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Right now, just about everyone who cares about EVs (and not just Teslas), solar, and climate change is focused on beating Trump. It makes sense, because it’s clear what would happen if he gets back into office. I was talking about Project 2025 before it was cool the way it is now, so I totally get what we’re facing (and yes, it IS Trump’s plan, even if he denies it now). Not only would progress on reducing US emissions stop, but existing programs would be imperiled by Unitary Executive Theory and the belief that Trump can “impound” federal funds to gut cleantech tax credits.
It’s also important to not take our eyes off the ball on this. Trump is down in the polls, and he’s getting hammered by Kamala Harris in most of the swing states. Public opinion on Trump is sinking, and the Republican coalition recently showed weakness when Trump said stuff social conservatives didn’t like about abortion in Florida. But, with more than 60 days to go until the next election, a lot can change. Trump’s pulling every lever he has, including buying off a third-party candidate, to try to reverse his fortunes, and he might find a working lever somewhere.
As important as it is to keep Trump from getting back into office, we need to be careful to not become Harris cultists and groupies in the process. If we let the contrast between her and Trump make us forget about important priorities, we can very easily go through 4 or 8 years of getting nothing done.
Political Capital
I raise the possibility of getting nothing done because political capital is never unlimited. The Federal Reserve and the Treasury might be able to work together to take advantage of the unlimited money glitch, but in politics, every move costs you something, and the more controversial the move is, the more it’s going to cost you in terms of public support and the ability to get a coalition to work together to get things done. If you have sufficient political good will, you can even get people to come across the aisle and help!
The sad fact is that come January 2025, the balance in the political capital account is probably going to already be pretty low, if not in the red. Not only will the election continue to be divisive and polarized, but we’ve already got a candidate claiming that it’s being rigged. Absent a shockingly big landslide victory, we can count on Donald Trump to claim that the election was stolen and we can count on at least some of his supporters doing idiotic things in response. County election officials are going to try to refuse to certify the results. Some state election officials will play games, too.
If things go badly enough, a lot of political capital will be burnt by President Biden simply trying to deal with the violence. If not handled very carefully, people who sympathized with the Big Lie but didn’t participate could easily become radicalized themselves. You can’t kill someone’s crazy uncle, even if he was committing acts of terrorism, and expect the nephews to not be bitter about it, perhaps for the rest of their lives. The Waco massacre also shows us that the public at large has a distaste for violence. Even more mild actions that aren’t well thought-out (Hurricane Katrina offers plenty of examples) could take people who were hesitant supporters and push them away.
However it goes, what happens in the early months of a Harris administration is going to be extremely important. Will she do things to heal the divide and rack up more political capital? Or, will she decide to kick the right while it’s down, and make it tough to get anything done at all?
Foregoing Revenge
Even if Republicans are sore losers, it’s still a bad idea to be a sore winner. Trying to contest an election costs political capital, and getting violent over it costs a whole lot more. If the country comes out of election season with Republicans in even worse shape than Democrats, it’s hard to not see the difference in political capital being all that matters. Having more political capital than the other guy doesn’t help if you don’t have much yourself. It’s entirely possible for the country to not feel good about either party.
The obvious temptation in this situation is to go ahead and push through what you can while they’re down (revenge!). Packing the court, pushing through gun control legislation, or codifying Roe on steroids (Roe allowed some restrictions) might feel good to Democrats, but doing that while everyone licks their wounds (perhaps literally) can mean that nothing else of consequence can get done once Republicans regroup. It could give them a much-needed loan of political capital, as aggrieved people swing back to support them.
A famous Klingon proverb tells us revenge is a dish best served cold, and who are we to argue with Khan? By tempering the response in the immediate aftermath of a contested and ugly election, it’s possible for Harris to hold the current coalition together, a coalition that currently includes a growing number of moderate Republicans! Keeping the band together can mean that later, when things have cooled off a bit, more can be done.
Climate Change Needs To Be A Priority
When it comes to climate change and clean technologies, there’s little reason to avoid getting to work on day one. For everyone but the most extreme MAGA crowd, things like EVs, solar, and battery storage aren’t controversial anymore. When it comes to things that should be resisted, clean technologies are pretty far down the list. If you ask the average conservative whether they’d want stricter emissions regulations or a loss of religious freedom, for example, they’d almost always want to protect their religion first.
Bundling clean energy and clean technology policy into a wider socialistic package (a Green New Deal) might still be a poor use of political capital, but there are plenty of other policy options to consider that would be far less controversial and preserve political capital for other priorities the Harris coalition identifies.
Either way, getting climate policy in the door early is essential. We have time to deal with things like poverty reduction, crime, and other priorities. What we can’t wait longer on is curbing emissions and reducing the speed of climate change, because the longer we wait, the worse the consequences are known to be. Worse, the risk of hitting a tipping point and facing something worse than anticipated is higher the longer we wait.
Featured image by Jennifer Sensiba.
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