Progressive Republicans

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by bu2

Not the fiscal conservatives.

OP was rambling about conservatives opposing infrastructure.

He didn't say anything about other progressive desires.

You misread. I was discussing the absence of forward thought in a political party dominated by geriatric members who have no future. It's not an accident that progressives are overwhelmingly young and well educated. They have a future. The senior citizens who are the core of the Republican Party do not.

The big problem with young progressives is that their ideas tend to be half-assed and unworkable. The big problem with old regressives is that their ideas were great, 70 years ago. That world is gone. Let it go.

The purpose of infrastructure is to support the lifestyles and industry of the future. Take a simple example: electric cars. Internal combustion is on the way out, if only because an EV needs 80% fewer parts and is way cheaper to drive. As much as you love your turbocharged rice burner, they aren't going to be making them much longer. Unfortunately, that means the old gas station infrastructure is going to be a fossil, and oh yeah, we don't have enough electricity to charge all those batteries.

The fix is plain. Build more generating capacity and distribution. The cheapest electricity comes from wind power, but the wind doesn't always blow. The fix for that is long distance high voltage DC electrical transmission lines. The wind is always blowing somewhere. When was the last time you heard a Republican proposal for building that? The major auto makers are already converting to EVs. Are you going to kill their sales by making it a hassle to own an EV? There goes the economy, because a bunch of geriatric deadheads can't see past their pot pipe and TV set. Their vision is of the past, not the future, and that's not going to work.