Green New WTF?: Podcast

Untethered from real-world constraints, progressive Democratic policy goes utopian.

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Green New WTF?: Podcast

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Is it kind of missing the point to talk about what Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D–N.Y.) Green New Deal (GND) actually contains? That's the meta-question lurking just under the surface of the new Editors' Roundtable version of the Reason Podcast, featuring Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, Matt Welch, and Peter Suderman.

The Reason editors talk about the GND's contents, its role in Democratic Party ideological positioning, and how it reflects an increasingly utopian, fact-untethered age of political discourse. Along the way, they also assess recent exertions by possible 2020 presidential candidates Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.), Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D–Texas), and former Libertarian Party vice presidential candidate Bill Weld. You can listen to the whole thing here:

Audio production by Mark McDaniel.

Drop of Water In the Ocean by Broke For Free is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Relevant links from the show:

"Green New Deal—Same Old Progressive Policies," by Ronald Bailey

"How Much Will the Green New Deal Cost?," by Ronald Bailey

"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal Aims to Eliminate Air Travel," by Joe Setyon

"Zoning Makes the Green New Deal Impossible," by Christian Britschgi

"Think the Green New Deal Is Crazy? Blame Intersectionality." By Robby Soave

"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Calls Climate Change 'Our World War II,'" by Nick Gillespie

"Green New Deal Will Try Anything Except Nukes, Hydro, Markets…," by Ronald Bailey

"Kamala Harris Says Her Opposition to Marijuana Legalization Is 'Not True.' We Have the Receipts!" by Scott Shackford

"Kamala Harris Hopes You'll Forget Her Record as a Drug Warrior and Draconian Prosecutor," by Justin Monticello & Katherine Mangu-Ward

"Scandal-Plagued Sen. Amy Klobuchar Announces 2020 Presidential Run," by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

"Bill Weld So Far Getting Chilly Northeast Reception to Possible GOP Primary Bid," by Matt Welch

What are we consuming this week?

Matt Welch

• Brandi Carlile songs
• The 2019 Grammys

Katherine Mangu-Ward

• Antman and the Wasp (2019)
• "When the Cure is Worse Than the Disease"

Nick Gillespie

• The Heavens by Sandra Newman

Peter Suderman

• Black Leopard, Red Wolf (The Dark Star Trilogy) by Marlon James
• A Brief History of Seven Killings: A Novel by Marlon James

---

Comments

[wareagle]

The left has been untethered by fact for some time. It's just far more open about it now.

[Crusty Juggler]

The journos, too - don't forget the journos.

[wareagle]

Ah, yes; the trusty fourth estate, turned fifth column.

[Crusty Juggler]

The lying left and their journo apologists/partners-in-crime are living in a fact-free fantasy world, but now the truth is finally starting to emerge.

[John]

Viv la Resistance!! You tell em Crusty.

[Crusty Juggler]

Yo are so obesessed with me. This is already getting old. John.

[John]

Everyone needs a stalker. If you were not such a cuck, you would be flattered.

[Crusty Juggler]

Don't use words like Cuck that you clearly don't understand the meaning of. It just makes you look dumb. Whatever Cuck even means, it isn't "someone smarter than me who embarassed me on an internet forum".

[John]

See, there you go Crusty. Doesn't that feel better? No need to be angry.

[Crusty Juggler]

I alreaddy told you Im not angry, I just pity you.

[John]

Now you are angy again.

[BigT]

Hey you two, get a room!

[Chipper Morning Wood]

A room? Crusty doesn't fuck indoors.

[Telcontar the Wandchipper]

Well, not since Galadriel broke his dungeons open, anyway.

[CE]

the party that believes in science

and what's to burn at the stake anyone who doesn't

and thinks scientific progress is made by consensus

when throughout history scientific progress has only been made when the consensus was overturned

[Rich]

Is it kind of missing the point to talk about what Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D?N.Y.) Green New Deal (GND) actually contains?

Who *wouldn't* want to talk about a clear roadmap to a perfect world?

[Colossal Douchebag]

Best laugh I've had all day

[CarmenDHallmark]

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[Pro Libertate]

Mein kampfy Sessel.

[Pro Libertate]

Mein Kampfy Sessel. That sounds about right.

[Jerryskids]

If you're going to dream, might as well dream big. Why limit yourself to what's realistically, politically, economically, physically possible when you can imagine you have a magic wand?

[mad.casual]

"Magically seal the border"

The wall was originally $12B dollars a far cry from even the lower tiers of AOC's 'Deal'. Last estimate was at $5B. Moreover, his budget proposals to cut medicare and social welfare outstrip either sum, in some cases, by more than 10-fold on any given resolution.

