Democrats and the Losing Politics of Contempt

Democrats didn’t lose for lack of political talent, campaign financing and organization or enthusiasm among their base. They lost because of their brand.

.. Democrats may think the brand is all about diversity, inclusion and fairness. But for millions of Americans, the brand is also about contempt — intellectual contempt of the kind Nimzowitsch exuded for his opponent

.. Contemporary liberalism now expresses itself chiefly in the language of self-affirmation and moral censure: of being the party of the higher-minded; of affixing the suffix “phobe” to millions of people who don’t appreciate being described as bigots.

.. It’s why a political strategy by Democrats that seeks to turn every local race into a referendum on Trump is likely to fail.

.. One temptation Democrats would be smart to avoid is to see Ossoff’s loss as evidence that the party needs to move further left, on the theory that not enough of the base showed up to vote.

.. And nominating more progressive candidates isn’t likely to solve the contempt problem, at least with voters not yet in sync with progressive orthodoxies on coal, guns or gender-neutral bathrooms.

.. Speaking of the 42nd president, many are the charges that can be laid at his feet, but contempt for half of all Americans was never one of them.

The Green Energy Revolution Will Happen Without Trump

States have been lured away from coal by cheaper alternatives and an abundance of cleaner natural gas — market forces that are not easily manipulated by Trump’s policies. The rise of natural gas and decline of coal was partly responsible for falling CO2 emissions — 18 percent below projections made in 2008 by the Annual Energy Outlook.

 “Regulation will play a modest role in the future,” said Mark Muro, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “But the main effect here is simply price. Gas and renewables are simply becoming cheaper than coal for many plants and many situations.”

World Coal Output Fell by Record Amount in 2016

Coal accounted for 28% of energy production last year in a ‘marked shift toward lower-carbon fuels,’ BP says in annual energy review

 Global coal production saw its largest decrease on record in 2016, as China and the U.S. dug up less of the commodity and burned less of it for electricity
.. U.S. output declined 19% and Chinese production fell almost 8%.
.. Renewables such as wind and solar power were the fastest-growing energy sources in 2016, BP said, increasing output by 12%. Renewables now provide just under 4% of the world’s energy, up from 2.8% of global energy consumption in 2015
..BP said oil consumption continued to rise at a strong pace in 2016, up 1.6% in 2016, which was above the 10-year average. The company sees a peak in oil demand around 2040, when consumption will begin to fall globally.