Before we get to Hillary Clinton and the awful truth about her climate plan and climate change itself on today’s BradCast, Bernie Sanders is now leading all the major Republicans in national polling now.
That’s right, in head-to-head national match-ups between the independent U.S. Senator from Vermont and Jeb Bush, Scott Walker or even Donald Trump, Sanders wins the Presidency — if the election was held today, and those who wanted to vote got to vote (and got to have their votes counted as intended) — according to a new CNN/USAToday/Gallup poll.
Nonetheless, the corporate media still loves to ignore Sanders. Though, thanks in part to the #BlackLivesMatter protesters that interrupted him during a progressive forum last week (the intra-progressive controversy we’ve been covering over the past week), he was finally allowed to appear on Meet the Press over the weekend.
Also, over the weekend, Trump continued to widen his lead against the rest of the Republican field and Hillary Clinton offered a tepid plan on how she would begin to deal with climate change.
We speak on today’s show to David Roberts, the great environmental journalist from Vox.com (formerly of Grist.org), about Clinton’s plan and the awful truth about both her plan and everyone else’s.
“It’s so polarized between the parties that Hillary can say anything she wants,” Roberts tells me about her plan to add half a billion solar panels to the nation’s grid by 2021. “But, as long as the House is in Republican hands they are foursquare against any of this — any clean energy, any efficiency, anything that restrains fossil fuel in any way…If we’re being honest with ourselves, what she’s capable of doing is what the Presidency can do without legislative help.”
Roberts is not optimistic about where the planet is headed, and holds scientists partially responsible for not being straight with the public about how bad things really are. He says “it’s still physically possible” to save ourselves from where we’re headed, “but it would mean the entire world shifting, basically, to a war footing in the next five years, and remaining on war footing for the next century. It’s possible, but do you see anything around you that indicates that’s going to happen? We’re not doing it. So I think that it’s worth at least saying, hey guys, we’re headed for the shit. At this point, we’re probably going to get mired in some really terrible stuff.”
Despite those thoughts, it’s actually an enlightening and entertaining discussion with Roberts! Finally, to close things out today (and cheer you up even more!), the U.S. House passes a bill to make it illegal for states and local governments to require consumer labeling of GMOs — because, ya know, Republicans “hate” Big Government and are all for “local control” of issues.
I don’t like shifting the blame to all scientists, because some of them have been warning for over a hundred years (The Exceptional American Denial).
There is an establishment bureaucracy in scientific circles that is funding oriented.
So, money “talks science” too.
Then, even when some, like Hansen, reveal something the public needs to know it tends to be suppressed (In the Fog of The Presstitutes – 4).
While Dave Roberts, as usual, is spot on with respect to environmental issues, I believe his assessment of the politically possible was unfortunately locked into the realm of conventional wisdom.
His entire presentation was based upon the assumption that Hillary will be the Democratic Party nominee and that “the House is almost certain to remain in Republican hands.”
I got the impression that Dave simply fails to appreciate the dynamic and momentum of the Sanders political revolution, something I experienced first-hand by attending the July 29 meet-up that involved more than 100,000 Sanders supporters in 50 states.
When Bernie appears before record crowds, he is not simply adding potential voters. He is adding potential activists who will utilize a variety of means to evade the corporate stranglehold on the MSM so that, unlike past elections, this one could well be based upon where candidates stand on issues.
As I observed in Bernie Sanders Versus the ‘Democracy Deficit’, if this election were determined on the basis of where candidates stand on issues, as opposed to name recognition or personality, Sanders would win in a landslide. Although raw poll numbers reveal that Hillary Clinton still has a sizable but shrinking lead, they also reflect that a majority of Democrats simply don’t know about Bernie and his position on issues. As you noted during this segment of the BradCast, they also reflect that Bernie is the only presidential candidate in either party whose favorable numbers are greater than his unfavorable numbers.
The issue isn’t just whether Sanders will ultimately overtake Hillary as the result of the debates and exponential spread of the Sanders political revolution. No president can, by themselves, deal with the significant issues (including the environment). But what Dave sees as politically impossible, Sanders sees as achievable so long as it has the backing of a vast majority of the American people.
I don’t think Dave fully appreciates the dynamic that would accompany a Sanders nomination. During the 7/29 meet-up, Bernie noted that it is not enough for him to get elected. The rank-and-file of this people’s revolution must target every office, federal, state and local. Where, at present, many Democratic candidates compromise themselves by seeking corporate funding, in the midst of this political revolution, that funding can become a liability.
As Bob Dylan so aptly put it
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’