Early in tenure at the White House, Joe Biden bet that he could use climate policy to shore up his presidential coalition. While indulging the social justice politics of college-educated elites, a “green” economic agenda could also be a form of industrial policy that would win over working-class communities.

But things might not have gone according to the West Wing’s hopes. As a new report out in the Wall Street Journal shows, Biden is spending $1 trillion on climate change, but “voters don’t care”. Instead, the tensions of his green policy programme might divide his coalition. Like centre-left politicians in other Western democracies, the President finds himself torn between the economic needs of working-class voters and the emergency measures demanded by climate activists.

The green agenda includes (deficit-funded) carrots, which are easier sells for many voters. Most notably, the centrepiece of Biden’s green industrial policy, the Inflation Reduction Act, has unleashed billions of dollars in subsidies for “green” energy production, tax-credits for electric vehicles with American parts, and other financial rewards. These are not provisions likely to turn off many blue-collar voters.

Much more problematic for working-class interests are many of the sticks demanded by climate activists. It’s one thing to subsidise factories for solar cells and batteries; it’s another to ban the sale of new gas-powered automobiles, as some states (such as California and Massachusetts) have pledged. While Biden has not yet gone this far, a new EPA rule by the administration could impose significant restrictions on the sale of gas-powered cars in the future.

These measures might get glowing write-ups in the New York Times, but they could also inflict major pain on both working-class communities and on America’s industrial infrastructure. The United States has inherited a vast infrastructure for producing gas-powered automobiles, and a ban on those vehicles risks sacrificing that strategic advantage, which in turn would also make the US more dependent on electric vehicles from China. Other regulatory efforts — from the endless contortions over natural-gas stoves to restrictions on new energy development — could cause additional economic jolts.

Unfortunately for Biden, it’s not clear that many progressive voters will reward him for his climate agenda. That same WSJ story found that only 2% of swing-state voters identified climate change as a top issue, and the President’s actions fall well short of what many climate activists demand.

This “green” impasse reveals an irony about contemporary climate catastrophism. A millenarian urgency drives climate activist groups to dramatic tactics — from defacing works of art to blocking traffic — in order to call for radical change. This urgency has given these activists an outsized voice in the progressive coalition, but it also means that activists will be dissatisfied with anything but the most sweeping policy programmes.

According to World Bank data, US carbon emissions per capita have already significantly dropped since 2000, and the country’s overall carbon emissions in 2019 were at the same level as the early Nineties. Many voters might look at those trends and say that gradual reforms have already helped bend the curb on carbon.

That kind of gradualism is unlikely to persuade radical climate activists, who are funded by some of the wealthiest people in the world. Yet trying to chase their approval could put Biden further behind with working families. In its branding, the “green new deal” hearkens back to the happy days of Franklin Roosevelt’s robust political coalition. In its policy details, it might instead represent a decisive break with the traditional working-class base of the Democratic Party.

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Fred Bauer is a writer from New England.

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