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My gut reaction to “conservatives generally resent environmentalism” is that it’s wrong. I know you mean from a policy standpoint, but the people who live most
by tjs8rj 5y ago
My gut reaction to “conservatives generally resent environmentalism” is that it’s wrong. I know you mean from a policy standpoint, but the people who live most in nature, who feel most at home outside concrete jungles and actually experience the environment are overwhelmingly conservatives.
I wonder if it’s liberals and conservatives looking from different vantage points. Liberals see massive cities and sprawl and call it too much, conservatives surrounded by fields and trees and nature say some more industry couldn’t hurt.
- watwut 5y agoI dont think that accurately describes the reality nor opinions of either group.
- WalterGR 5y agoRight. What does that mean for the topic at hand?
- krapp 5y agotl;dr - Conservatives decided they were against it as soon as they saw the left was for it. The anti-environmental stance on the part of Conservatives is a result of Reagan-era policies meant establish a pro-business, anti-regulation base among corporate donors and undermine Jimmy Carter's legacy[0]. Also, after the 1960s, environmentalism became associated with "leftist" politics via feminist and antiwar activism (the hippie movement.) Trump's heavily mocked tweet about climate change being a Chinese hoax comes from this longstanding general mistrust among Conservatives that environmentalism has a secret Marxist/Communist agenda behind it, due to those associations. Finally, there's Al Gore. Much of the modern distrust of climate change (and by association, environmentalism) is fallout from effective Republican Party propaganda mocking his activism, and particularly An Inconvenient Truth. [0]https://www.vox.com/2017/4/22/15377964/republicans-environmentalism https://www.vox.com/2017/4/22/15377964/republicans-environme...