Climate Change and a Third Party

In terms of present-day American politics, it seems clear that progress toward combatting climate change, at the Federal or international level, has come to depend almost entirely upon the Democratic Party.

One need only glance at the willingness of Senate Republicans to confirm nominees like Rick Perry for Secretary of Energy and Scott Pruitt for head of the EPA - or the lack of outcry from either the Senate or House majorities at proposed cuts to the EPA's funding - to understand how entirely the modern Republican Party has become unreliable as a steward of the environment.  Or really, as being on the side of planetary survival.

Curiously, however, the Republican Party's official obtuseness on AGW does not mean the Democratic Party can be counted on to step up on climate change.  To begin with, as our two-party system is currently configured, each party relies less on visionary leadership than on fear-mongering.
Consider the Election of 2016.  Both parties nominated severely flawed candidates.  To be sure, Hillary Clinton offered an impressive resume, while Donald Trump was, by historical standards, one of the most unqualified candidates ever offered by a major American political party.  That said, Mrs. Clinton was disliked or distrusted by nearly half of the electorate - nearly as many as disliked or distrusted Mr. Trump.

The strategies of both parties came down to, "Vote for us.  The other candidate is far worse."

And indeed, at the presidential level - and increasingly, at all levels - this gun-to-the-head approach has become the default strategy of each major party.  Each party in the American two-party system relies on a form of fairly primitive blackmail, and the result is that neither has much incentive to lead.  What matters is to be measurably less dreadful than the opposite party on enough issues of importance to the decisive groups of uncommitted, undecided, or uninformed who decide elections.

Now that, in itself, would be bad enough.  A party committed to a strategy of being not quite as objectionable as the other party has little incentive to lead.

But on the issue of climate change, the problem is multiplied by the fact that the issue is not rated highly by most voters.  In other words, since climate change is not an issue most voters understand to be vital, there is no particular reason for the Democratic Party to raise the visibility of the issue in any election campaign - i.e., no reason to engage in educating the public.  From a practical standpoint, Democrats need only campaign by means of targeted messages to identified environmental voters - without making climate change a major issue before the broader public.

And this is even more true as the Republican Party has grown so extreme on the issue that the Democrats really need say almost nothing - even to pro-environment voters - to assure themselves of those voters' support.

To sum up, then, the realities of the two-party system dictate that the only party with a sane position on climate change has little or no practical incentive to adopt an aggressive stance on this issue - and every reason to keep its advocacy on the "down-low", whispering encouragement to identified environmental voters, but doing nothing to risk alienating voters for whom climate change is not yet a major issue.

Now, to be sure, organizations such as Climate Reality (to which I belong), the Sierra Club, and 350.org can do something to raise consciousness about climate change - gradually moving the issue up from its current place on Americans' list of priorities.  But we live in times when a plethora of issues must compete for public attention.  The educational efforts of climate groups can hardly compete with the sort of media coverage and citizen attention accorded to candidates and parties during an election campaign.

Which is why third party with a strong stance on climate change makes sense.  It could run candidates for office, thus claiming voters' attention when it is most available.

But wouldn't this be the Green Party, one asks?

Hardly.  For all its efforts, the Green Party is essentially a party of the Left, competing directly with the Democratic Party for the votes of those who don't regard the Democrats as liberal enough.  We've seen the results of that.

What's needed is an environmentally-aware party closer to the center - a party informed by the Progressive Republicanism we might associate with Teddy Roosevelt.  Such a party could compete, not just for voters who usually - if reluctantly - vote Democratic, but also for voters who usually - often disgustedly - vote Republican.

I'll elaborate on this theme in future posts.  For now, the important point is to understand why the Democratic Party is not a safe repository for the hopes of those who are committed to doing something serious about climate change.

The Democrats might come to this someday, but by then, it could well be too late.  For the present, the realities of two-party politics give them little incentive to embrace this issue - and many reasons to avoid it.