Last night, more than 30 Democratic senators staged a “talkathon.” Per the New York Times:
In the summer of 2010, it was Harry Reid, the Senate’s Democratic leader, who squelched his party’s efforts to pass a climate change bill, declaring it could never attract enough votes to pass. In the years since, he has rarely spoken publicly about the issue.
But on Monday night, an impassioned Mr. Reid took to the Senate floor to kick off a nearly 15-hour climate-change talkathon by about 30 Senate Democrats, part of a campaign by a new Senate “climate caucus” to make it a politically urgent issue.
Much of the Right’s criticism of this “stunt” has hinged on a simple premise: that because Americans don’t especially care about the issue, senators should thus be spending their time talking about “something else.” At the risk of sounding hopelessly contrarian, I might ask “why?” Sure, I disagree with most of what was said: As anyone who reads me will know, I am unconvinced by the eschatological language that Big Green’s preachers have adopted, am turned off by their willingness to lie to advance their cause, and am even less persuaded that their proposed government actions can do anything about the problem. Nevertheless, I do not doubt the movement’s essential sincerity, and, in consequence, it strikes me that the material question must be less “why didn’t they talk about what I think they should have talked about” and more, ”if you believed what they believe, wouldn’t you be evangelizing all night in the Senate, too?”
It is clear that many Democrats recognize just how politically dangerous this issue is for them. As a few of its detractors have established this morning, the Senate hasn’t passed a single climate-change bill since it took control of the Senate in 2006, and, unless there is a remarkable and lightning-fast shift in Americans’ priorities, it is highly unlikely to do so any time soon. Still, while this demonstrates a great deal about the politics of climate change, it tells us almost nothing about the virtue of the Democrats’ stand. There are a whole host of coveted reforms that Republicans stay away from, too; not to mention a number of positions that, absent a dramatic change in public opinion or political reality, conservatives recognize as pipe dreams. (George W. Bush’s lonely attempt to privatize Social Security was a good example of this.) Are we to conclude that the minority of Republicans who do take lonely and quixotic stands are to be dismissed? I certainly hope not. To refuse to damage oneself further in an election year is not to suggest that one is cowardly; to decline to draw up legislation that cannot pass is not to reveal that one is posturing; and to hold an evening of awareness that is unmoored from a concrete proposal and from the safety of the public’s acquiescence is by no means to imply that one is wrong.
It is currently en vogue to respond to arguments with the rejoinder, “good luck getting anybody to vote for that.” This is a genuine shame. At what point exactly did we all decide that politics was static and that people were automatons, programmed in a certain way at a certain age or in a certain place, never to have their views altered by debate? At what point did we decide that the deeply held views and wisdom of centuries should be abandoned because the latest crop of young people or wave of immigrants won’t like them? Yes, political parties need to win elections. Yes, politicians need to represent their voters. But, in a representative democracy, that cannot be their sole purpose. They should be trying to change people’s minds, too. One cheer for the Gang of 30-something, from this highly critical quarter at least.