Rod Dreher, who edits the Dallas Morning News opinion page, and who last year published a wonderful book called Crunchy Cons, today posts a characteristically long, thoughtful, passionate discussion of how voters concerned about the environment may be in a mood to punish the Republican party. He’s not surprised and thinks such punishment may well be deserved. To wit:
…conservatives have got to engage in a genuine, non-cynical way with environmentalism, not only to bring a balanced perspective to the policy debate, but also to stay relevant to younger voters. We have got to get beyond knee-jerk sneering at environmental concerns. Of course the green left goes too far at times, but that doesn’t make environmentalism itself a nonsense issue. The frustrating thing to me as a conservative is that there’s so much unthinking hostility to environmentalism among right-wing opinion leaders. It’s often considered a litmus test of conservative authenticity: if you don’t reflexively mock environmentalism, your conservative credentials are suspect.
I disagree with Dreher on many important points, but his blog is an outpouring of awesome proportions, quite capable of changing minds and challenging all sorts of set opinions. Thank God for that.
Kit Stolz 