PBS NewsHour’s weekly recap with New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart began with a discussion on, of all things, Republican attitudes towards climate change. During the discussion, Brooks, the supposedly conservative half of the duo, reduced oil drilling to a simple way of Republicans to offend elite sensibilities.
Host Amna Nawaz wondered, “David, there’s a little bit of a chicken-and-egg argument here. Republican candidates aren’t talking about it because people don’t think it’s a threat. But if they talked about it more, would people think it’s a threat?”
Brooks replied that “I think so” and lamented “I’m old enough to go back to John McCain and Lindsey Graham 20 years ago, who supported — who proposed a big climate change bill. Back then, you had Republicans and Democrats both with climate change proposals. Back then, there was about a 20-point gap between Democratic views of climate change and Republican. Now it’s a 50-point gap.”
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