The equivocation that 'the wall' unimaginable fantasy the way the Green New Deal is unimaginable fantasy is, at best, defeatist horseshit and more likely than not is just plain horseshit. Fucking disgusting.

[John]

A five billion dollar wall is totally the same as a program that says it will totally rebuild every building in America, ban 90% of the forms of power generation, ban air travel and ban meat consumption.

Whenever the left really steps on its dick, Nick and Welch and the rest fo the reason crew are there to play the false equivelence card and say "but the Republicans are just as bad".

[CE]

five billion won't build much of a wall

but five trillion (1000 times as much) would just get you started on the Green New Deal

[Hamster of Doom]

How about crowdfund it, and leave those of us who don't give a shit about anyone's "kulaks and wreckers" finger-pointing out of this.

I mean, its amazing. I live in that magical 100-mile Constitution-free zone near a border and every time I see someone say "No one would be open-borders if they had to deal with open borders!" and I'm all HELLO, I live near the border and within those gorram insensible WTF-you-peeps-thinking lines and I'm still all "No, this is silly, can we just rethink this" and yet there is nothing I can say that will stop people from claiming that no one could possibly be open borders if they lived near the border, because THEY do not live near the border and are going off what they've been told.

Jeez oh petes, borders are porous. I don't care if it's the Mexican/Texas border, or the Canadian/Michigan border, or the Ukrainian/Russian border, or the Bulgarian/Turkey border... someone needs to visit their aunt, and y'all are being silly tits for thinking humans follow rules that are impractical for them personally.

[Hamster of Doom]

Not that this will mean anything or change literally anyone's mind on anything, or even be noticed. Just watch. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, and yet someone will definitely state unequivocally that no one - NO ONE - lives near the borders who wants anything but a firm, expensive wall well-manned with guns and the men to patrol them. And zero people will change their minds when hearing different. I will have merely labeled myself an enemy of their narrative - which they will never question.

Hello. Is there anybody out there. Smile if you can hear me.

[Hamster of Doom]

Bah. John, if this seems to be spoken from frustration.. it is. It isn't you. It's more a cri de couer. You're delightful, if John-y. Keep it up.

[mad.casual]

How about crowdfund it, and leave those of us who don't give a shit about anyone's "kulaks and wreckers" finger-pointing out of this.

First, the complaint was about the equivocation which you almost agree with and/or highlight. You could, conceivably, crowdfund the wall. You couldn't possibly crowdfund the Green New Deal.

Second, the false equivocation deliberately obfuscates or foolishly summarizes some rather libertarian underpinnings or opportunities. Would you accept the wall for a 30% slash to the EPA's budget? It's like a 5:1 savings. What about building the wall, cutting the number of checkpoints/personnel in the 100 mi. zone, *and* cutting the EPA's budget *and* cuts to medicare? All of this is, or has been on the table, none of it gets discussed because "Orange dumb, wall bad, Green stupid." is the depth of analysis we get around here.

[mad.casual]

Even just objectively. Controlling borders and immigration, something nations have effectively done to varying degrees of success since the stone age is unfeasible as the unattainable as the post-Utopian Shangri-La being proposed by AOC? I'd say dumb but it's not even dumb.

[BigT]

Welch's point is that there is a note of fantasy on both sides. And he notes that the Donkeys see Trump as easily beatable, so they are fighting about the 'message' that will be the centerpiece of the party.

[Ray McKigney]

"see Trump as easily beatable"

Seems to me I've heard that somewhere before....

[RenaD]

Katherine Mangu-Ward has nutshelled exactly what is wrong with gov't today, regardless of party/ideology: this is a politics unmoored from spending, and no one wants to recognize that or correct it. We're doomed.

[rhondacivic]

I'd add that it's easy to be unplugged from concerns about spending when also unmoored by any concern for liberty and justice, negative rights...ugh I could go on...now I'm just depressed.

[ThomasD]

This. Spending is - at best - a follow on concern once it has been determined that - what government needs that money in order to to do - is in indeed legitimate, necessary, and not an infringement upon liberty.

Focusing on spending is putting the cart before the horse.

[Jerry B.]

Sure wish you folks would publish transcripts of these podcasts for those of us who like to read.

[Sevo]

And for those who can thereby zip though the bloviating.

[CE]

i just go straight to the comments either way, so the lack of a transcript is irrelevant

[BigT]

Let me go ask my local bartender what HE thinks about economic and environmental policy. Bartenders know stuff!!! I go to him for all my big decisions. Don't you??

