As I’ve noted many times before, the GOP isn’t capable to devising a plausible approach to climate change, because it is too ideologically wedded to the notion that government action deprives us of our freedom and turns us into mindless slackers. With that in mind, what would a GOP response based on the cult of self-reliance look like?
We would get rid of FEMA, agricultural assistance programs, and the Federal Flood Insurance Program. Property destroyed by a hurricane? Too bad, Jack! You should have known better than to live there. Coastal areas turning into ghost towns because nobody can afford insurance? Tough noogies, guys! Grin and bear it. Can’t figure out how to get the same yields in your fields? Work smarter, not harder. Everyone leaving your state, because they can’t stand the heat? Well, as they say, get out of the kitchen.
This will never happen, of course, because the GOP doesn’t have the courage of its convictions, and there are too many right-wing voters out there who will be impacted by climate change. Instead, the GOP believes in subsidizing the people who contribute to climate change, and then paying hundreds of billions of dollars to subsidize the victims after the fact, which makes absolutely no sense.