Global warming is highly partisan, and the proposed solutions to it are extremely polarizing. Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth is probably single-handedly responsible for shifting the GOP to deny it exists. The taint spread to other issues. A whiff of any environmentalism raises hackles that would not have been raised otherwise.
Environmentalists have used environmental laws that were initially bipartisan to throw wrenches into development favored by GOP.
Partisan sorting. Republicans who were concerned about the environment in 1990 are dead, changed positions, or are no longer Republicans, just like anti-abortion Democrats from 1990 are dead, changed positions, or are no longer Democrats.
Several things are at work.
Global warming is highly partisan, and the proposed solutions to it are extremely polarizing. Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth is probably single-handedly responsible for shifting the GOP to deny it exists. The taint spread to other issues. A whiff of any environmentalism raises hackles that would not have been raised otherwise.
Environmentalists have used environmental laws that were initially bipartisan to throw wrenches into development favored by GOP.
Partisan sorting. Republicans who were concerned about the environment in 1990 are dead, changed positions, or are no longer Republicans, just like anti-abortion Democrats from 1990 are dead, changed positions, or are no longer Democrats.