If, as Adam Smith said, there is a great deal of ruin in a nation, how much is there in a world? Rather than responding to Daniel Henninger’s most recent and rather harsh Wall Street Journal column:
The currently observable reality is that progressives, who have now captured the Democratic Party at all levels of government, don’t seem able to run anything anymore—not cities, not Covid, not a national border. Why would letting them run climate policy be different?
Whatever one thinks about the “root causes†of the rise in violent urban crime or the more than one million migrants apprehended at the southern border in the current fiscal year, both stand as significant case studies in political mismanagement.
The nonresponse to the overrun border by the Biden administration and to urban violence by progressive mayors in Chicago, New York, Washington and Portland, Ore., suggests this high-probability scenario on climate: They will make mistakes, the world will go to hell, and then they will deny we are in hell—and what’s worse, insist that we keep doing the same manifestly wrong things.
He concludes:
It was not always this way with Democrats. After it became clear that Vermont’s three-year experiment in a single-payer healthcare system had manifestly failed to control costs, its then- Gov. Peter Shumlin admitted as much and ended it in 2014. Still, single-payer advocates dismissed Vermont as too small to disprove their idea, and progressives like Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have persisted.
With climate regulation, we have the test case of California, the world’s fifth-largest economy. Progressive-run California for years has been the most climate-correct state in the union, and the most screwed up.
By suppressing the use of fossil fuels and natural gas while elevating solar and wind, California has created an electrical grid that performs poorly under stress, causing statewide power outages. Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to shut down the state’s only nuclear power plant, which is emissions-free, in 2025.
New York’s defrocked Gov. Andrew Cuomo closed the state’s Indian Point nuclear plant in April. This Wednesday, amid a heat wave, the Con Edison utility text-messaged residents that if the power goes out, “Reply HELP for help.â€
If only life under progressive misgovernance were that easy.
I’m going to solicit comments on what will happen. Is Mr. Henninger’s assessment correct?
My interpretation of events is that my original assessment of Joe Biden was correct: he’s moved to the center of the Democratic Party and, since that center has moved left, so has he. I also think that we need more pragmatists and fewer ideologues in office in both parties but I see no way of making that happen until things get much, much worse. Even then I suspect it’s more likely that the present ideologues would be supplanted by even worse ideologues.
I agree that Biden has moved left from his traditional positions. Par too that is that there isnt much penalty for doing so and no reward for heading back to the middle. In the past moving towards the middle might get you some support from the other party. That doesnt happen much, if at all, anymore.
That said, we are going to take this guy seriously complaining about the California grid when it was the Texas grid that had such a large and dramatic failure? Lets also not forget that some of those failures in the past were done deliberately by Enron so they could make money. Another market success.
Steve
No, no one who lives elsewhere should complain about California’s problems.
The voter’s who live there certainly must have their own reasons for voting against electric grid reliability, and that should be respected. Respected, not subsidized.
Californians love high rates of immigration. They respect the rights of people to live on the sidewalks in other peoples neighborhoods.
They’re willing to live with high crime rates, and high property taxes to pay for lawsuit judgements against police overreach so as to sustain those high crime rates.
Oh, In other peoples neighborhoods, that is.
California is a beautiful place to live, if you are are well heeled.
Doctors, lawyers, politicians, public dues paying CALPERS members and retirees all vote for liberal policing and liberal environmental planning that only they can afford, deflect the pain from themselves to people they will never meet.
Peasants and illegals they use to groom themselves and their estates yet claim to care for bear the burden of liberal policies.
The Texas grid failed for the same reason the California grid will fail: over reliance on intermittent wind and solar plus no built-in safety margin, no backups.
As to the US, once the rot sets in it goes to completion. Leftist politics does not allow for corrections, and the voters keep voting for the same nonsense. Viz. California, Massachusetts, Venezuela, Bolivia… Everyone keeps doubling down.
The only turnaround in history might be Sweden, which went from a standard socialist model in the 50’s to what is now a mixed economy capitalist model. Sweden is more capitalist than is the US. Taxes on businesses are relatively low, and taxes on individuals are relatively high. This is pretty much the European way nowadays.
Good government isn’t a priority for either party. I think this hurts Democrats and progressives more because they are the party of having the government do more.
