HIDE THE DEADLY BLACK TARANTULA

Tilting at Windmills (Anne Applebaum, Washington Post, 4/19/06)

But they also reflect a deeper American malady. The problem plaguing new energy developments is no longer NIMBYism, the "Not-In-My-Back-Yard" movement. The problem now, as one wind-power executive puts it, is BANANAism: "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything." The anti-wind brigade, fierce though it is, pales beside the opposition to liquid natural gas terminals, and would fade entirely beside the mass movement that will oppose a new nuclear power plant. Indeed, the founders of Cape Wind say they embarked on the project in part because public antipathy prevents most other utility investments in New England.

Still, energy projects don't even have to be viable to spark opposition: Already, there are activists gearing up to fight the nascent biofuel industry, on the grounds that fields of switch grass or cornstalks needed to produce ethanol will replace rainforests and bucolic country landscapes. Soon the nonexistent "hydrogen economy" will doubtless be under attack as well. There's a lot of earnest, even bipartisan talk nowadays about the need for clean, emissions-free energy. But are we really ready, politically, to build any new energy sources at all?

There has been some discussion recently about what the Democratic Party stands for. From the right, the questions seems odd; the Democrats are now the reactionary party. They are a bunch of bananas.

The Republicans used to be the reactionary party and we recognise the symptoms. The reactionary party -- out of power, out of fashion and out of ideas -- moans that everything is terrible and any change is for the worse. Social security is broken, but any change will make things worse. Education is broken, but any change will make things worse. The economy is broken, but any change will make things worse. Health care is broken, but any (politically tenable) change will make things worse. Iraq and Iran and North Korea are broken, but nothing can be done.

The Republicans were eventually rescued by Ronald Regan, who broke the impass by convincing Americans that things could get better just when the Democrats were tilting towards reaction. Is there a Ronald Reagan for the Democrats? Nothing is more certain than that, eventually, the Democrats will be back on top, though by that time they may not be the party of socialism lite. But Republican hegemony is still young by historical standards and the Democrats have a problem that the Republicans did not face. The Democratic Party is a coalition and its various blocks can easily be at cross-purposes. Almost anything the Party does for blacks, for example, will make things worse for teachers, and vice versa. Almost anything the Party does for labor will make things worse for immigrants, and vice versa. Almost anything the Party does to court the electorate will alienate the left, and vice versa. As a result, the Party is now a coalition of vetos and cannot easily break out of its reactionary spiral. You can indict a ham sandwich, but in America you cannot elect a bunch of bananas.

Posted by David Cohen at April 23, 2006 8:51 AM