151
Why aren’t Democrats talking about climate? (heated.world)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/politics@lemmy.world
43 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

But for how important this election will be for Planet Earth and the humans who live on it, the issue itself isn’t getting much airtime. Earlier this month, The Guardian examined the campaign websites of Democratic and Republican Senate candidates in eight battleground states. Of all the candidates surveyed, only two explicitly mentioned climate change.

This retreat hasn’t happened by accident. Over the last two years, some of the Democratic Party’s most influential strategists, donors, and think tanks have been explicitly telling candidates to shut up about climate change and focus on the economy instead—as if those were two separate issues.

It’s a strategy known as climate hushing. And with the midterms fast-approaching, it’s worth asking: Who convinced Democrats that ignoring climate change was a winning strategy? Does the evidence actually support that argument? And what is that silence costing the rest of us?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 77 points 1 week ago (12 children)

Because the average household has gone insular given the financial problems of the day. Survival mode means you’re not looking globally but inside your own “house”.

You may not want to hear that, but it’s how most people, middle of the bell curve, function.

How am I going to pay rent? How am I getting to work to pay rent? How am I going to get healthy food for my kids? How many meals do I have to skip this week so my kids can have meals? How am I going to get gas money? How many holes can these socks and underwear endure before I have to buy new ones? How long until the bandaid around the sharp edges one the safety pin holding my bra together fails?

Shit like that is dominating people’s minds? Climate? Might as well be asking about space aliens and stardust. The processing power isn’t there right now. Again, it may not be ideal to you, but, middle of the bell curve, that’s how people function.

As such, answers to the daily survival questions are coming first.

Yes, it’s all moot if the planet dies, but timeline wise most people aren’t going be able to look that far ahead of their kid is crying out of hunger right now or they’re stranded unable to get transport to work, today. They want today solved, not next year.

It’s like saying, why didn’t you get to the hospital to perform that life saving surgery when the surgeon is busy watching her shoes burn and trying to figure out how to get them off before they become one with her skin. Both things need doing, but what is closest to an individual is what that individual will be focused on. Burning footwear > surgery located elsewhere, never mind how important both things are.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 12 child comments
    •
  • [–] 25 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    Hit the nail right on the head. We can’t get most people to care about other groups of people right now, let alone climate change. The zone is being flooded, 24/7. It’s so bad that the average voter is desensitized to it all.

    Trump and Epstein fighting over being the first to rape a child? Sounds about right, what can be done?

    Gas hitting $10 by Christmas? Stressing me out, what are you going to do though?

    Midterms will not be free and fair? They own the whole government, basically. What can be done?

    It’s hard to blame someone for giving up hope, and looking inward. Climate change was not taken seriously by most people in the US to begin with.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 7 points 1 week ago

    It’s not that I didn’t take it seriously, but it truly is a leadership issue. The scale of the climate issue is why governments exist. But because corporate (been playing Cyberpunk and want to call it corpo) started buying up government shares in the 80s the necessary legislation never happened.

    To toss another analogy your way, daylight savings is going away. The thing about that argument, sticking with one or the other because it will make winter life soooo much better, sure it will impact, but not as hard as people think. The days will still get shorter and darker in winter, that will not go away, overall, even if we stop changing the clocks.

    This election is going to be the same. (Vote, definitely.) It feels like people are reaching out hands towards ballots, while drowning, expecting a save. Things will shift, yes, but I doubt it will be dramatic. Gas prices are borked, billionaires will still exist, and AI has freely collected our data while u demoing home computing. The government coffers are pilfered and the debt is even more astronomical. It’s going to be a shit Christmas for the kids this year either way. Still vote, it’s about the only handhold we have right now.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 11 points 1 week ago (5 children)

    The best thing to do for the climate is getting rid of the 1 percent richest

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    How about we fight the class war and get their money out of politics while growing children that do not worship the idea of insane generational wealth. We don't elect kings and fuck the epstein class.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    I agree and another way of saying this is that we are not evolved enough to organize on such a large scale, we really are just great apes with a limited 100-150 members of our in group. Once we are made to care and understand more we simply fail to rise up to the occasion. Another way of putting it, we cannot act as individuals to make world wide change, we need organized government with a long term goal, almost like religion without the death cult stuff. So if organized humanity keeps on keeping on, it will be very messy, almost as if our leaders and collective actions mirror that of a screaming child without parents, goals, and having a messy bottom.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago* (1 child)

    There is science to the 100-150 people thing, in terms of memory. There are limitations to how many people you can hold in head at the same time.

    That said, gathering crowds, or mobs, isn’t about that, it’s mainly rooted in common information. And that doesn’t exist any more, by intention. Every one of us in this thread has ingested different info today, this week, this year. Every single one. Now, those Venn diagrams on ingested info will have overlap, because it’s Lemmy, but even so. The lack exists. And that’s on Lemmy. Out there, off Lemmy, there may be zero overlap on ingested information.

    Without common information and cause for emotional need to rise, it won’t happen.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago

    yes we need the public educated together like some kind of standard put on display for the general populations to agree and use as a metric that helps one be productive in society and make informed choices based on past knowledge handed down by past generations. But I'm saying we need organized government to push forward long term goals while you and I fuck and, make a home and prepare for death all while the gears keep turning so we can keep living. But human nature only allows for small world understanding VIA our biology only allows us to feel for 100-150 . Empathy stops and mass casualty events just feel like numbers. We can organize crowds or mobs all we want but its just a short term splurge.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent