Republicans Intent on Losing?

Look at the Republican debates, the Republicans in the House, and the ones going on Fox News—the common element is denial of facts or, as Kellyanne Conway so disarmingly put it, alternative facts.

Could be that alternative facts are going to be their ruin. More died in counties that went for Trump because they didn’t believe the science around Covid-19.

But their denial of science goes way back to the tobacco misinformation campaign followed by their denial of climate science. And now it has become too convenient to ignore anything they don't like, such as polls that show the electorate wants to save the planet, voters want access to abortion, and they are drawn to spread love instead of hate and division.

Ignoring all that leads to electoral defeat (unless they change the rules regarding who can vote and when they are allowed). Look what has happened in the States regarding abortion. Time and again, the they ignore what the voters want and they get defeated on the abortion issue. They are ignoring the will of the voters on climate change mitigation as well.

So the good news is that such deafness and overreach leads to defeat. The bad news is that it will lead to violence since they have danced up to and now over the line calling for violence.

This will not end well for them and it may not end well for all of us.

Why Democrats Should Help Republicans Publicize “Project 2025”

From Jim Hightower:

When your political opponents push extremist public policies that would be disastrous for America, should you wring your hands in dread… or applaud?

Consider “Project 2025,” put together by former Trump officials and the Koch brothers’ network of billionaire plutocrats. Their strategy is to win the presidency next year by demonizing all environmental protections and promising to halt all national efforts to cope with the obvious crises of climate change. Their proposals include repealing regulations that curb fossil fuel pollution, terminating our nation’s transition to renewable energy, shutting down all environmental protection agencies, encouraging more oil and gas drilling and use, and promoting the deadly delusion that global warming is not a real problem.

Moreover, they intend to implement Project 2025 in the first 180 days of a right-wing Republican’s presidential term – obviously anticipating that Donald Trump will be that president. “We are not tinkering at the edges,” brags a far-out right-wing group that instigated the scheme, “We are writing a battle plan and we are marshalling our forces.” They’ve already drawn up a list of agencies and policies they’ll begin eliminating on Day One, and they’ve readied a list of some 20,000 right-wing henchmen to put on the federal payroll immediately to enforce their plan.

If this sounds ludicrous, it is. But it’s actually happening, for the Republican Party has decided to be ludicrous. As the director of Project 2025 told the New York Times, “[This is] where the conservative movement sits at this time.”

Maybe, but it damn sure won’t sit well with the American people, who’re presently suffering the hellish ravages of our rapidly overheating climate. Indeed, here’s a great chance for Democrats to demonstrate their bipartisan spirit by doing all they can to publicize the Republicans’ let-it-burn global warming policy.

Why it’s too Dangerous to put a Republican in the White House

The NYTimes reveals the Republican plan to accelerate global warming and extreme weather:

A Republican 2024 Climate Strategy: More Drilling, Less Clean Energy

Project 2025, a conservative “battle plan” for the next Republican president, would stop attempts to cut the pollution that is heating the planet and encourage more emissions.

During a summer of scorching heat that has broken records and forced Americans to confront the reality of climate change, conservatives are laying the groundwork for a future Republican administration that would dismantle efforts to slow global warming.

The move is part of a sweeping strategy dubbed Project 2025 that Paul Dans of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank organizing the effort, has called a “battle plan” for the first 180 days of a future Republican presidency.

The climate and energy provisions would be among the most severe swings away from current federal policies.

The plan calls for shredding regulations to curb greenhouse gas pollution from cars, oil and gas wells and power plants, dismantling almost every clean energy program in the federal government and boosting the production of fossil fuels — the burning of which is the chief cause of planetary warming.

…

The $22 million project also includes personnel lists and a transition strategy in the event a Republican wins the 2024 election. The nearly 1,000-page plan, which would reshape the executive branch to place more power into the president’s hands, outlines changes for nearly every agency across the government.

The Heritage Foundation worked on the plan with dozens of conservative groups ranging from the Heartland Institute, which has denied climate science, to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which says “climate change does not endanger the survival of civilization or the habitability of the planet.”

…

Project 2025 does not offer any proposals for curbing the greenhouse gas emissions that are dangerously heating the planet and which scientists have said must be sharply and quickly reduced to avoid the most catastrophic impacts.

…

The blueprint said the next Republican president would help repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, the 2022 law that is offering $370 billion for wind, solar, nuclear, green hydrogen and electric vehicle technology, with most of the new investments taking place in Republican-led states.

The plan calls for shuttering a Department of Energy office that has $400 billion in loan authority to help emerging green technologies. It would make it more difficult for solar, wind and other renewable power — the fastest growing energy source in the United States — to be added to the grid. Climate change would no longer be considered an issue worthy of discussion on the National Security Council, and allied nations would be encouraged to buy and use more fossil fuels rather than renewable energy.

…

Notably, it also would restart a quest for something climate denialists have long considered their holy grail: reversal of a 2009 scientific finding at the Environmental Protection Agency that says carbon dioxide emissions are a danger to public health.

Erasing that finding, conservatives have long believed, would essentially strip the federal government of the right to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from most sources.

…

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/04/climate/republicans-climate-project2025.html

[The above link unlocks the article from behind the paywall.]