 95 regulations put in place over the last half century to protect our environment and human health, many of which focus directly on climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Spoiler alert (as if you didn’t see it coming): the article linked above doesn’t offer an explanation for this phenomenon, so let me make the following stab:

There is a market, i.e., a voter base, for climate denial.  Anytime you have a broad swath of voters who believe something, you’ll have a political party coming forward to supply that demand, regardless of how baseless the underlying beliefs happen to be.  The fact there is no science behind it (in this case, science completely opposed to it) is totally irrelevant.  How much science do you think lay behind the witch trials in 1692 Salem?

Heroin addicts breed heroin dealers.  Gullible old people with money in the bank breed con men.  Lonely men with active sex drives breed prostitutes.

Here and now, there are tens of millions of people who collectively form a market for ideas like climate denial, and all its cousins: libtards are commies bent on destroying America, universities do more harm than good, only God can destroy the Earth, Trump was a gift from that God, there is no need to present evidence at a high-profile criminal trial, more guns make us safer, immigrants are destroying our country and deserve to have their children separated from them and imprisoned (along with the other 69,550 already in custody), etc.

Not coincidentally, these are the same tens of millions of people who believe Trump is an honorable man and stable genius.  How much objective truth lies behind that one?

Yes, the politicians who exploit this ignorance and hate are despicable, but again, they’re only there because there is a huge constituency to be served.