Althouse: "Trump Has Radically Transformed the GOP/The party has already given up on five of its core issues."

March 12, 2017

"Trump Has Radically Transformed the GOP/The party has already given up on five of its core issues."

Writes Shikha Dalmia in Reason.

(I've got exactly the tag for this one: what Trump did to the GOP.)

216 comments:

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Achilles said...: Nyamujal said...

There's no threat of force. Out of the top 10 companies in the planet four are oil companies and two are automobile manufacturers. Who do you think has the clout to influence the debate about energy, some dinky solar companies or Exxon?

If you think there is no threat of force stop paying your taxes.

The green energy lobby includes GE and some other heavyweights including the large oil companies. They get a much better ROI off of green energy projects. Petroleum is a high capital low profit industry.

And of course the biggest oil companies in the word are governments.; 3/12/17, 10:41 PM
Michael K said...: When Arizona passed the law 2010 a few years ago that affected illegal immigrants, Los Angeles city council voted to boycott all Arizona products.

The staff had to quietly inform the councilpersons that 25% of Los Angeles electricity came from Arizona. All generated by Navajo coal fired plants.

The boycott was quietly dropped.

California in a nutshell.; 3/12/17, 10:44 PM
Nyamujal said...: @buwaya
Technology is advancing at a pace I find surprising. Advances in materials science, semiconductors, smart grid technology, etc are revolutionizing the energy industry. All this talk about coal mining and fossil fuel plants reminds me of the Luddites who went around destroying textile machinery in the 1800's. They didn't stop the industrial revolution from happening. Besides, Investment in these new renewable energy sectors will lead to more jobs, including blue collar technician jobs for people without college degrees. So we really need to move beyond 20th century thinking if we are to make any long term progress.

"So, why is that? You are Indian, I am Filipino, we both have ethnic superpowers of paranoia and cynicism. So use yours on this question."

Well, because as someone with a scientific background and experience dealing with peer-reviewed research, I think there are way too many smart people with huge egos willing to take part in a massive cover up. I'll grant that there is some hyperbole on this issue, but that's coming from certain policy makers who gravitate towards the most apocalyptic scenarios. If you got a dozen scientists from NASA studying climate science and asked them to calmly explain their research to you, the first thing they'd say is something to the effect of "We're not completely sure, but human activity is contributing to climate change". I tend to believe them (some of whom I went to grad school with), over some goofy congressman who holds up a snowball in front of live TV as definitive proof that climate change isn't real.; 3/12/17, 10:46 PM
Achilles said...: Nyamujal said...

New England has a lot of companies that consume a lot of energy - Semiconductor fabs for instance. After Texas and CA, NE is probably the biggest high tech manufacturing hub (with the exception of Oregon which has Intel). There are tonnes of other boutique fabs that do Aerospace and defense work in NE. Manufacturers can be, and usually are coaxed to relocate with juicy incentives some of which include energy discounts. Access to top talent helps too. California and NE has that going for it.

I don't understand why the left thinks it is OK to have high marginal rates and loopholes for favored parties. They give tax breaks to companies to lure them to an area and then tax the crap out of the employees that go to work at those companies. See Boeing, Amazon, Microsoft here in the Seattle area.

Why is that ok?; 3/12/17, 10:48 PM
n.n said...: buwaya:

The US experimented with the Thorium cycle. I think a problem they encountered was corrosion. This doesn't seem like an insurmountable issue. The real problem was likely that it did not produce the desirable byproducts (e.g. weapon-grade fuels).

It seems the same developmental misalignment is happening today with windmills and solar panels, the so-called "green" revolution; but, this time the motive is to shift, or obfuscate, environmental disruption to foreign recovery and manufacturing sites, with consideration for incentives from both regulatory and labor arbitrage, while earning an inflated profit from government-mandated, taxpayer subsidized intermittent, unreliable energy products. That, and the partisan alignment is evidence of competing interests exploiting government-sanctioned monopolies and practices.

The prophecy of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming is based on extrapolation from laboratory experiments; inference from limited, circumstantial evidence; and models that fail to estimate past and future evolution, is just a means to leverage science and culture in order to avoid competition and increase profitability.; 3/12/17, 10:54 PM
Achilles said...: Nyamujal said...

Technology is advancing at a pace I find surprising. Advances in materials science, semiconductors, smart grid technology, etc are revolutionizing the energy industry. All this talk about coal mining and fossil fuel plants reminds me of the Luddites who went around destroying textile machinery in the 1800's. They didn't stop the industrial revolution from happening. Besides, Investment in these new renewable energy sectors will lead to more jobs, including blue collar technician jobs for people without college degrees. So we really need to move beyond 20th century thinking if we are to make any long term progress.

The only people trying to stop new technology from improving energy are on the left. See Fracking.

The people who would develop new technology are typically in the industry. They invest profits in R&D. It is far more efficient for these people to make money and invest it than it is for the government to take it from them in taxes and subsidize favored groups. The government is really bad at developing new technologies. What they typically do is give a bunch of money to poor technologies like current solar and wind depending on who gives them money for their campaign.

