A Dash of Cold Water

This piece is part of Yellow Scene Magazine’s Opinion section. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent a reported news position. At Yellow Scene, opinion pieces speak freely, challenge assumptions, and say the quiet parts out loud.

Years ago I argued against the prevailing argument about climate change. It was fashionable in liberal circles to demonstrate the many ways that good environmental practices are profitable.

My rebuttal, in brief, was that the logic was ethically compromised. Harnessing environmental responsibility to profitability gives tacit permission to abandon good environmental practices if they are not profitable. This is among the many reasons that global warming marches on with relatively feeble resistance.

A similar concern dampens my enthusiasm over recent election results. Yes, it was mildly encouraging but – with the exception of Zorhan Mamdani – the Democratic winners are just a tad to the left of moderate Republicans. It was hardly a progressive triumph.

The parallel with environmentalism is the incessant focus on “affordability.” It became the blaring Democratic mantra. “Everything is too damned expensive and electing me will improve your life.” If I never hear “food on the table” again, it will be too soon.

I suppose I needn’t, but I will acknowledge the economic stress endured by too many families. High prices require real sacrifices that my relative privilege can avoid.

But the pragmatic benefits of campaigning to pursestrings leave other issues to rot on the political sidelines. So-called culture wars must be assiduously avoided in service of electing candidates who promise to lower the cost of eggs. To listen to 2025 political rhetoric is to believe we are a society that subsists on eggs alone.

So heres’s the rub and the analogous problem:

It is a given that Republicans do not give a tinkers’s damn about a warming planet or its most vulnerable inhabitants. Environmentalism, social justice and human rights writ large are subjects of mockery and disdain. So Democrats are reluctant to embrace anything that might risk any loss of centrist or crossover votes. Even campaigns resisting authoritarianism are placing affordability above anti-authoritarianism. This only makes sense alphabetically.

So we promise lower egg, gas and housing costs. May I remind of Hoover’s (incorrectly attributed) “chicken in every pot” promise in 1928? The great stock market crash of 1929 made chickens and pots unaffordable.

A more honest assessment of the state of our world would highlight: precipitous reversing of racial justice advances of the last 60+ years; threats to LGBTQ+ rights, including anti-trans violence and humiliation; terrifying, unmitigated consequences of human-driven global warming; wealth disparity that would make the robber barons blush; and the unconscionable treatment of immigrants, documented and otherwise.

I don’t suggest that successful Democratic candidates don’t care about these things. They may, but their convictions seem lukewarm. I suppose a charitable reading would acknowledge that having I LOVE DEI!! posters might not be a winning theme.

On the other hand, as in the environment/profitability case, if the promises of “affordability” are not kept, the rationale for electing Democrats is erased. Any sentiments toward social or Earth justice will be irrelevant, and the teeter-totter will tilt back toward the current crew of rapacious capitalists and capitalist enablers.

This dilemma is the inevitable consequence of the shift toward living in an economy rather than living in a society. While not the prime driver of the current moral bankruptcy, this shift rapidly accelerated during the Clinton campaign when James Carville coined, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Even the economy we live in is predicated on lies. Free enterprise is an oxymoron. Trickle down is stale urine. Ever since St. Ronnie, Americans have believed that their ships will soon come in. Never going to happen, since the entire fleet is owned by a handful of billionaires. Neither they nor the politicians they’ve purchased will ever say that we need to buy less and consume less. We live in a self-destructive system that is predicated on more people, more products, more consumption, more waste and more degradation of our planet. Even when terror struck the Twin Towers, we were urged to shop our way out of it.

I don’t see a solution, and it saddens me – for my children and grandchildren.

So, yes, the off-year elections were better than nothing. But a pragmatic nod to “affordability” is watery gruel when we need a revolution.