TODD: The left is better than Republicans at a thing called “the brand hanger.” This is where you take a known item, and you wrap yourself around it. It’s a Madison Avenue thing. So, they’ll take a word like “justice,” and it’s meaningless the way they say it, but it’s such a beautiful word. Just a little trick. When people speak of justice, say, “I’m sorry. For whom?”
It won’t change the mind of a cultist on the left, but it can get other people around you thinking, “Yeah, but justice for whom?” They’ve done this with the word “sustainability,” and it’s a magic word to them, and it should surprise none of us that it was Rush who found this one single word — it’s a key leftists use, and they’re shills — to manipulate the emotions of all too many Millennials.
RUSH: Now, this stuff, you know, I have been concerned. I love America! I want it to continue to be the greatest place on earth. I want everybody in this country to be able to maximize the opportunity that liberty and freedom give them. And it’s liberty and freedom that are under assault by these people that are demanding conformity, in speech, in behavior, demanding conformity in acceptance.
And we see it manifesting itself. It’s the climate change left that is keeping people poor. Let’s take an imaginary African country. Let’s call it San Cordoba. And San Cordoba has a per capita income of $14 a week. And the people that live there are in absolute poverty, and their government is a tyranny. They’ve got some general that’s the president and the commandante or whatever, and the people just have nothing.
But somebody discovers oil, somebody discovers a big pool of oil underneath San Cordoba. What does Greenpeace do, what does Algore do, what do the environmentalist wackos do? They come in there and they forbid them from getting it, because getting it will pollute, getting it will destroy, will upset the ecobalance in the ocean or off the coast of San Cordoba.
And so the means of a rising standard of living and a country coming out of poverty will be unavailable to them because powerful forces, the UN will be in there demanding that San Cordoba — because they’re trying to phase out fossil fuels. Have you seen all these automobile manufacturers now promising — who was it, Aston Martin said by 2030 or 2040 they won’t have any more internal combustion engine cars, and that caused an avalanche of other companies announcing the same thing.
In the first place, it’s asinine. It’s simply asinine and they’re believing a market for these things exist that doesn’t. If people that bought Teslas and Priuses weren’t subsidized to buy them, do you think they’d be selling the way they are? If the government wasn’t subsidizing Tesla to the tune of $5 billion, do you think they’d be making as many as they are?
The market may be there for them someday, but the market isn’t there. It’s being forced on us under the belief that the internal combustion engine is destroying the climate and thus destroying the world. And that leads to Stephen Hawking and these other clowns saying we gotta abandon earth if we’re gonna survive, we gotta colonize and asteroid or Mars.
Folks, we aren’t close to even go back to the Moon, much less going to Mars and colonizing! We’re not even close to this! But kids are being educated with this. It’s being inculcated, it’s being forced into them, and they all believe this stuff. And it’s gonna have to an impact as they grow older. I mean, some of the things they are being taught actually is near criminal.
The internal combustion engine and the discovery and market uses of petroleum products, the free flow of oil at market prices has been the difference maker. We have done a better job of any nation in the world cleaning up our messes in terms of our pollution and so forth. And to tell people that this, the primary fuel and engine of prosperity is a culprit in destroying the planet is near criminal, but it continues apace.
So these kids grow up and then they go to college and they get degrees in PR or marketing, advertising, and then they get hired. And you get a story like this. This is from the BusinessInsider.com. It’s out of London. “M&M’s Are Going to Promote Wind Power in a New TV Ad Campaign — Chocolate brand M&M’s will promote wind power in a global advertising campaign set to run later this year and into 2018.” Hang on. “Chocolate and pet food giant Mars Inc.” they own M&M’s “this week announced a $1 billion” wait for it, here’s the word: “sustainability.”
That’s how you own Millennials. Tell ’em it’s sustainable, and they’ll support it. Tell ’em it’s not sustainable, and they’ll oppose it. Whatever it is, sustainable sex, they love it. Sustainable energy, they love it. Sustainable sewage, that’s even great. Unsustainable doesn’t work. So it’s in every story that is appealing to and attempting to capture Millennials.
“A $1 billion sustainability drive aiming to do its bit to tackle climate change.” So what’s happened here, a bunch of indoctrinated Millennials now working at an advertising agency somewhere and maybe at Mars, have grown up and they’ve been taught this stuff, and now they’re implementing it into their day-to-day work. And we wonder why more conservative messages can’t break through.
The conservative message of self-reliance and rugged individualism and be the best you can be, you know, the old standby recipe for success, that’s laughed at and mocked now. Sustainability is the dog whistle. When you see the word “sustainability,” understand it is — here I go with the cliche again — but it’s liberalism behind it. And liberalism is not good, folks.
TODD: No, it’s not. In fact, it’s really hard. In fact, Keith and some of the EIB folks were talking about this earlier. It’s hard to fight feelings.