Posted by mandewilkes on Uncategorized
Red Goes Green
Republicans are effed: Primary turnout was down, voter registration is way down, and conservatives kind of hate their presidential candidate. Meanwhile, Democratic primary turnout was higher than ever, voter registration has skyrocketed, and progressives literally worship their candidate.
But why are the elephants on the endangered species list? Mostly because conservatives have quit acting like conservatives, the latest example of which is the mad dash to out-green the Democrats at the Republican National Convention.
Both parties have deployed “greening directors” to turn the conventions into models of efficiency, using wind and solar power, hybrid cars, and recyclables.
But while Democrats come off as hip and with-it, Republicans reek of effusive gratuity. Planetary doom is the legion - and legend - of the left, and when conservatives try to co-opt it, it just seems insincere. Like the last one to laugh at a joke, or the last kid picked for basketball, Republicans are left looking like a shrinking violet, a wallflower who can’t quite get it right.
And just as the one who laughs last laughs loudest, the Republican party is desperately trying to prove itself, to out-green the party which defined green as a movement rather than a color. In doing so, the right is losing a little more of its identity - and highlighting the left’s identity.