After months of national unrest, it seems incredibly cliché to write the words, "These are extraordinary times.” Nevertheless, out-of-touch statements, actions, and proposals spewing from the mouths of Democratic politicians and their millionaire financiers have made the repetition of these words necessary. While Democrats’ adamancy about keeping Americans out of work through overzealous lockdown orders has received considerable media attention, it doesn’t even represent the worst or most harmful of their current proposals that will economically harm consumers. On the campaign trail, they continue to push policies that lack sensitivity to the ongoing economic pain faced throughout the country and will even prolong the continuance of much of it. Nowhere is this sad spectacle more apparent than in the radical environmental agenda that Democratic officeholders and candidates continue to vocalize throughout this unprecedented public health and economic crisis.
While 20 million Americans have lost their jobs and are looking for ways to get back to work, Democrats are busy cheering on the supposed environmental benefits of the economic shutdown’s forced reduction in carbon emissions. One scientist went so far as to remark that, “Neither Greenpeace, nor Greta Thunberg, nor any other individual or collective organization have achieved so much in favor of the health of the planet in such a short time.” This line may seem like one found in an exaggerated, meme found on the Internet, but it’s far from being a mere meme. Destroying millions of blue-collar jobs to “Save the Earth” is the Democrat’s 2020 environmental platform in a nutshell.
As these politicians’ stay-at-home orders continue to close businesses, Democrats also continue to look voters in the eye while pushing the Green New Deal – a plan that even many unions oppose because it will make these job losses permanent. Even Joe Biden – the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee whom the media portrays as a “blue-collar guy” – has endorsed the plan’s framework. He has also pushed an end to fracking policies, which would double the price of gas and eliminate 19 million more jobs, and has emphasized that “The answer is yes” when asked about cutting “Hundreds of thousands of blue collar workers in the interest of transitioning to [a] greener economy.”
Democrat candidates and officeholders don’t care about you and me; they care about helping their wealthy, elitist environmental donors and schmoozing with them at their high-priced cocktail parties. They propose taking away blue-collar jobs while simultaneously extending largesse – like the electric vehicle tax credit, which overwhelmingly benefits those making over $100,000 a year who can afford elaborate, high-priced electric cars – paid for largely by the average American taxpayer. And these policies comprise the environmental agenda that the mainstream media repeatedly says is the only one that working people should get behind?
Unfortunately, these Democratic candidates for office are not just content with proposing these destructive policies. In furtherance of their destructive environmental policies, they also seem to endorse harshly punitive measures to be applied against energy developers with whom they disagree. For example, Joe Biden recently suggested that energy executives that supply hundreds of thousands of Americans with power and employ countless Americans should be jailed. For what, not being “green” enough for his environmental supporters’ standards?
Other Democrats have done him one better – resorting to berating state legislatures that are looking to penalize radical “go-green” movement types that are deliberately attempting to destroy public utilities' energy-producing facilities in order to advance their agenda. They claim that by protecting the public property that gives thousands of homes the energy they need every day, these state officials are restricting their followers’ free speech. It is as laughable as it is absurd and sad.
Reasonable people can agree that the potential consequences of Democrats’ 2020 environmental agenda are far more complicated than the press portrays them. Now imagine if Democrats win enough seats across the country this November to put their agenda into action. The economic harm caused by increased costs and job reductions from COVID-19 will be compounded significantly as they push forward a climate change plan that will cost tens of millions of working families their jobs and result in the average taxpayer having to pay more in taxes, while the more affluent by contrast receive added tax benefits.
Americans support a cleaner earth, but they don’t support subsidizing the well-to-do and destroying the American economy in the process of implementing a radical Democrat environmental agenda. Here’s hoping that they may make their voices heard at the ballot box this fall.
John T. Doolittle served in the U.S. Congress from 1991 to 2009. He was Vice Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water and a member on the Subcommittee on Interior and Environment.