When did Democrats and Republicans stop working together for the common good and why?
When the South re-aligned.After the Civil War, the former states of the Confederacy became irrevocably anti-Republican. It was said that many Southerners would vote for a yellow dog if it won the Democratic nomination. But, in those days, the Republican Party was based in the Northeastern states and was the party of minority rights and stronger connections with Europe. Then Theodore Roosevelt came back after Taft’s first term and bolted from the party, taking the most progressive elements with him and Woodrow Wilson resisted foreign entanglements, most especially World War I.During the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt turned the Northeastern States solidly blue, running on workers’ rights, an end to child labor and causing the federal government to take a strong roll in the economy.But the South continued to be solidly Democratic.At that time, with very conservative legislators from Southern states being nominally Democratic, everyone in Congress found themselves working across the aisle because the aisle did not divide the chamber on ideological lines.But then Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and later, Richard Nixon ran a campaign with innumerable racial dog whistles, and the South moved from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican so that the aisle now very accurately divides conservatives from liberals.Finally, computers and exit polls gave politicians the ability to MUCH more effectively draw districts that favored the party of the line drawer, so that now, there are only 60 to 80 of the 435 seats are not predetermined to be red or blue. The effect of this is that in (360 or so) districts, the winner of the primary is almost certainly the winner in the general election, with the result that in 360 districts, there is no reason to worry about whether or not the candidate can attract independents.So now, a Member of Congress who works across the aisle may doom his/her chances to move up into leadership, where all of the real power resides.
How can I make a living being a climate change activist?
Historically, there’s been a lot of money being an active denier of climate change. You need a handful of things:Some pretence of credentials. An engineering degree, a dentistry certificate, a degree from decades ago in physics or a computer science degree often suffice.A proven ability to write and speak with confidence on topics you are not actually intellectually competent to write about. Dunning-Kruger syndrome helps.A strong venal streak.A willingness to work with and for tobacco harm denialists.A network that you can leverage to get you a Fellow position with the Heartland Foundation, the Cato Institute or similar hotbeds of fervent head-in-sandism.Most deniers aren’t competent enough to monetize their denial but have been so brainwashed that they are fighting for what is right and for their families. They are pro bonehead deniers. You can find a few of those on Quora in fact.It’s a lot harder to make a living as a climate change activist because there is precious little money in the scientific consensus. I don’t think of myself as an activist but as an analyst and explainer of low-carbon innovation including climate change impacts. I make a trickle of money from my writing but it’s a meagre supplement to my income.