The Crazy Party

I'm finding it hard to blog these days because the country has simply gone mad. As Jonathan Chait tells us all too patiently and calmly, the U.S. Republican party is the only major political party on the planet that denies the reality of climate change and insists that nothing can or should be done about it. Obviously there are conservative parties all over the world, but not one of them takes that position -- even though many of them are in countries that have important fossil fuel sectors. (Of course the Middle Eastern monarchies don't have political parties per se -- he's talking about countries with representative government.)

As Chait also points out, even classic libertarianism recognizes the existence of environmental externalities and that there is justification for building them into the price structure. In other words, a carbon tax would be the conservative solution to climate change, in a sane conservative party.

Then there's universal health care, which is universally supported outside of the U.S. There's, you know, evolution. The cold fact that U.S. military power is limited in what it can achieve. That most people who get nutrition assistance are in fact working (or children or disabled) but their jobs don't pay enough to keep them fed. That fetuses are not babies. I could go on but these people are just completely nuts, and they control our legislative branch, most state legislatures, and get completely respectful treatment by the corporate media.

We are, in other words, in very big trouble. And I'm not sure how we got here.