Yesterday's post advised Democrats to do what I thought was prudent on the issue of climate.
A reader disagreed.
Today's post is best read in conjunction with my post yesterday.
I wrote that Democratic policy on abortion, emphasizing a woman's freedom and choice, is politically successful. I analogized to the climate issue, and suggested that successful policies to address CO2 levels would need to increase choices. Democrats' climate policies and messages, I wrote, should emphasize improved technologies in green energy, not prohibitions and mandates, which would backfire. I see progress in a democracy as a series of oscillations between advances and backlash in the public mood. Political winners seize opportunities but over-reach, empowering their opposition. My work in politics in my young adulthood led me to be wary of initiatives that gain popular support, but lose it. I was warning Democrats not to do what many red-state legislatures are doing now, banning abortion and creating backlash that is costing them elections they were predicted to win.
Herb Rothschild is a decade older than I am. In his young adulthood he was active in the struggle for Black civil rights in Louisiana. Throughout his lifetime he has been active in social movements on race, peace, economic justice and the environment. He has long been among those pushing the edges of possibility.
Fair criticism by Herb Rothschild
Your reasoning throughout today's blog is terribly flawed, Peter.
Let's start with the one about trans people. "Male-to-female trans athletes and trans people in traditional gendered spaces are another instance of forced interaction. It isn't your own thing. It is now our thing. This compulsory interaction creates political pushback and Republicans are exploiting it." I'll ignore the matter of athletic competition, which is a vexed question, and focus on other interactions. I remember a student from Tennessee saying in one of my college classes (1959, it was), "It's my choice not to sit by Negro students." I find the parallel apt. What are trans people supposed to do when cis people don't want to be next to them in, say, an airport bathroom? We're talking about public spaces here, Peter, and who gets to say who can be in them. Public policy, not private choice, must govern this matter.
As far as pronouns, you simply lost your thread of thought. No one is forced to call a non-binary person "they" any more than white Southerners were forced to call Black people Mr. and Ms. It is considerate, but no one made it compulsory. Gradually, change for the better occurred.
As for vaccinations, you at least acknowledged that this is not a mere personal choice. Actually, no state government made COVID vaccinations mandatory. The armed services did so, but that was neither Democratic nor Republican. But states do make vaccinations mandatory for public school children, with every state allowing exemptions for medical and religious reasons and some states (like Oregon) allowing exemptions for philosophic reasons, which in my view is a mistake. Vaccinations are a matter of public health and thus, to some extent, must be a matter of public policy, not private choice. Surely you can understand that, Peter.
When you write about climate change, a subject on which your good sense fails you time and again, you are wrong in several ways. First, I see no policies being enacted or proposed that compel people to change their ways. There is a marked distinction between declaring that by such-and-such a year all cars sold in California must be electric (a proper policy choice) and telling people with gas-fueled cars that they must get rid of them and buy an electric car (who is doing that, Peter?). The same difference holds for mandating that all homes built in Ashland starting in such-and-such a year must have heat pumps and telling current homeowners that they must install heat pumps. We've repeatedly enacted such policies. For example, we required car manufacturers to install catalytic converters in all cars beginning in a certain year, but we didn't require owners of cars without them to retrofit their cars.
As for "shaming" people about their personal choices on matters such as food choices, I'm not sure whom you're faulting here. I don't know of any Democratic politicians filing bills to ban meat. I think you're just expressing your usual irritability toward "progressive Democrats." But leaving aside the loaded term "shaming," why shouldn't people advocate for what they think are good choices? That's how change happens. It happened regarding wearing furs. No law banned that choice, but it has become increasingly socially unacceptable. Good!.
Returning to your remarks on climate policy, I reiterate criticisms I've expressed before on this topic. First, you are wrong that promoting green policies is politically unpopular. Two, even if it were, the threat of global warming is so dire that if Democrats abandoned their position on addressing the threat through public policy, it really wouldn't matter much if they lost the White House.
I have to agree with Herb. But Peter, I love your column, and I applaud your willingness to share well-reasoned critiques of your points of view. Kudos!
Thanks, Herb. You changed my mind.