Decades before “democratic socialist” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) released her Green New Deal, rallying Democrats to the banner of remaking America in the name of fighting climate change, radio behemoth Rush Limbaugh warned that environmentalist activists are socialists in green clothing. His warning back in 1992 has been powerfully confirmed in recent months.
“The militant environmental movement is the home of the new socialists in America, and they’re after the punishment of America. America’s responsible for all this,” Limbaugh told PBS’s Charlie Rose in 1992.
When Rose asked, “They’re out to socialize America?” Limbaugh replied, “Damn right.”
“Here’s how. Here’s how. Here’s how, Charlie. To socialize America, the first thing you do is you say, ‘America’s responsible for the destruction of the planet. It’s American lifestyles, hair spray. It’s smokestacks,'” the radio host explained.
Rose dodged, asking if Limbaugh was denying that there is any pollution that could impact the environment.
“I am saying that the vanity of humanity is amazing to me,” the conservative radio host responded. “I do not believe that we have the ability to destroy this marvelous creation. We can damage it.”
“But we make a mess by existing, and we’re the ones who can fix it. And you need freedom, you need democracy, you need technological advancement. You don’t need rolling back of progress in order to fix these things, and that’s what these people want to do,” Limbaugh explained.
Rush Limbaugh has been remarkably consistent, and he was right on in 1992 just as he is today.
In fact, AOC’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, recently admitted that the Green New Deal “wasn’t originally a climate thing at all.” He explained, “Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”
Presidential candidates like Bernie Sanders have called for a “revolution” to upend the current economic system. They justify this by pointing to inequality and — Rush guessed it — climate change. The old threats of identity politics and climate alarmism are very much alive today.
Climate change fear-mongering has a long and varied history. In the 1970s, alarmists warned about global cooling — truly a far more dangerous trend than warming for humans — until it became clear that temperatures were warming, and the craze became global warming. In recent years, they settled on the more nebulous phrase “climate change.”
The alarmist message has become unfalsifiable. The stifling orthodoxy has driven climate scientists who disagree to resign in order to preserve their scientific integrity. Politicians seemingly cannot agree on whether the apocalypse will take place in 12 years (AOC’s warning) or 10 years (Beto’s warning). Never mind those pesky details like climate models proven wrong, the Maldives refusing to sink beneath the waves on schedule, and the fact that the 97 percent “consensus” is an outright lie. No, anyone who disagrees must be a “climate denier.”
Why the stifling orthodoxy? Because, as Limbaugh said all those years ago, this isn’t about science — it’s about political power. That’s why Democrats and activists dismiss the fact that the Green New Deal would cost the average American family a quarter of a million dollars in the first five years. Yes, the price tag is astronomical, and the goals are nigh on impossible.
This creates the perfect recipe for an irresistible power grab. Democrats can point to a nebulous disaster that cannot be proven false but always requires government intervention in the economy. They can dismiss the enormous costs as necessary to stave off the apocalypse, and when anyone calls them out on this political sham, they silence their critics by calling them “science deniers.”
It is the perfect smokescreen for socialists, and Americans need to join Rush Limbaugh in calling them out on it.
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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