That means Democrats cannot simply pay attention to national polls about which candidate might defeat President Donald Trump in the general election. These tend to show center-left former Vice President Joe Biden as having the best chance of beating Trump, while tend to indicate rising star and South Bend mayor, Pete Buttigieg, or progressives like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders or Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as the frontrunners in Iowa and New Hampshire.

For most Democratic voters, the hypothetical matchups and endless polling can be a real head-spinner. Given that polls can fluctuate drastically day-to-day and, as the 2016 election proved, are not necessarily accurate, Democrats should look to a moderate, center-left candidate in the primaries, such as Biden or Buttigieg, for the best chance of dislodging Trump from the White House in November 2020. 

Looking for a Common Ground

Let’s start with some presidential election history. As political strategist James Carville famously said during Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid!” 

Clinton capitalized on the worsening recession to unseat George H.W. Bush. Barack Obama similarly focused on the economy in 2008 while casting the Iraq War as misguided and the most disastrous foreign policy decision in a generation. These were centrist positions resonating with most Americans. In 2016, with a strong economy, no major overseas wars to criticize and aiming to extend Democrats’ hold on the White House for a third subsequent term, Hillary Clinton did not have the unifying issues Obama or her husband had.  

What does this mean? Democrats have traditionally won with moderate candidates, but since 2016, not enough has changed for the worse on the economy or foreign policy fronts that previously propelled a Democrat to victory. With unemployment at , and Trump seemingly against an assertive or interventionist foreign policy, what type of candidate, broadly speaking, do voters favor? 

The answer appears to be a moderate. According to a recent of primary voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Florida, 62% want a candidate who “promises to find common ground with Republicans” versus 33% who want a candidate who “promises to fight for a bold, progressive agenda.” On ideology, 55% want someone who is “more moderate than most Democrats,” while 39% want someone who is “more liberal than most Democrats.” And, finally, 49% want someone who “promises to bring politics in Washington back to normal,” and 45% want someone who “promises to bring fundamental, systematic change to American society.”

These polls should be taken with a grain of salt given their mercurial nature. But broadly speaking, the numbers seem to boil down to one simple thing: the “electability” factor, or how likely a candidate is to win.

Electability Factor

The problem with very liberal candidates is that while their ideas may appeal to large swaths of the Democratic base, especially in states like California, the aforementioned survey indicates that generally these ideas — like eliminating private health insurance, for example — are not as appealing to voters in swing states. We know this has historically been the case, but how do we know swing districts still prefer moderate candidates today?  

Look no further than the 2018 midterms, when the Democrats flipped the House of Representatives. While media attention tended to focus on the most bold or progressive candidates, such as members of “,” most of the Democrats who flipped seats from red to blue were, in fact, . They convinced Republicans, independents and suburban women disappointed with Trumpism that they were not radical left-wingers or socialists.

More recently, in Louisiana, Kentucky, Virginia and Pennsylvania — many of which are states Trump won in 2016 — Democrats prevailed in off-year gubernatorial and state legislature elections for two big reasons. 

First, young people and the suburbs voted in unusually high numbers. Louisiana’s governor, John Bel Edwards, a conservative Democrat, won reelection on November 16 with by a margin of 40,000, but since his first election in 2015, his vote total skyrocketed by 127,609 votes even as GOP turnout spiked by 228,199. In blue strongholds in East Baton Rouge and Orleans, his margins widened from 42,000 and 69,000 in 2015 to 51,000 and 102,000 — staggering statistics.

Second, conservative and independent voters were willing to consider the candidate themselves — moderate or conservative Democrats — rather than just the party label, evidenced by Republicans winning five out of six state offices in Kentucky but in deep-red Kentucky and Louisiana. 

Notice a Pattern? 

Democrats have to assemble a diverse coalition for 2020. One, mobilize the party’s base to turn up in huge numbers. Two, assure those who flipped voting preferences from red to blue in the House in 2018 and state offices in 2019 that they should do the same when voting for the president and shouldn’t have to fear a far-left liberal agenda coming out of Washington — losing their private health insurance, free college for all, tax hikes or handouts for illegal immigrants. 

Only a moderate can accomplish both goals. The main argument in favor of a progressive nominee is that he or she will unequivocally mobilize the Democratic base, including , sufficiently enough that it would outweigh losing the swing voters who fueled recent blue victories — something a moderate might not be able to do. 

However, the benefits of a progressive nominee are outweighed by two voting patterns. First, most of these young, first-time liberal voters are not concentrated in swing states like Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida or Michigan; they live on the coasts. In terms of defeating Trump, that means it doesn’t matter if a progressive nominee galvanizes a few million new votes in California and New York — states that vote blue anyway — if that nominee also repels 80,000 swing voters in the industrial Midwest, the by which Hillary Clinton lost key swing states to Trump in 2016. 

Second, the sheer disenchantment with Trump among Democrats of all shades of blue was enough to spur a record-high turnout even with centrist and conservative Democratic candidates in the 2018 and 2019 elections. The same will likely be true 11 months from now, especially as damaging revelations surrounding the Ukraine scandal unfold during impeachment hearings. 