Steve,
I think the situations in Texas and California with the electrical grids are different, and the mistakes and problems are different, but they are both still rooted in poor governance.
That’s an interesting observation. Since I am that rara avis, a “good government Democrat”, it’s of particular importance to me. I think there are more good government Democrats and good government Republicans at the local level than might appear from the popular news accounts but I have little way of proving it. Just a hope, I guess. I’m afraid that at the national level good government anythings are vanishingly few.
There are definitely more good government types at the local level IMO but that’s not saying much.
“: over reliance on intermittent wind and solar plus”
Minnesota and Iowa have a fair amount of wind power. They didnt see their grids fail because it got cold. Texas was just cheap and didnt want to pay for reliable wind power.
Andy- Agree that the reasons they have issues are different and poor governance is part of it. I do think they have some commonalities. California doesnt want to pay the money to keep the areas around lines clear of dead wood. Texas didnt want to pay for the same kind of turbines they use up north. Of course they also lost lots of power from gas powered sources, bob left that out, because they had lines freeze. Was cheaper to have everything outside and not bother to insulate.
Steve
California’s governance is executed along a one-party majority – the democrat party. Because of that we are living under a flawed, ideological leadership. For example, there are deals being made between PG&E and Gov. Newson, where he has micromanaged the oversight of this utility company, all in the favor of PG & E, who happens to be a major donor to his campaigns, and whose lobbyists join him for swanky dinners during COVID lockdowns. Money earmarked for forestry services has also been diverted to electric car rebates, and so on. Our dams are in disrepair, one (Oroville) almost collapsing during an earlier unusual rainy season. The central valley’s water supply is continuously in jeopardy, drought or no drought. Newsom also wants to get rid of nuclear power plants. In the meantime, CA imports more electricity, from outside states, than any other state. At least 25% of our power is derived from sources elsewhere.
People often retort that voters here must “like†the democrat party, as they vote them into office, time after time. However, the dem party has so poisoned our elections, changing how our elections are conducted, that the obstacles to change any political course, has all but been vanquished. First they changed our primaries, where only the 2 top vote-getters would vie for an office during the general election – this often only pits one liberal against an ultra- liberal. Then motor-voter was enacted, where there was a myriad of “oops,†where non-citizens were registered to vote, coupled by the ease of same-day voter registration. CA was the first state to make ballot harvesting legal, followed by universal mail-in voting, from registrar roles bloated with inaccuracies. Now, this year, just in time for the recall election of Newsom, they have approved the ability of people to print their own ballots at home, and then mail them in. Basically, we have unlimited pathways for fraud to decide who “wins†the reins of government.
The Dems now want the entire nation to follow California’s voting template. At 3 AM this morning, Schumer attempted a sneaky maneuver, bringing up the heinous, unpopular S1 bill up for a vote. It failed only because one awake senator contested it. But, this is the method often employed by democrats to pass controversial bills we are then stuck with for many years to come.
“Basically, we have unlimited pathways for fraud ”
Then it ought to be easy to find some. Go find it. (Hint- I would not hire that Kansas guy Trump put in charge. He couldn’t find anything anywhere.)
Steve
Steve, you may not be aware of this, but putting factual evidence before an overwhelmingly partisan climate of politicians/media/power brokers does not necessarily produce a fair outcome. Today, for instance, a federal judge refused to put a stay on the elongation of the federal rent moratorium. She ruled this way, despite agreeing with Biden that it was unconstitutional to lengthen the time of this moratorium. DACA was also not overturned, even though it too was considered unconstitutional. In this country, today, fraud or unconstitutional edicts are acceptable so long as the party in power is ruthless enough, having insurmountable hubris to override any and all objections to it.
” putting factual evidence before an overwhelmingly partisan climate of politicians/media/power brokers does not necessarily produce a fair outcome.”
The “evidence” has been put in front of GOP election officials, Trump judges and still been rejected. Before that for the last 20 years conservatives have been looking for voter fraud. You keep saying it is massive. So do other conservatives. Go find it.
Steve
You would not accept the evidence, Steve, no matter how large or convincing. Instead, you would find some kind of rationale that would simply brush it aside. BTW, the courts rejected law suits based on either standing or process, not on a thorough, formal review of the evidence.