Note to the U.S. Republican Party on Environmentalism, Climate Change
It’s a shame that we in the U.S. have only two viable political parties. Sadly, the Independents, the Greens, and so forth tend to attract only small fringes of voters, and this isn’t particularly good for a country trying to maintain a healthy democracy.
But the circumstances are even worse now than ever before, as it’s looking more and more like the Republicans are losing touch with voters and may be relegated to a status of also-rans. I’m not a Republican personally, but I sincerely don’t want to see them go by the wayside.
I know they find themselves in a tough position, fractionated as they are with the Tea Party further to the right. But I believe that the real cause of their perilous condition is even more obvious; it lies in the fact that their thinking as “conservatives” applies to a small and ever-shrinking minority of voters.
In conversations with a Republican friend of mine, she laments that her party doesn’t have a “stand-out candidate.” But it’s been through the course of several of our two-year election cycles that I’ve heard this refrain, which causes me to wonder. I believe their position on social issues, e.g., anti-abortion, pro-gun, anti-gay rights, pro-prayer in public schools and the teaching of creationism as science, pro-war to pursue dubious and, in the view of many, unachievable ends, anti-immigration reform, etc., is resonating with fewer people every day. Meanwhile, their positions on fiscal issues, e.g., tax cuts for the super-rich and legal protection to allow corporations to purchase our law-making processes are even more repugnant to a growing majority of voters.
But where this is failing most miserably (and this is where I tie the conversation back into the 2GreenEnergy theme) is environmentalism. The oil companies have successfully bought a few puppets to work the Senate floor trying to make laws based on the concept that climate change is a hoax, and they want us to believe that 97% of the climate scientists who have studied the subject are part of an anti-capitalist conspiracy. But, as we are all starting to realize, this is patently absurd; it’s a stupidly blind and unworkable tactic that is simply not going to work. We may not be Rhodes Scholars out here, but we’re nonetheless a bit too sharp to buy into this.
Republican strategists need to see the handwriting on the wall, and come to terms with the sensibilities of modern Americans. They need to realize that, as we move further into the 21st Century, the people who get all wrapped up in absolute and tough-to-defend positions like “abortion is murder,” “guns don’t kill people,” “mankind cannot damage the environment,” and on and on, are living on a small island, and that the land mass of that island is getting a bit smaller as each day passes.
If I were writing the playbook for the GOP, I would remind all voters, regardless of the way they may have cast their ballots in the past, that the real meaning of “conservative” is “one who conserves,” and that this applies to conserving/protecting our natural resources, our clean air and water, wildlife, the farmland capable of providing nutritious food, and all the other bounties that are rapidly slipping through our fingers as our policies of greed and rape take an even greater toll each year.
Republicans’ willingness to get on board with this point may be the key to their maintaining some level of meaning and relevance in a world that otherwise appears willing simply to move on to greener (saner) pastures. I honestly hope they make the leap.
