WHILE POLITICIANS of all stripes propagate politically useful make-believe, Republicans let this habit get the best of them in several consequential areas. Environmental science had the bad luck to recognize and start to publicize global warming in the early 2000s, just as full Fantasyland dawned. At first, Republicans were officially reasonable on the subject. As recently as 2008, their party platform mentioned “climate change” thirteen times, stipulating it was caused by “human economic activity,” and they committed themselves to “decreasing the long term demand for oil” in order “to address
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