The Hill: The Green New Deal is great news for the GOP | TheHill.
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/424502-the-green-new-deal-is-great-news-for-the-gop
BY JOSEPH BORELLI
Republicans loved Obamacare. Really! In fact, “repeal and replace” and its variants may have been the most effective slogan in drawing Americans away from Democratic candidates since “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.”
Thankfully, 2019 has brought an equally heavy-on-high-hope, light-on-logic policy for Republican pundits and congressional hopefuls alike to treat as their personal punching bag throughout next election cycle. Smart conservatives are praying that the wise sages of the new Democratic House majority bring each of the proposals in the Green New Deal up for a vote – every single one of them.
As it turns out, the Green New Deal has been around for quite a while; it is nothing new. So why is it only now at the forefront of American dialogue? The answer is quite simple; just three short letters. A. O. C.
In touting her signature policy, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez(D-NY) often reduces it to a regurgitation of progressive buzzwords and embellished analogies
In her recent interview with Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes, for example, she dodged specifics, and instead mentioned that eliminating fossil fuels was the broad goal, how the rich “should start paying their fair share,” and for good measure, threw in a subtle comparison to Abe Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. In the past, she’s said “we need to invent technology that’s never even been invented yet;” and boasted, “This is going to be the New Deal, the Great Society, the moon shot, the civil-rights movement of our generation.” And, yes of course, there is also the classic, “people will die.”
Some progressive media outlets see its vagueness as an advantage. Surely the Green New Deal sounds good to progressives, it has “green” and “new deal” in the title; but best not to confuse people with the details or rile up the Fox News crowd. Vox put out a voluble hymn on the topic entitled “The Green New Deal, explained,” but admitted, “the exact details of the GND remain to be worked out.” In The Atlantic’s ode of praise, the subtitle brags, “Democrats may have finally found environmental consensus in the Green New Deal.” Yet, the article does not spell out exactly what it is they all agree upon.
To be clear, the ambiguity of the proposal is popular. A Yale and George Mason survey showed that 81 percent of registered voters liked the Green New Deal when the question was phrased with clear bias. Who wouldn’t want to “produce jobs and strengthen America’s economy by accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy?” Even conservatives like that.
