Check out my fun and funny clean energy newsletter, Green Juice (www.greenjuice.wtf)! We're an unapologetically Ecosocialist publication dedicated to building a big tent climate movement. About to hit our one-year anniversary and want to keep it going, so please give us a chance to win you over!
I just don't agree with the framing around that "people think voters are more conservative than they are" piece... Like, depending on what you mean by that, it may be true. But a lot of Left folks are bought into claims that the electorate is much more _liberal_ than it actually is, and don't understand the attitudes and beliefs of even their own _base_ voters. Like, a lot of Left folks are still saying that the institutional party somehow "stole" the primary from Sanders, when in fact what happened is that Sanders did great with college-educated White liberals, but failed to appeal to more culturally-conservative and economically-moderate Black and Hispanic voters, and so he _just lost_. He was losing on the delegate count solidly, before any "superdelegates" were in the mix. (Plus in 2016, Hillary actually out-flanked him _to the left_ on culture/identity issues, which helped her blunt his advantage with the more ideological-liberal side of the party. If you go back and read Yglesias about Sanders, he pretty consistently talked about how Sanders' message of economic solidarity was a winner relative to Hillary's "we do this for the women, that for the 'Latinx' voters, this other thing for the gays" approach.)
One example: Some lefties love to point at how you can get solid numbers of people to say they favor a single payer healthcare system. There are totally reasonable ways you could raise taxes to cover Medicare for All, and it's clearly true that most people would come out ahead -- the amount their taxes would go up is less than what they'd save on health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket payments. Especially if your Medicare for All is about as generous as Canada's, not as generous as what Sanders actually proposed. But as soon as you actually talk about any of those funding mechanisms, you start losing people. Then there's the fact that this likely means putting existing plans out of business (perhaps private insurers can still exist to sell some kind of supplemental coverage, but they're not going to operate the way they do now) you start losing people. Unions get upset. People get nervous about the "can I keep my current doctor" stuff. There is not, in fact, a solid majority of American voters for _any specific version_ of Medicare for All -- the devil is in the details, and that's why Obamacare was the kludge it was.
Another example: The Sunshine Movement folks keep insisting that there's a majority of people, or maybe just a majority of young people, who care so much about climate that they want a fracking ban, or whatever else. And it _just ain't so_. The large majority _does not_ want to bear any significant cost to help the climate. IMHO the voters are _wrong_ about this, we _should_ be willing to pay a lot to avert future climate costs. But that's the reality you have to deal with. That's what drove the politics of the IRA -- investing in the alternatives that will eventually put gas out of business (or at least divert it into being a feedstock for other chemical processes like producing fertilizer, rather than getting burned for energy), rather than doing stuff that makes fossil energy scarcer and more expensive.
In some cases, things are just more complicated than many activists want to accept. They want to reduce people down to "pro-choice or pro-life", or "allies vs homophobic anti-trans bigots". People's actual views are more complicated than that, and constructing a poll that gives an accurate impression of those views, that politicians can use to inform how they talk about these issues, is _hard_. Lakshya Jain is doing great work on this. I mentioned this recent piece from the Argument in the comments on the Reactionary Centrism piece, but it's worth repeating: https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/against-thoughtless-moderation
That Plug-in solar bill tracker is a great help! Just submitted comment to my reps here in Washington in support.
The comments from the AZ legislature fit the vibe I felt when visiting Phoenix two weeks ago. There's such a weird contradiction of culture down there, where people are very "freedom/don't tread on me" in some ways (the highway, with aggressive drivers and motorcyclists without helmets, gives a real Mad Max vibe). But at the same time, there's this weaponized high-control homogeneity to the suburbs. E.g. You can only paint your house the correct shade of beige.
It's madness to me that rooftop solar is the exception there, not the norm. Especially when the objections are about aesthetics and that it might offend the sightline of somebody passing by.
"The Supreme Court announced on Monday, Feb 23, 2026, that it had agreed to hear a major climate lawsuit in which the oil industry is claiming it shouldn’t be sued in state courts over its role in global warming. The outcome could have wide bearing on dozens of other lawsuits around the country.
The court said it would hear arguments on a petition by Exxon Mobil and Suncor, a Canadian energy giant, in a lawsuit brought by the city and county of Boulder, Colo. The suit, first filed in 2018, sought to hold the companies liable for the effects of climate change, citing state laws."
May I take space to say what other dog lovers are certainly thinking a propos of the photo Dave included of his 2 "goobers": they are so stinkin cute!!! Thanks for the endorphin release=much needed to continue to put one foot in front of the other in these trying times. I have forwarded several of your podcasts over the years to true believers as well as those who "might/could" (we're New Englanders but learned this useful phrase when we lived in NC) be persuaded. Just renewed my subscription. Thanks, Dave, for what you do and how you do it.
