Teenage Climate Crisis activists from various climate activism groups protesting in Westminster during the first UK Students Strike Over Climate Change march of 2020 on February 14, 2020, in London, England. OLLIE MILLINGTON / GETTY IMAGES
Americans could be forgiven if the first time they heard about the Green New Deal was during the October 7 vice-presidential debate between Sen. Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence. Viewers of Fox News may have heard about the Green New Deal, but the coverage on Fox, according to Media Matters, has, for the last two years, focused on tying it to radical socialism and issuing warnings that the plan would lead to economic collapse.
Other networks haven’t given the Green New Deal nearly as much airtime or have failed to clearly articulate its proposed policies. In a 2019 poll by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation, 3 out of 4 Americans hadn’t heard enough about the Green New Deal to have an opinion on it. Furthermore, Republicans were about twice as likely to have heard about the plan than Democrats, and they expressed opposition to it.
A 2020 poll by the Center for American Progress Action Fund showed a similar level of confusion about the policy proposals in the Green New Deal. A whopping 53 percent of Americans couldn’t say whether the Green New Deal was favorable or unfavorable. They simply don’t know what it is.
Read the full article at Truthout.
Élan Young 