The Breakthrough Institute, an environmental / climate change think tank, says influential Joe Romm at ClimateProgress.org is a Green McCarthyite who through his hyper-partisanship is blocking genuine progress on climate change. Because, if you disagree with him, then you must be Republican. In other words, he’s a Green version of Glenn Beck, demonizing anyone who dares disagree. Which is great for fund-raising and empire-building but lousy for creating actual change.
The work of greens and liberals is to challenge the Democratic demagogues, the left-wing bullies, and the Climate McCarthyites who narrow and polarize the debate in ways that make effective policy action all but impossible. If we can hold our own hyper-partisans to account then fair-minded conservatives might do the same. For until the establishment and the grassroots on both left and right learn to say no to Joe Romm and to Glenn Beck, hyper-partisanship is here to stay.