Kamala Harris has adopted a future-vs.-past frame against Donald Trump, presiding over enthusiastic rally chants of “we’re not going back.” Is there a way to make efforts to combat climate change part of this pitch—not in a pointy-headed kind of way, but by arguing that building cool electric cars will create the blue-collar jobs of the future?
A strange moment from Donald Trump’s much-discussed interview with Elon Musk this week—combined with a striking new report from the group Climate Power arguing that a green energy jobs “boom” is underway—together hint at what this might look like. Harris has an opening to argue that Trump, who wants to repeal the Biden-Harris climate agenda, would throw our green energy transition into sharp reverse, putting all those jobs at risk—and to insist in response that, No, we’re not going back.
In their widely panned interview, Musk tried to persuade Trump—who derides climate change and policies incentivizing use of electric vehicles as scams—that we can move toward a more sustainable future by expanding our use of solar power and electric cars. Musk is very pro-Trump and a red-pilled right winger on other topics, but his position as co-founder of Tesla puts him at odds with Trump on this one big issue.
“We don’t believe that caring about the environment should mean that you have to suffer,” Musk told Trump. “So we make sure that our cars are beautiful, that they drive well, that they’re fast, they’re sexy, they’re cool.” As if talking to a child, Musk added that they can run on solar power stored in batteries “because obviously the sun doesn’t shine at night.”
In this, Musk tried to appeal to Trump’s crassly materialistic, hedonistic side and his entrepreneurial instincts—with some slick inventiveness, we can drive really cool cars and snag all the power we need from that big energy ball in the sky, dude. But to no avail. Trump seemed unimpressed, then segued into a strange rambling monologue about nuclear weapons.
Watch the whole thing, courtesy of Aaron Rupar:
ELON MUSK: *gives a detailed explanation of global warming and electric cars*
TRUMP: *pivots to talking about the danger of........