The degree to which we have to take this pathetically silly document seriously

A roundup of takes on the Green New Deal:

Erick Erickson at Townhall:

This is not the product of serious people. This is the product of zealots who are under the impression they have more power than they actually do. The Democrats' plan calls for the elimination of fossil fuels and the embrace of 100 percent renewable energy, but would not invest in new nuclear power. Were this successful, the nation would be wholly dependent on the sun and on wind for energy. No nation has been so wholly dependent on the sun and on wind for energy since the period known as the Dark Ages.

Jonah Goldberg at Townhall:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn't taking it too seriously. She didn't put Ocasio-Cortez on the new Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, and when asked about the resolution, she was dismissive.

"It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive," Pelosi said. "The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they're for it, right?"

I bring this up for the simple reason that a lot of people on the left and right have every incentive to make this thing a much bigger deal than it is.

Still, given that almost everyone running for the Democratic presidential nomination feels obliged to say they're for it, it's worth taking somewhat seriously. 

Kimberly Strassel at the WSJ:

Buried in the details, the Green New Deal also promises government control of the most fundamental aspects of private life. The fact sheet explains why the resolution doesn’t call for “banning fossil fuels” or for “zero” emissions across the entire economy—at least at first. It’s because “we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast” (emphasis mine).

This is an acknowledgment that planes don’t run on anything but fossil fuel. No jet fuel, no trips to see granny. It’s also an acknowledgment that livestock produce methane, which has led climate alarmists to engage in “meatless Mondays.” AOC may not prove able to eradicate “fully” every family Christmas or strip of bacon in a decade, but that’s the goal.

Finally, the resolution is Democratic math at its best. It leaves out a price tag, and is equally vague on what kind of taxes would be needed to cover the cost. But it would run to tens of trillions of dollars. The fact sheet asserts the cost shouldn’t worry anyone, since the Federal Reserve can just “extend credit” to these projects! And “new public banks can be created to extend credit,” too! And Americans will get lots of “shared prosperity” from their “investments.” À la Solyndra. 

David Harsanyi at The Federalist.

Cortez and Markey claim that 92 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans support the Green New Deal. I’m not sure where that number is derived. But ask them again when government agents come to take out their water heater.

Scott Johnson at Power Line:

If this thing or anything like it ever comes to pass, we will be reading it by the light of a kerosene lamp if we haven’t yet been sent to the Green gulag.

Jim Treacher at PJ Media:

Want to get rid of all the bad things and give us only good things? Hocus pocus. Alakazam. Presto! That's all it takes. And if anybody starts babbling about "numbers" and "specifics" and other such hate speech, just remind them that they're bigots and they should shut up.

John Hawkins at PJ Media:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is loud, perpetually outraged, and not particularly bright. In fact, saying she’s not particularly bright is kind of like saying Antarctica is not particularly hot. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez IS what the mainstream media THOUGHT Sarah Palin was when she first came on the scene except she’s liberal, dumb, and considerably less accomplished.

Her first huge (albeit non-binding) policy initiative and the FAQ that goes along with the #Greennewdeal seems like the sort of drek a dimwitted high school student would have cobbled together after listening to a couple of Noam Chomsky videos. It is truly radical, wildly impractical, and completely oblivious to the enormous problems it would cause. There’s also nothing of significance in there about how much all of this will cost, how to pay for any of it, or what the impact will be on the economy once you get beyond [the] unintentionally hilarious line in the FAQ [about the Federal Reserve and newly created "public banks" "extending credit."]

The common theme running through all these takes is that the document is clearly, on its face, not to be taken seriously.

LITD concurs.

But let's think it all through a little more. How did a New York bartender rise to the position of House member so fast, and to such stardom that a documentary about said rise wins awards at the Sundance Festival, that she makes the rounds of late-night talk shows as if she's an entertainment phenomenon, and get a long-serving Senate member to sponsor this "resolution" less than a month into her term?

Our culture is now such that vast numbers of people need a regular celebrity-worship fix, and she was the perfect intoxicant. And while she is now a hero to feminists, you better damn well believe the hot-babe factor had much to do with her rise and her current influence. She's even taken time to respond to a fan's inquiry into her skin-care routine.

As noted above, she's causing consternation, and perhaps even a chaos-producing rift, in the Democrat party. But what has she really done with this document other than show what the endgame is for even "saner" Democrat proposals for dealing with the "climate crisis"? Doesn't any more "moderate" plan of necessity have to lead to such measures as banning airplanes and imposing standards for energy efficiency on every last one of the nation's buildings?

How do Dems get out of this? Climate-alarm purists are going to call any foot-dragging corporate shilling and the harboring of secret reactionary agendas.

That's why this whole thing must be taken at least a little seriously. One physically attractive dim bulb with a nonstop mouth has pushed the debate within her own party on climate, energy, work and private ownership to a point from which it can't shift back toward any notion of a center. She'll have to be accommodated.

And this means that Republicans will have the issue forced as well. They'll have to muster the stones to say out loud, nose to nose with the Freedom-Haters, that this is all a load of crap. They'll have to pose this argument, and brook no dilution of it:

 . . . what if the climate scientists are wrong? What if Hurricanes fail to get worse? What if people reject their speculative attempts to link bitter winter cold with global warming? What if people get fed up with the torqued up IPCC reports, the parade of weeping climate scientists, and the endless, endless demands that everyone should pay more tax to save the world?

That's going to require more than just taking on public figures associated with the Democrat party. It means speaking plainly to local school boards, pulling one's kids out of government schools if the degree of indoctrination is hopeless, writing reviews of Hollywood scare movies and getting them published in widely read venues, even speaking up in church at the first hint that sound doctrine is getting polluted (now, there's an actually apt use of that term) by this dog vomit.

It's going to take guts, not something Republicans are known for. One thing they can be thankful for as they start trying to gird their loins is that conservatives have nowhere to go politically, and therefore remain within the GOP ranks. In short, although we don't have a lot of respect for the RINOs / squishes / Reasonable Gentlemen who have woefully outsized influence in the party, we'll have their back when they find themselves having to square off against someone from the enemy. Maybe even push them toward said enemy if they look like they're dropping their fists and getting cold feet.

I'm not talking about a let's-you-and-him-fight scenario. We (conservatives) will, of course, be doing our own squaring off as well.

Bottom line: Of course, the Freedom-Hater vision is silly, grim and unworkable. But these people mean business. They could get away with imposing it on us if we don't treat this as war.