Mike Lee Tries to Make Fun of the Green New Deal but Only Makes Fun of Himself (P.S.: Speakers Need Research)

Mike Lee's speech

Mike Lee, a Republican senator from Utah, gave what he thought was a humorous speech about climate change on the floor of the United States Senate today. The speech was hilarious, but not in the way he thought. Lee attacked the Green New Deal (GND) by showing posters of Aquaman and Ronald Reagan riding on a dinosaur while wielding an automatic weapon. He discussed the seahorse gap between the United States and China, ending his speech by proposing that the solution to climate change was to have babies. Many of the people I follow on social media thought that the images of this speech were Photoshopped: they couldn’t believe that a senator could really be that, well, let’s be frank, stupid. Lee, in turn, proudly posted this speech on his website (when wisdom would require him to pretend he had never delivered it).

Plenty of pundits are mocking Lee's ridiculous speech. I’m going to take a minute to show that speakers need research, which Lee didn’t have.

Attacking the draft, not the final copy
The basis of Lee's embarrassing spectacle was that the Green New Deal’s advocates made the mistake of circulating a rough draft that included some impractical and poorly phrased ideas. Conservatives have ridiculed this draft for weeks to avoid dealing with any real issues.

The draft proposal called for, among other things, “Totally overhaul transportation by massively expanding electric vehicle manufacturing, build charging stations everywhere, build out high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary, create affordable public transit available to all, with goal to replace every combustion-engine vehicle.” That’s obviously impractical, but to say that even this draft proposal would ban air travel overstates the text.

Satirizing the GND, Lee showed a picture of people commuting from Hawaii on seahorses (since they wouldn’t have airplanes.) I have no idea what purpose was served by picturing Reagan riding a dinosaur, and I suspect that Lee didn’t, either. Lee expressed worry that if the US banned airplanes, we would face a bio-industrial race with China, which might outbreed the US in seahorses. He claimed that the GND would abolish cows: “If they think cows smell bad, just wait until they get a whiff of the seahorses. No more milk, no more cheese, no more hamburgers.” The GND resolution does not, of course, ban cows. Following a conservative theme that liberals want to impose a new way of life, Lee warned that the GND would “restructure our very way of life.”

Tacitly admitting that he was attacking a draft, not the actual resolution, Lee criticized the GND’s advocates for sending the wrong press release. On the one hand, yes, they should have been more careful. On the other hand, he accidentally admitted that he wasn’t attacking the real proposal.

Lee's bizarre solution
Lee asserted (consistent with conservative ideology) that the federal government would not be climate change’s solution. Fine, we expected him to say that. The solution, which no one expected was, he said, apparently in all seriousness, was to be “found in churches, wedding chapels, and maternity wards.” His reasoning? To combat climate change required “technological innovation.” Innovation requires people to innovate.

“Climate change,” Lee insisted, “is an engineering problem – not social engineering, but the real kind. It’s a challenge of creativity, ingenuity, and technological invention. And problems of human imagination are not solved by more laws, but by more humans!”

So, if people have more babies, we will have more future innovators. This led him to conclude that “The true heroes of this story are not politicians and they are not social media activists. They are moms and dads.” He told people to solve climate change this way: “Fall in love, get married, and have kids.”

Lee read - droned - the speech slowly in an unexpressive voice. He sounded tired, nervous, and apathetic. The Senate chamber looked pretty much empty. I heard no one laugh.

Ridicule is hard to do and avoids the real issues
Ridicule can be a powerful if childish weapon if a speaker has the moxie to pull it off. Humor requires comic timing, which Lee lacked. His delivery was as stiff as it could be. Lee isn’t the first Republican to attack the Green New Deal by saying false things about its content. This weak debating tactic will convince only people who are willing to delude themselves. There are, however, many such people. The conservative Daily Caller called Lee’s speech “hilarious,” which proves, if nothing else, that the Daily Caller’s editors are easy to amuse.

In normal organizations, planners often circulate advance drafts for markup and discussion. In Congress, however, that practice invites ridicule of the type that Lee tired to express. Politicians need to perfect their ideas before they go public. The GND's sponsors are lucky that Lee botched his attack. That gives them breathing room to build their case for next time.

Lee’s speech will go down in history as one of the most senseless speeches in Senate history. Given the number of awful speeches that Senators have given in our nation’s history, that’s an impressive accomplishment. Overnight, Senator Lee sabotaged his once-stellar reputation, which is now firmly destroyed for centuries to come. I predict that “Mike Lee” will become history’s metaphor for legislative idiocy just as “Benedict Arnold” is a metaphor for treason and “Florence Nightingale” stands for mercy. This was a speech for the ages, but not in a good way.

Maybe Lee had research, but it was just bad research
Well, did Lee really have no research? He sort of did. He researched the GND's rough draft. Most of his talking points, minus Aquaman, Reagan, seahorses, and his proposed baby boom, have been circulating in conservative media. He had, indeed, researched the conservative talking points. He knew them thoroughly. He did not, unfortunately, research any current, accurate information about the proposal under debate. Not coming to grips with the real GND, he attacked a fictional version that conservative media had invented. Sexist logicians of the past once called this a straw man fallacy. Lee had informed himself about various ridiculous accusations and wild falsehoods that conservatives had circulated about the GND in recent weeks. He made no effort to find out what the resolution said or to come to grips with its arguments. His bizarre visual aids and irrational solution entertained only the most radical and uninformed conservatives, while allowing the GND advocates a chance to breathe and to recover from their slip-up while they assemble real issues supported by real arguments.

Here’s my previous post about ridicule. People make fun of other people when they can’t think of anything intelligent to say. We’re seeing more and more of this: when someone makes a proposal, it is easier to make fun of it than to debate the facts. Good satire is hard to pull off, isn't it?


Image: Senator Mike Lee's official website.