(C) Common Dreams
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The Case for Pool Party Progressivism [1]

['Kate Aronoff', 'Ross Barkan', 'Timothy Noah', 'Jan Dutkiewicz', 'Matthew Hayek', 'Molly Taft', 'Marianne Dhenin', 'Roger Peet', 'Illustration Jon Stich']

Date: 2023-08-15

Debates over how to build, though, have paid comparatively little attention to what’s being built, and how that might color voters’ interest in that project. In the wonky circles where these conversations play out, few would argue about the need to rapidly deploy massive amounts of clean energy or bolster domestic supply chains. Subsidies for those things create jobs: Since the IRA passed, more than 100,000 new clean energy jobs have been created. Companies are relocating to the U.S., enticed by subsidies. It’s now cheaper to buy an electric vehicle and install solar panels on your house than it was before the IRA passed.

These laudable changes are—on their own—pretty boring. Few people get up in the morning excited about the U.S. share of manufacturing employment, or tax credits to install heat pumps. That necessary, boring stuff may well be the most important part of decarbonization. As depressing polling these last few weeks may indicate, however, ramping up productive capacity and making green things cheaper might be insufficient for endearing voters either to Democrats or the transformational project of decarbonization. Inherent to that project, too, is being able to overcome the massive political resistance of a fossil fuel industry that attacks even modest climate policy in Congress, and which has powerful spokespeople in state governments and agencies that play a pivotal role in deciding whether and where clean energy infrastructure gets built.

Left out of most conversations about industrial policy is the question of whether people are having a nice time.

Left out of most conversations about industrial policy is the question of whether people are having a nice time. Low rates of unemployment are an essential foundation for that. As the old adage goes, the only thing worse than having a job is not having a job—particularly in a country where basic needs like health care are controlled by for-profit companies. Still, work also mostly sucks, even in the sadly rare event that your job is relatively well-paid and unionized. And people don’t much care how their lights turn on so long as they do.

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[1] Url: https://newrepublic.com/article/174860/public-doesnt-know-well-inflation-reduction-act-working

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