The bottom line is that from the perspective of independents, suburban women and Republicans dissatisfied with Trump, there is much less to fear from a moderate than a progressive. It is true that in the long run, the US may very well transition to a single-payer health-care system and make the cost of college far more affordable. That would suggest many of the current crop of candidates may simply be ahead of their time. If that’s the case, they must realize they are not looking to be the president of the Democratic Party, or of California: They are looking to be the president of the United States. 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Why Democrats Should Vote for a Moderate appeared first on 51�Թ�.

It did. Public outcry was swift, and within a year, Congress passed two landmark measures creating federal food inspection standards in slaughterhouses and what became America’s chief food regulator, the FDA, among other consumer protections. Today, this textbook example of mass mobilization in response to a public health crisis may seem out of touch, but it reminds us of a persistent government habit: Until a tangible, imminent crisis looms — like the one illustrated by Sinclair — it is a safe bet that little action will be undertaken on even the most pressing problems, climate change included.

However, this tendency is especially dangerous given the slowly-but-surely nature of climate change — and precisely why a new approach is needed. While the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement marked a watershed moment in global diplomacy, 2018 reports from the United Nations show most countries are not on track to meet their upcoming 2020 pledges. Coupled with President Donald Trump yanking the United States from the agreement — not to mention at the G7 summit earlier this year — a diminished impetus from the West to meet those goals paints a gloomy outlook.

Economic Health

However discouraging these prospects are, a strong case can be made for a threefold approach spanning social, economic, political, academic and public-private lines. The first tenet follows an age-old aphorism: What gets measured, gets fixed. One reason economies today don’t favor many common sense climate change proposals is because current economic indices, namely GDP, are too narrow. They give little consideration to the long-term necessity and benefits of climate-conscious proposals, favoring short-term growth at the environment’s expense. Instead, we must use a more comprehensive measurement of economic health that factors in climate impact. 

One possibility is the Gross Progress Index (GPI), popularized in the early 1990s with the intention of subtracting “costs” — ranging from crime to family breakdown to pollution — from “benefits,” which GDP solely measures. Non-profits have calculated GPI time-series for America and a smattering of countries including Canada, France, the UK and the Netherlands, but just four US states have passed legislation to consider GPI. The European Union’s Beyond GDP initiative has garnered attention among European think tanks but, by and large, alternative GDP indicators have not dominated the mainstream political conversation. That must change. GPI will need policy support from governments due to a default preference for GDP, but a global effort to universally adopt GPI with an established methodology can standardize its use for all. 

Antagonists of GPI contend it is too vague given its social well-being origins, and higher GPI often would not indicate a true increase of a nation’s wealth. Yet these objections are short-sighted for two reasons. First, a climate change-oriented GPI would primarily be focused on environmental impacts, not ambiguous factors like happiness. Second, GPI would be used alongside GDP as an equal economic index, not as a replacement or a short-term growth metric. 

Public Opinion Matters

The second set of measures is aimed at public opinion, modeled after food labeling requirements. Researchers at found that nutritional labels reduce consumer intake of calories by 6.6%, fats by 10.3% and other unhealthy foods by 13%, while increasing consumer vegetable consumption by 13.5%. The intent behind replicating the food labeling model is if the carbon footprint of a consumer item is reported front and center to consumers like nutritional value is for food, the public is far more likely to understand the direct impact it has on the environment.

For example, many are shocked to learn that both a pound of beef and almonds each requires a whopping 2,000 gallons of water. Worse, generates 18% of the world’s human-produced greenhouse gas emissions. The beef and poultry lobby will fight these facts being reported on their products, but perhaps such a measure will cause people to think twice before consuming environmentally unfriendly foods and shift more attention to sustainability-friendly policies at the ballot box.  

Third, a renewed public-private partnership is needed. This matters, because the main obstacle to implementing new carbon capture and storage (CSS) technologies is cost. A two-pronged approach is suitable. First, governments must reduce the gap between the price of carbon (around $20 currently) and the cost of carbon capture techniques (currently around $200) by ensuring ordinary people — not just government and corporations — become a stakeholder in the decarbonization process. For example, Canada recently announced an ambitious , where most revenue will be awarded as a tax credit to Canadians. Another option is a cap-and-trade system, like in California, where dirty utility companies buy carbon credits from cleaner ones like Tesla.  

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The second prong incentivizes private sector investment in CCS and other technologies through significantly increasing tax credits. According to Jesse Jenkins, a researcher at the , America’s 2018 modest increase in CCS tax credits makes innovation far more viable: High costs of CCS precluded companies from investing, which kept CCS technology expensive. By aggressively promoting research and development schemes, reducing the cost of CCS and distributing the tax benefits across society, government can accelerate progress toward the crossover point when the capitalistic virtuous cycle favors financially viable and sustainable business models. 

Climate change is arguably the biggest crisis mankind currently faces. It requires global cooperation, innovation and diplomacy. But rather than sow blame or point fingers at carbon laggards, we must universally seek to implement the reforms put forth here through regional and federal approaches. With the right investment, there will be a point when government support is no longer needed, and the private sector can take over an industry of highly lucrative potential, harnessing the beauty of capitalism. Yet ensuring the public has a fair stake in progressive economic and political reforms is still a crucial matter — one that can turn the tide of government intransigence into a catalyzing force, and one Sinclair might approve of. 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post A Gen Zer’s Perspective on Climate Change Reform appeared first on 51�Թ�.