I'm more worried about Congress than the gubernatorial races
That's because this climate change **** got me shook den a mfer
I feel ya on that, it’s terrifying and while there could be some long term benefits (such as a corrosion of capitalism and the nation-state due to fact that the relative values of real property and territory will be in flux) it still is going to be a situation of massive misery and dislocation on a scale not seen in a long time.
Whether or not climate change will happen is no longer a question as it is already occurring and caused a horrific civil war and slew of revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa and a subsequent refugee crisis which has caused most of Europe’s bodies politiques to lose their damn minds. Meanwhile, near three million American citizens are being tormented by enhanced hurricanes, austerity and apathy.
The remaining questions are can we change our politics and economics quickly and dramatically enough to prevent apocalyptic changes and can we change our politics and economics to prevent and/or deal with the disasters that will now come even in the best of scenarios.
I swing from optimistic to pessimistic on those questions. On the one hand the average (and lets me be frank here, white middle and upper class) American was mean, nasty and short sighted when America was rich, triumphant and enjoying a benign climate at end of the 20th century. I shudder to imagine how cruel and impulse driven we will be in the face of climate driven catastrophes and the influx of refugees (both between and into these United State). If we defund public universities and infrastructure now, how on earth will affluent Americans summon the civic virtue to fund the infrastructure and innovation to mitigate the worst effects of climate change?
On the other hand, perhaps climate change will put the value of real property, social status and citizenship in such an uncertain situation that most individuals will be subject to a continuous and very real world Rawlsian veil of ignorance and it will cause a massive rejection of hierarchies since most people, even those comfortable at the moment, would always be at risk of being destitute and without a place to live.
What is certain is that we wasted the last three decades and we must act now and because of a bizarre quirk of history the economic and political hegemon of the world has its political will shaped in these small scale, intimate statewide elections so let’s elect governors and state legislatures who will give us future Congresses who will acknowledge and make policy to contain and cope with this coming crisis.
Edit: the DSA mascot weighs in
aepps20 outchea caking with all this voice acting work he been putting in for this election.
I've been traveling and don't plan on coming back anytime soon. Every time I meet new people and we have a discussion we end up talking politics and trump. People are dumbfounded on how he won the Presidency. It's actually refreshing to see that people around the world are rooting for his demise.
