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27 Oct, 6 tweets, 2 min read
I read this piece by @hankdeanlight and, contra the headline, it's NOT obvious. I'm still baffled by Sinema. I get that she's nakedly ambitious & willing to abandon people & switch positions if she thinks it will get her ahead. What I still don't get ... politico.com/news/magazine/…
... is why she thinks what she is doing now is going to serve her career. She is destroying the very parts of the Dem plan that are *most supported across party lines*, for reasons she refuses to articulate. She's going to battle on behalf of rich people. That's not popular!
People are talking about her leaving the party & running as an independent, but why would anyone in the world think you can build a candidacy on "I successfully protected corporations & rich people from taxes"? I'm not seeing the savvy politics here.
The "she just wants to quit & become a rich lobbyist" theory doesn't fit either. Are we really supposed to believe she spent decades of her life on an elaborate long con just to get herself in a position where she can keep rich people taxes low? There are easier ways to get rich.
The thing is, everyone, even those disgusted by her situational ethics, agrees she's *smart*. She's got plenty of classic analytical intelligence. It's unlikely she's missing obvious things that political commentators are seeing. So ... what then? What the fuck?
Depressing final thought©️: if Sinema's right, all this fury fades by 2024, & she outraises her primary opponent 100-1 & retakes her Senate seat on a wave of "maverick" hype, I guess she'll be the smart one & all of us who believe in accountability will be the dumb ones.

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More from @drvolts

David Roberts Profile picture
29 Oct
I would think the extraordinary success of the right-wing's fraudulent "CRT" hype -- and the absolutely pathetic, barely-there Dem response -- might draw people's attention to the vast asymmetry in the parties' ability to coordinate & push messages to voters.
I would think it might also draw attention to the futility of the Dem-consultant strategy of fleeing from culture war issues rather than fighting them.
The RW conjured a national movement of parents against CRT ***out of absolutely nothing***. The entire f'ing thing is invented. But it worked! Because the right has a giant propaganda machine. The left doesn't. All other talk about strategy is pointless as long as this is true.
Read 5 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
28 Oct
How's the hearing with the oil execs going? Anyone live-tweeting it?
Hm, lots of people are! Probably the best way to see a cross section is to follow #SlipperySix.
One thing that doesn't surprise me in the least, which the hearing is making v. clear: the GOP is far more denialist, far more blind in its fealty to fossil fuels, than *oil executives themselves*.
Read 7 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
27 Oct
Today on Volts: a podcast discussion with journalist @amywestervelt about corporate disinformation, the men who developed the PR industry in the 20th century, & the many, many ways that industries like fossil fuels are still jerking us around. A fun one! volts.wtf/p/volts-podcas…
After you listen to the podcast, check out Amy's new project, Rigged, an utterly fascinating collection of original documents & stories about the birth, development, & ongoing health of the public relations (er, propaganda) industry.
rigged.ghost.io//
One bitter irony that becomes clear when you understand the scale of corporate PR: all the products & habits that right-wingers now cling to as authentic indicators of heartland culture (the fast food, the SUVs, the guns) were engineered for them by PR.
Read 5 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
26 Oct
"Local parents should control curriculum" sounds like a universal principle. But remember: reactionaries use such principles instrumentally, to achieve their proximate interests. If "local parents" started pushing progressive curricula, the principle would vanish like smoke.
I know I send variants of this tweet every day, but it's important. I see progs argue, "you say [universal principle X], but that implies [consequence Y]," as though reactionaries will be tricked by logic in to supporting something other than their immediate tribal interests.
If [universal principle X] supports immediate tribal advantage, they will proclaim it (& in some sense, *believe* it). But if X goes against immediate interests, they'll abandon it in a heartbeat in favor of some other principle (which they'll *also* believe in the moment).
Read 5 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
26 Oct
This is whiny, morally craven bullshit -- a very specifically *Republican* form of whiny, morally craven bullshit.
It is extremely characteristic of reactionaries, when faced with a collective problem, to *immediately* fear being taken advantage of.

Another approach might be: let's lead! Let's be heroes. This thing is going to hurt us all, so we're going to step up no matter what others do.
Thing is, you could show Manchin data about the investments China is making in clean tech. You could try to refute his point about unfairness empirically. But it's *not drawn from empirical evidence*. The reactionary's feeling of being treated unfairly is primary, pre-verbal.
Read 6 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
26 Oct
I guess from within my climate policy bubble I had concluded that the case against coal is airtight & universally accepted. Apparently not.

But y'all, as I used to say back in the 2000s: coal is the enemy of the human race. There is no viable scenario wherein it lives on.
In the (IMO) unlikely event that CCS tech is developed & scaled up enough to be meaningful, it will still be hella expensive. We're going to put it on industrial facilities (for things we don't know how to decarbonize) & biomass power plants (for negative emissions).
There is NO scenario in which it makes any sense to attach it to coal plants. The parasitic load immediately eats a third of the power, rendering the remaining power expensive AF (& coal is already expensive). Plus you still live with the environmental & health ravages ...
Read 7 tweets

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