[BigT]

PS The New Deal was an ill-conceived, immoral, failure. We are still suffering from it. Only an ignoramus would want to revisit it.

....or any Donkey!

[Colossal Douchebag]

We've been in failure mode for a little over a century now.

[Fats of Fury]

Kermit should shit or get off the pot.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

He can't get out of the pot until it's too late.

[Fats of Fury]

Hags, nags, fags and a lollygag. Dem's yer choices.

[buybuydandavis]

"Give us unlimited power and we'll give you everything you want for the price of wishing for it."

[Ryan (formally HFTO)]

Highlights/ Lowlights:

1. Everyone makes fun of the new green deal but insists democrats are to be taken seriously

2. Editors insist that republicans only good idea is a wall, ignore the reality that life is good for most Americans and most people don't want radical change

3. Suderman pretends Kamla Harris wasn't a cop who locked up pot dealers (KMW scorches him)

4. Editors talk about trumps approval rating like it means something, then pretend that democrats are going to have some sort of smooth victory, despite no policies based in reality (see item 1)

[Sevo]

Thank you.
If you have misrepresented anything, I'll assume that the 'writers' for Reason will post here and make that statement. They are 'writers', are they not?

[Ryan (formally HFTO)]

They do write about this stuff but the editors differ on some issues, something not always so apparent in their writing.

Nothing is quite as satisfying as hearing Suderman speak on behalf of his beltway progressive friends. Ever hear a guy speak while walking on woke eggshells?

[CE]

4A. or any actual, viable candidates

[BigT]

Ryan, you seem to think policy drives the election. Personality and feelings are more influential.

[Ryan (formally HFTO)]

I'd agree it's a bit of both. There's also plenty of single issue voters.

[Deconstructed Potato]

5. The Jacket throws his support behind AOC and the wackjob utopianistas because "something positive"

[mad.casual]

Yeah, that when he did that I was halfway out the door and then KMW equivocated the wall with the GND and, after having grown up on a farm, I couldn't stand the smell of all the bullshit and had to leave.

[Rufus The Monocled]

The Green Deal is such an unrealistic mess of gibberish unicorns reject it.

[rhondacivic]

I have attempted to read the text in its entirety... getting through all the "whereas" premises of what ostensibly are the government's compelling interests for doing the things within is a challenge... can't wait (don't want) to read how unrealistic is gets after all that BS.

[Curly4]

If a person stops to think about what the progressives are proposing it would take only about a second of time to realize that their program if enacted would bankrupt then nation. Every thing that they have proposed will cost the government trillions of dollars and where does the government get the money that it gives away or spends? It gets every dollar of it from working taxpayers. With all the free stuff they are giving away including a basic living wage to persons that cannot work or don't want to work, Medicare for every one single payer no private insurance allowed, and all the other proposals the progressives have made it is quickly seen that this could only be done by nationalizing all profit making industries. And if a person is not going to be able to enjoy the fruit of their own labor why work any harder than is required to do the very minimum?

[CE]

no, they're going to take it from the tippy top of the 1 percenters

[sarcasmic]

Progressives don't think. They feel. Their proposal won't bankrupt the nation because it is full of good intentions. Sure it will cost trillions, but the rich are going to pay for it. That and there is always the printing press. After all, wealth is money and money is wealth. Government creates wealth when it prints money. You don't believe money is wealth? Well then give me all your money. No? Then government creates wealth when it prints money. Nationalizing businesses will save money in the long run because government doesn't waste money on profits to the rich. That will save trillions right there. And people are going to work anyway because that's what people do. It makes sense as long as you don't think about it.

[ThomasD]

Their combination of zeal and sanctimony mark it all as religion.

[Dawg3]

This is just sophomoric tripe...

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[CE]

It's like they've finally lost touch with reality and started believing their own fantasy land.

But it's not like Libertarians can really call them out on that....

[BigT]

Suderman is an apologist for this BS, referring to it as a wish list rather than a series of proposals, all unrealistic and destructive. Get rid of Suderman, KMW!!!

[Deconstructed Potato]

As long as Suderman keeps stepping up to strike out I'm fine with that.

[ThomasD]

Because keeping the batting order stocked with losers is a sure ticket to the playoffs?

[Ryan (formally HFTO)]

He's the volunteer punching bag so everyone gets to go to cocktail parties

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[Tip Certification]

Yeah, I live near the border and within those gorram insensible WTF-you-peeps-thinking lines and I'm still all "No, this is silly...

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