Now that @JoeBiden has made #ClimateAction his priority, the political press is going to spend the next few months asking his administration "tough questions" along two separate, quasi-denialist lines.

Let's take a look...

[thread]

First, they're going ask how his climate plan will make life tougher for "ordinary Americans." They're going to ask whether families are going to be forced to "sacrifice"—or they're going to ask what "enforcement mechanisms" the administration is going to put in place.

2/n

These sorts of questions obviously pick up on the right-wing talking point that Democrats want to outlaw hamburgers and forbid you from flying to see Grandma for the holidays.

3/n

It's tricky to answer these questions bcz of course full decarbonization requires consuming less meat & hardly flying (barring a Christmas tech miracle), but the point here is that such measures are *not in the Biden plan*. And spokespeople should say as much.

4/n

Also: the implicit message of these "sacrifice" questions—that climate action is going to be painful for individual people—is not actually countered by the macroeconomic message that climate action will create millions of jobs.

What if you already have a job?

5/n

You can't assuage people's (manufactured) worries about their personal pleasures using broad, macroeconomic messages about economic development.

You have to talk about individual people's worries and experiences, as if comforting people personally.

6/n

So, eg, this Sunday @GStephanopoulos asked @JenGranholm about what Biden's plan would look like "in our daily lives."

Here are some ways the Biden administration could answer that question...

7/n

They could point out that Americans don't care how their lights turn on or their car runs—and if they do care, they actually LIKE clean, safe energy.

They like not having pollution
in their homes and communities.

They like paying lower electric bills every month.

8/n

They could tell the story that building a new American energy system will make our empty, struggling communities fill up and hum again, because all these new products and services have to be built right here at home.

Everything we see will get an upgrade!

9/n

The latter point is the jobs argument, of course, but turned into a concrete description of its benefits, which gives people who already have a job more reason to buy in.

10/n

Now, the second kind of question we'll see in the political press will attempt to manufacture conflict within the Democratic party by asking how Biden plans to assuage the "radical left" who wants his plan to go further.

11/n

Here spokespeople for the administration can point to the diversity of the backgrounds and approaches of the folks on Biden's climate team (and acknowledge the #GreenNewDeal as a "framework," as Granholm did so skillfully) to sidestep this attempt at being baited.

12/n

I would play up how activists and the business and finance communities are ALL coming together to meet this moment in history (think BIG) because Biden is going to lead all of us into a NEW ERA.

13/n

As in: "This is not about petty Washington squabbles, oh political reporter looking for a gossip story, this is about rebuilding America and saving the future for our children!"

14/n

(Yes I know that disagreements between the moderate and the progressive wings of the Democratic party are real and deep, but I'm talking about Presidential administration messaging here, ok?)

15/n

There's no need to be sheepish or defensive about Biden's bold plan for climate action. This is literally a epochal vision for the future.

16/n

Messages get developed via focus groups (here "climate action will create jobs") & then everyone sticks to them w "message discipline," but that approach works mostly on the right, where you have a vast media machine amplifying your messages & your base never sees you questioned.

The mediasphere for Democrats is much more "infected" with right-wing talking points than visa versa, so Dems need to neutralize those points literally while they're circulating their own messages. That's hard to do!

18/n

And, finally, about Biden's climate plan in particular: it's imperative that the plan emerges as part of an overarching narrative vision about moving our country into a new and vastly better era—one that starts right now and makes people's lives better starting right now.

19/n

This narrative will include overcoming obstacles & antagonists (there are always bad guys in every great story), so the Biden team should offensively define the people and interests who will try to block his plan, and they should do so as soon as the inauguration is over.

19/n

As Reagan demonized "we're from the government and we're here to help," so should we demonize "we can't afford it."

We can't afford not to!

What's the point of everything we do for our children if we're going to leave them a dead planet?

20/n

Anyhow that's a slightly different issue and this thread has gone on for long enough.

The takeaway: develop vivid, local stories about individual people's lives getting better & an inspiring vision for a future which we can fight the bad guys for.

Let's go!

/fin