Tom Perez and the DNC staff have truly stepped into it … explicitly rejecting hosting a climate debate and threatening Democratic Party presidential candidates ready to participate in one hosted by some other organization. By pegging the climate crisis as yet another ‘single issue’, Perez and his team are demonstrating a fundamental failure to understand the severity of the climate crisis, how responding appropriately to climate change is intertwined with nearly every arena of society/politics, and just how important climate is politically.
In contrast to the Presidential candidates and a growing number around the country, the Perez and the DNC team seem oblivious (or, perhaps even worse, resistant) to a new reality:
climate has FINALLY arrived in our politics.
Now, some seem to agree with the DNC that ‘climate is just another issue’ that doesn’t merit its own debate. RL Miller has a good way to consider this:
Sure, “survival of humanity” is just a “single issue area” … and, well, as per the Green New Deal conception, serious action to address the climate crisis will touch on and interact with almost every element of society (even as climate action represents a set of investments that will provide massive returns on those investments).
Some assert that a focused Climate Debate isn’t worth pursuing since ‘few would tune into the debate’. This thought process fails to consider the system-of-system impacts from having a climate debate: it isn’t just about those who tune in live. For this, the 2018 Texas 7th District Democratic Party primary offers an interesting case study with lessons to learn and absorb.
A dedicated group worked to set up a climate / environmental forum. They provided all candidates with a set of seven issues/questions and the candidates were able to say which questions they wished to engage in during the forum. During a competitive primary, more than 400 people showed up (after they had to secure a larger venue than first planned) for the event along with easily that many watching remotely. Hmm … in a competitive primary, perhaps 750-1000 people in a live audience … do you think that the candidates paid attention to that? That the candidates came prepared to engage substantively (so that they wouldn’t look like fools) on key issues in front of so many voters?
As per the organizer, Professor Daniel Cohan, Rice University, (LinkedIn post w/forum material),
When voters care, candidates respond. At the first candidate forum I attended [in 2017], I cringed at the nonsensical response I got to my question about climate. This time, asking seven more challenging questions to seven candidates, I found almost all the responses to be thoughtful and well informed.
As a professor, I could tell the candidates had done their homework. They couldn’t bluff their way to an easy A with voters who cared.
In preparing for the forum, the candidates moved from ‘nonsensical’ to ‘thoughtful and well informed’ on environment and climate issues. Each had to think about the issues as they prepared for the Forum. Certainly, they didn’t forget all this material the moment it was over. With so many voters showing they cared, clearly and seriously, about the issues, the candidates continued to be prepared to and did talk about these issues in the weeks that followed.
And, Cohan’s perspective on the political implication:
Whoever is elected …., they’ll know there’s a motivated contingent of voters eager to see a more vigorous federal response to climate.
TX-07 is just one district. If climate matters there, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will elsewhere. Though, as Cohan concluded:
And if we’ve shown that to be true in the oil patch of a red state, perhaps similar events elsewhere could provide a wake-up call to other representatives as well.
While not all voters would tune in for a climate debate, simply having that debate would
- drive the candidates to be on their A game (even if not with an “A grade“) on climate;
- foster a greater understanding of the climate crisis across the United States electorate;
- provide a glaring contrast between Democratic Party candidates efforts to deal with reality and Trump’s nonsensical rejection of basic science;
- potentially help the political punditry (The Village) and political consultancy class understand that climate change matters politically; and,
- demonstrate that the Democratic Party establishment understands that ‘climate has FINALLY arrived in our politics’.
When it comes to a #ClimateDebate, Texas’ 7th shows us it can and would work. Tom Perez and the DNC should either lead on the issue (hold a climate debate) or get out of the way and allow the candidates to participate in one hosted by others.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Greg T Laden // Jun 6, 2019 at 6:57 pm
As noted, this is a single issue: The single most important meta issue of all issues, involving all issues, and affecting all issues.
There is great unhappiness across the Democratic Party base, I sense, about this.
2 Alan Muller // Jun 7, 2019 at 1:43 pm
This can be translated as “The DNC” is morally and intellectually bankrupt.”