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Check out my fun and funny clean energy newsletter, Green Juice (www.greenjuice.wtf)! We're an unapologetically Ecosocialist publication dedicated to building a big tent climate movement. About to hit our one-year anniversary and want to keep it going, so please give us a chance to win you over!
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I just don't agree with the framing around that "people think voters are more conservative than they are" piece... Like, depending on what you mean by that, it may be true. But a lot of Left folks are bought into claims that the electorate is much more _liberal_ than it actually is, and don't understand the attitudes and beliefs of even their own _base_ voters. Like, a lot of Left folks are still saying that the institutional party somehow "stole" the primary from Sanders, when in fact what happened is that Sanders did great with college-educated White liberals, but failed to appeal to more culturally-conservative and economically-moderate Black and Hispanic voters, and so he _just lost_. He was losing on the delegate count solidly, before any "superdelegates" were in the mix. (Plus in 2016, Hillary actually out-flanked him _to the left_ on culture/identity issues, which helped her blunt his advantage with the more ideological-liberal side of the party. If you go back and read Yglesias about Sanders, he pretty consistently talked about how Sanders' message of economic solidarity was a winner relative to Hillary's "we do this for the women, that for the 'Latinx' voters, this other thing for the gays" approach.)
One example: Some lefties love to point at how you can get solid numbers of people to say they favor a single payer healthcare system. There are totally reasonable ways you could raise taxes to cover Medicare for All, and it's clearly true that most people would come out ahead -- the amount their taxes would go up is less than what they'd save on health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket payments. Especially if your Medicare for All is about as generous as Canada's, not as generous as what Sanders actually proposed. But as soon as you actually talk about any of those funding mechanisms, you start losing people. Then there's the fact that this likely means putting existing plans out of business (perhaps private insurers can still exist to sell some kind of supplemental coverage, but they're not going to operate the way they do now) you start losing people. Unions get upset. People get nervous about the "can I keep my current doctor" stuff. There is not, in fact, a solid majority of American voters for _any specific version_ of Medicare for All -- the devil is in the details, and that's why Obamacare was the kludge it was.
Another example: The Sunshine Movement folks keep insisting that there's a majority of people, or maybe just a majority of young people, who care so much about climate that they want a fracking ban, or whatever else. And it _just ain't so_. The large majority _does not_ want to bear any significant cost to help the climate. IMHO the voters are _wrong_ about this, we _should_ be willing to pay a lot to avert future climate costs. But that's the reality you have to deal with. That's what drove the politics of the IRA -- investing in the alternatives that will eventually put gas out of business (or at least divert it into being a feedstock for other chemical processes like producing fertilizer, rather than getting burned for energy), rather than doing stuff that makes fossil energy scarcer and more expensive.
In some cases, things are just more complicated than many activists want to accept. They want to reduce people down to "pro-choice or pro-life", or "allies vs homophobic anti-trans bigots". People's actual views are more complicated than that, and constructing a poll that gives an accurate impression of those views, that politicians can use to inform how they talk about these issues, is _hard_. Lakshya Jain is doing great work on this. I mentioned this recent piece from the Argument in the comments on the Reactionary Centrism piece, but it's worth repeating: https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/against-thoughtless-moderation
Sarah McBride's remarks on trans rights ( https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-sarah-mcbride.html ) also should be required reading / listening before people critique Dems on culture war stuff.
That Plug-in solar bill tracker is a great help! Just submitted comment to my reps here in Washington in support.
The comments from the AZ legislature fit the vibe I felt when visiting Phoenix two weeks ago. There's such a weird contradiction of culture down there, where people are very "freedom/don't tread on me" in some ways (the highway, with aggressive drivers and motorcyclists without helmets, gives a real Mad Max vibe). But at the same time, there's this weaponized high-control homogeneity to the suburbs. E.g. You can only paint your house the correct shade of beige.
It's madness to me that rooftop solar is the exception there, not the norm. Especially when the objections are about aesthetics and that it might offend the sightline of somebody passing by.
"The Supreme Court announced on Monday, Feb 23, 2026, that it had agreed to hear a major climate lawsuit in which the oil industry is claiming it shouldn’t be sued in state courts over its role in global warming. The outcome could have wide bearing on dozens of other lawsuits around the country.
The court said it would hear arguments on a petition by Exxon Mobil and Suncor, a Canadian energy giant, in a lawsuit brought by the city and county of Boulder, Colo. The suit, first filed in 2018, sought to hold the companies liable for the effects of climate change, citing state laws."
May I take space to say what other dog lovers are certainly thinking a propos of the photo Dave included of his 2 "goobers": they are so stinkin cute!!! Thanks for the endorphin release=much needed to continue to put one foot in front of the other in these trying times. I have forwarded several of your podcasts over the years to true believers as well as those who "might/could" (we're New Englanders but learned this useful phrase when we lived in NC) be persuaded. Just renewed my subscription. Thanks, Dave, for what you do and how you do it.