David Roberts (@drvolts): Just took a short break from the depressing hellscape of national politics to talk with some Illinois folk about the amazing energy bill the state just passed.
Competent, forward-looking public policy is possible ... where, and only where, voters elect Dem supermajorities.
David Roberts (@drvolts): The process in Illinois is what you want from democracy: utilities, renewable energy developers, unions, EJ advocates, & greens got in a room together & hashed it out. It was long & painful & contentious. It took 3 years. Everyone got stuff; everyone gave stuff up. But ...
David Roberts (@drvolts): ...in the end, everyone got a bill they can live with & the state got a huge leap forward, for its economy, its health, & its most vulnerable.
But that whole process was only possible because Ds ran everything. They allowed small-d democracy to happen, interests to be balanced.
David Roberts (@drvolts): Show me a Republican-run state that has passed any pro-social, forward-looking legislation in the last decade. Show me a GOP state gov't that brought multiple competing priorities to the table & hashed out a compromise. Show me where the GOP does small-d democracy.
David Roberts (@drvolts): The Democratic Party is where all real governance happens, where interests clash & find compromise, where things move forward. It's got the full left-to-right spectrum, the crusaders, the corporate sellouts -- all of politics, in miniature. And then, over to the side ...
David Roberts (@drvolts): ... the US has a reactionary, ethnonationalist, nihilist rump party dedicated to bringing everything down. The nihilists are politically empowered far beyond their numbers, by structural distortions & advantages, so the actual democracy part of the country is out of luck.
David Roberts (@drvolts): I guess what I'm saying is, it's fucked up.