Solar and wind in their current forms are not economically viable. We should let the people who have an economic interest in making competitive technologies be free to do so rather than subsidize people who buy things from China. The fact that current solar technology production is so toxic to the environment makes it even more loathsome.; 3/12/17, 10:59 PM
buwaya said...: The one thing that NASA did to bring actual facts into climate science are the satellite data series processed into planetary temperature series by UAH (Christy & Spencer). The first thing you need on such a question is reliable data for which you require reliable instruments.
Anything else is speculation, even expensive speculation with complex computer models, which it seems is mostly what anyone, even at NASA, is doing.
Its not surprising that Christy and Spencer, after a while, became powerful critics of the hysteria, because the data simply wasnt there. And they would know.; 3/12/17, 10:59 PM
n.n said...: Hopefully, Trump will address the first-order causes of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change that is a cause of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Immigration Reform (e.g. refugee crises), including social justice adventurism (e.g. wars of aggression), elective regime changes, extrajudicial trials, demographic redistricting (e.g. [class] diversity or racism), resource capture (e.g. South African minerals, Perhaps Serbian uranium, Libyan oil, Russian everything), democratic leverage, and foreign influence peddling a la Clinton Foundation.; 3/12/17, 11:01 PM
Achilles said...: n.n said...

The US experimented with the Thorium cycle. I think a problem they encountered was corrosion. This doesn't seem like an insurmountable issue. The real problem was likely that it did not produce the desirable byproducts (e.g. weapon-grade fuels).

The only reason we don't have thorium salt reactors is because of the hysteria over nuclear power and almost all resources were taken from development of anything nuclear. Thorium is still being duped as a waste product from mining I believe. Designed properly they are very safe and the waste material is not radio-active.; 3/12/17, 11:03 PM
Achilles said...: The Global Warmists I think regret putting those satellites up. Now all of their "adjusted" ground data looks even more obviously screwed up. It isn't even really interesting talking to them anymore when they wont address the discrepancy between their projections from 10 years ago and today, much less the discrepancies between the satellite data and the ground data or the fact they hide the original ground data.

Nobody really believes in global warmism anymore.; 3/12/17, 11:11 PM
Birkel said...: buwaya:

The policy preference for power and control (which brings money in tow) is supported by climate models. All your talk of data fails in those critical deliverables.

Leftists support those results: power concentrated in the hands of politicians who select winners, a.k.a. fascism.; 3/12/17, 11:17 PM
Known Unknown said...: Shikha is not a libertarian. She is not a proponent of free speech (see her comments re: Berkeley) She (and others) is the reason why I and many other commenters have left Reason H&R to form our own place to discuss issues.; 3/12/17, 11:49 PM
Rusty said...: What's wrong with switching to solar and other renewable sources of energy?

Solar and wind in their current configurations are an inefficient use of reources. There is the huge problem with storage. There is also the huge problem of subsidizing which takes financial resources away from things that are more inportant.

What's wrong with funding R&D in this space?

Not a thing, but notice how private money is now driving space innovation. I like how DARPA drives innovative solutions.Not like the rest od the government. They choose an idea then throw money at it. DARPA offers a prize and let other people throw their money at it. Then decide whether the results are worthy of further development.
Government hs it's place, but not in deciding the markets winners and losers.
Buwaya is correct. For sutainable, efficient and cheap electricity nuclear is the way to go.
But to the point. Markets prefer efficientcies. Government intervention is far from efficient.; 3/13/17, 7:54 AM
GRW3 said...: Jeez what a bunch of hysteria. Seems like somebody else who is stuck in the pattern that has Republicans offering their preferred approach and having it negotiated leftward from their. Trump still goes with the Art of the Deal and will always start with every item as stacked as possible.

What is actually going to happen is that H1B will be given to get talent in, not to allow companies like ABC/Disney to push Americans to the curb.

If Obama had actually done infrastructure, the Keynesian might have worked. Just giving the money to keep state government workers employed and donating to the Democrats was not Keynesian - far from it.; 3/13/17, 8:10 AM
Chuck said...: Known Unknown said...
Shikha is not a libertarian. She is not a proponent of free speech (see her comments re: Berkeley) She (and others) is the reason why I and many other commenters have left Reason H&R to form our own place to discuss issues.

I have never been a regular Reason reader, nor was I ever a subscriber. I am very interested in your views about Shikha "not [being] a libertarian." Because I would broadly characterize her as such, and I think she might too.

But I am interested in your views; could you expand on your impressions of her, and of Reason, for the benefit of somebody like me who is not one of the libertarian cognoscenti?

Thank you!; 3/13/17, 11:03 AM
Matt said...: Paco Wové said...
"it's always struck me as comic when a non-member of a party or organization scolds the party for not holding true to its alleged core beliefs."

I say the same thing about non-Muslims who try to tell Muslims what it is they apparently believe and don't believe.; 3/13/17, 5:08 PM