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Why the Green New Deal might probably not work as we envision it. [1]

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Date: 2025-05-24

This will be a short diary; actually it is a portal for listening to an interesting and engaging economist lecture by Mark Blyth of Brown University. Head of their Watson Center, I have listened to him on and off for years because not only does he have a broad understanding of domestic and international economics, but has a lot of insight into the political mechanizations needed to make economic and policy ideas work, or how to break them.

This is titled “Burning Down the House”, given to the LSE European Institute, but this is about American Green Policy and some views about it which I had not considered. He basically is making two cases:

1.) That from Alaska through the Midwest, into Texas and the South, these states are built on Carbon Economies. Oil, shale, fertilizer, agriculture, feedstocks. This is how many of them survive, and for all of our need for a Green America, we are essentially telling them, “Hello, we’d like to come in and destroy your current economies. And replace them as happened in the 1970s and ‘80s, into the Rust Belt, with NAFTA, in ways they will not begin to trust us to have their best interests after two generations of both parties screwing them and our inability to wean them off the Carbon Economy.

Why part of the culture war in red states is against the greening of America, and how much of it at this time is simply about their economic survival. If you have any interest in fixing climate change, I think this lecture is eye-opening about some blind spots we are probably missing. Problems I hadn’t thought of, nor much explored on Daily Kos, except on some diaries I might be missing. l may be losing sleep over these conundrums.

For all our best efforts, and his understanding that red states MUST be somehow weaned off of their carbon economies, they are finding ways around it. He also points out how they are not going to care about carbon credits, the price of insurance, or how they are more likely to opt out of the Inflation Reduction Act’s massive green investments in those states. As they are at cross purpose to DOGE and perhaps a well-thought-out Republican strategies devised in the states. Because there was not enough time to cement those policies into place. And now, actually, those investments are vulnerable to being subsumed and destroyed in favor of more carbonization. He makes a case about how Democrats may need to completely rethink how we are planning to promote this, and how deep the problems lie.

2.) That Trump Tariffs and Republicans going along with it may, without brakes being applied hard and soon, might remove the US dollar from being trusted, and purchased, as the world’s Reserve Currency. Which since the 1940s has essentially be replacing the old gold standard and bringing us loads of benefits we take for granted. Which could be incredibly debilitating for us to lose. And he speaks of all the expensive, devastating ways that could affect our economy permanently. And I wonder what if it replaced some time by another currency, perhaps the Yuan, or the Euro.? We might yearn for a Great America ourselves if that happens. He has some details about the domestic devastation there and changes around the world where the US is quickly abandoned, again, in ways we take for granted. If this happens, we may well become much like the European Union with divided interests, or worse, post Brexit Great Britain.

******

I’ll be honest, the presentation is about 35 minutes after the introduction, so you may want to settle in. And then there is a Q&A section I have only begun to listen to, which takes it to 1.5 hours. But this is scary stuff presented by a smart guy whom I have found insightful and politically savvy for years. I am hoping that exposing some of these problems are such, that more will be made of them. And that we will look for solutions for dealing with them.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/5/24/2324108/-Why-the-Green-New-Deal-might-probably-not-work-as-we-envision-it?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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