If Utah governor Spencer Cox or his wife Anne, both good Mormons, were diagnosed with heart disease and at risk of a heart attack, odds are they would get on their knees and pray. And then they’d go to the doctor.
They probably wouldn’t show up at the fatty-food all-you-can-eat buffet and chow down as much heart-attack-inducing fried foods they could. Particularly after they talked to their doctor.
Utah right now is in a severe drought, the worst in the recorded history. It’s the result of climate change caused by burning fossil fuels.
Utah cities are cutting back on water use, agriculture is in trouble, terrible forest fires are almost certainly just around the corner with brushfires erupting constantly, and at least one dam the generates electricity has lost so much water they may soon have to shut down the generators.
And so this week Governor Cox went before the people of Utah to ask them to…wait for it…pray for rain.
If that was all he was asking of Utahans, along with normal water conservation measures and banning fireworks, you could probably say, “Well, it can’t hurt.“
But he also signed a letter demanding that President Joe Biden back off from his commitment to put a hold on oil drilling and gas exploration on federal lands, including in Utah.
Fatty food buffet, anyone?
And it wasn’t just Cox, Romney and the entire Utah Republican congressional delegation.
A nearly identical letter was signed by “Gov. Mark Gordon, Wyoming; Gov. Kay Ivey, Alabama; Gov. Mike Dunleavy, Alaska; Gov. Doug Ducey, Arizona; Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Arkansas; Gov. Brad Little, Idaho; Gov. Eric Holcomb, Indiana; Gov. Tate Reeves, Mississippi; Gov. Mike Parson, Missouri; Gov. Greg Gianforte, Montana; Gov. Pete Ricketts, Nebraska, Gov. Doug Burgum, North Dakota; Gov. Kevin Stitt, Oklahoma; Gov. Kristi Noem, South Dakota; Gov. Bill Lee, Tennessee; and Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas.”
All Republicans.
The tragic reality is that the Republican party is so deeply in debt to the fossil fuel industry that Governor Cox dare not call on the citizens of his state to become climate activists.
For over 40 years, since President Jimmy Carter tried to commit America to renewable energy in 1977, the fossil fuel industry and the Republican Party have been joined at the hip. Reagan kicked it off by taking Carter’s solar panels off the roof of the White House.
Giant fossil fuel corporations are among the biggest boosters of Republican candidates; fossil fuel fortunes regularly sponsor attack ads against Democrats or any Republican who dares step out of line; and the network first set up by the fossil-fuel-billionaire Koch brothers has more employees and more offices across the United States than the Republican Party itself.
The fossil fuel industry spent 60 years covering up what they knew about how their product would devastate our planet’s atmosphere, while funding climate denial groups around the world and in nearly every US state. Now that it’s undeniable, they’re using the billions they’ve made to effectively duct tape shut the mouths of every Republican in America.
It’s not the threat of violence that allows the fossil fuel industry to so intimidate American Republicans. It’s not fear of some great, crushing exposé about their complicity with this planet-destroying industry. It’s not even the fear that the voters well turn against them if Republican politicians acknowledge the simple and obvious science of climate change.
Instead, what Republican politicians are so afraid of is the loss of the industry’s support, both directly through cash and indirectly through superPACs and industry-funded front groups.
It must be very difficult to be a Republican politician with children or grandchildren today. To know that you are taking actions on a daily basis, by supporting the fossil fuel industry while ignoring climate change, that will cause your own family to suffer terribly in future decades and future generations.
We need to help these poor people. These poor, sad Republicans. We need to free them from the saddle fossil fuel billionaires and that corrupt industry have put on their backs, and spare them the pain of the riding crop the industry constantly threatens them with.
And we can do it!
The For The People Act, also known as HR1/SB1, would end the ability of billionaires and industries to threaten, intimidate and assert ownership over politicians or political parties.
Like the poor dogs in the animal shelter ads on TV, these Republicans need our help. Let’s work to save them, to rescue them, to free them!
Call your two senators through the congressional switchboard at 202-224-3121 and let them know we must axe the filibuster and pass the For The People Act to help these sad, wretched Republicans like Governor Cox.
Besides praying for them, it’s the least that decent, kind-hearted people like us can do.
Originally posted at The Hartmann Report