I admire his effort to sell the infeasibility of this batsh*t proposal as a *virtue*.

Don’t lament the fact that it would require the end of commercial air travel. Be proud. Your grandfathers liberated Europe from Hitler!

Now we’re going to liberate the world from cow farts.

This is the thing about Booker: He tries. Sometimes, even often, he embarrasses himself. But the effort is always there.

The flaw in his analogy is that while it’s true that enormous problems usually require bold solutions, it is of course not true that any bold proposal will work to solve an enormous problem. Trying to build an actual stairway to the moon would have been a bold solution to the problem of how to land a man there. But such is the left’s excitement about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her bold ideas about “economic justice” for people who are “unwilling to work” that all of the chumps in the Democrats’ 2020 class have to feign enthusiasm for the Green New Deal — for now, during a primary, when it benefits them politically to do so. Spartacus here will have a change of heart about it the moment he becomes nominee and has to think about the general election.

Or at least, that’s what more centrist Democrats are praying:

“We are on an out-of-control roller coaster going 100 miles-per-hour, and we have no functioning brake,” said one liberal Democratic strategist who is alarmed by the rising tide of socialism within the party. “No one is leading and that void could not be more clear.”

What’s so remarkable about this rapid leftward shift is that it’s working against the party’s best interests—both for the individual candidates and their chances of defeating Trump next year. So many candidates are trying to fill the most-progressive lane of the party that they’re splitting that share of the vote evenly. At the same time, there’s plenty of evidence that many rank-and-file Democrats are looking for a pragmatist who can actually win the presidency.

“It will be a challenge to get beyond the fantasy goals of the Green New deal to specific policy proposals,” said former Clinton climate-change advisor Paul Bledsoe to the Examiner. “Candidates will get away with hiding behind the green fig leaf for a little while, but not for long.” Eh, long enough. The chief virtue of AOC’s proposal to progressives, I assume, aren’t the particular details but the mere fact that she’s forced the presidential field to address it. Can’t get to a more plausible policy proposal unless the party’s leadership is forced to think seriously about the topic. She can use, and has used, her media clout to make that happen.

Now, then: How about a floor vote on it in the House? The more outlandish parts of the GND are a political gift to Trump and Pelosi knows it, which is why she’s tried to put some distance between herself and the proposal. House Republicans shouldn’t let her. Try to make her put the bill on the floor and force House Democrats to choose between their base and, well, basic math. Does Nancy Pelosi take the environment seriously or is she a climate-change-denying lover of farting cows? Show those cards.

Update: A question for Booker and AOC:

If the climate is indeed on the brink of collapse, to the point a green new deal is needed, why wouldn’t we go to war with countries who won’t curb emissions?

— American Journalists Publish Chinese Propaganda (@JohnEkdahl) February 8, 2019