OPINION:
Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a dire warning to voters a few days before last week’s election. If President-elect Donald Trump won, “the struggle against climate change will be over.”
He had that right.
Climate change fanaticism was effectively on the ballot last week. The green energy agenda was decisively defeated.
It turns out that the tens of millions of middle-class Americans who voted for Mr. Trump weren’t much interested in the planet’s temperature 50 years from now. They are busy trying to pay the bills.
That result shouldn’t be that surprising. Every poll in recent years has shown climate change ranks near the bottom of voter concerns. Jobs, inflation and illegal immigration register much higher on the list.
But if you ask the elite of America, those in the top 1% of income, climate change is seen as an immediate and existential threat to the planet. Our poll at Unleash Prosperity earlier this year found that the cultural elites were so obsessed with climate issues that they were in favor of banning air conditioning, nonessential air travel and many home appliances to combat global warming. Our study showed that not many of the other 99% agree.
Wake up, Bernie and Al Gore.
Climate change has become the ultimate luxury good: The richer you are, the more you fret about it.
Among the elite, obsessing about climate change has become a favorite form of virtue signaling at country clubs and faculty lounges. There are few things the green elites — the people who make six-figure donations to groups such as the Sierra Club — aren’t willing to make lower-income Americans tolerate to fight global climate change.
Herein lies the political curse of the climate issue. A millionaire doesn’t care much if gasoline prices rise by $1 a gallon or if they have to pay $100 more each month for utilities. But the middle class hates paying more for such necessities.
It wasn’t just economic concerns that turned the voters against climate crusaders such as President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Workers weren’t thrilled with the heavy fist of government commanding them to buy an electric vehicle — whether they wanted one or not.
It hasn’t helped the greens’ cause that the same progressives who are out to save the planet with grandiose transformations and global government seem to have no problem with the garbage polluting the streets of our major cities, the graffiti or the feces and urine smell on the streets of San Francisco and New York. That’s real pollution. And it’s affecting us here and now.
The good news is that this year’s voter revolts against the radical green agenda aren’t a vote for dirtier air or water. The air we breathe and the water we drink are cleaner than ever — a point that Donald Trump made. We will continue to make progress against pollution.
But the nonsense of net-zero use of fossil fuels is a bridge way too far. The destruction of jobs historically held by blue-collar union workers — ripped right into the heart of the Democratic Party’s traditional voting base.
In their zeal to save the planet, Democrats forgot to visit the steel mills, construction sites and auto plants and ask those workers what they thought.
Well, now we know. Americans recognize their shrinking paychecks, and the higher price of gas is the real clear and present danger to their way of life. If Democrats don’t start to get that, they, too, will go to bed worrying about their jobs.
• Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a co-founder of Unleash Prosperity. His latest book is titled “The Trump Economic Miracle.”
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