Joe Pinion’s Progressive Conservatism
If you watch the latest commentary by Joe Pinion on Newsmax, you will find another refreshing conservative departure from libertarian naivete on the topic of online censorship. It might be tough, but more people have to try to thread the needle between free market principles and regulating monopoly power.
Pinion, who ran for New York’s 90th State Assembly seat in 2018, is comfortable with nuance. When he was recently asked about climate change, Pinion said that the discussion should focus on topics such as whether carbon capture and nuclear are integral to the climate solution or whether investing more federal funds in renewables development is the right solution — not whether someone believes in the science of climate change.
Pinion is wrong to suggest that we shouldn’t debate the science of climate change – debate and skepticism are the lifeblood of all science – but that wasn’t his point. He was suggesting that a constructive way forward is to focus on energy solutions that make economic and environmental sense regardless of whether or not you believe in climate change.
This blended approach, acknowledging environmentalist concerns but skipping ahead to the solutions, which even might include the controversial choice of nuclear power, may be what defines what Pinion refers to as his “progressive conservatism.”
Pinion’s conservative credentials are not in question, as exemplified by his well documented opposition to critical race theory, and his passion for exposing how the Left attempts to downplay its reach.
What is refreshing about Joe Pinion’s politics is how he breaks so many stereotypes. He’s not just a Black conservative, breaking the most obvious stereotype, that Blacks aren’t conservatives.
Pinion also breaks a more pernicious stereotype, that all conservatives adhere to the same checklist of causes that liberals detest. Pinion, like Lomborg, Pielke, Shellenberger, and a host of other public intellectuals, is willing to move straight past the debate over climate change to the more practical question of finding realistic solutions.
Joe Pinion is yet another rising star in the conservative – oops – the conservative progressive movement. Not easily pigeonholed, he is the kind of thinker America needs.
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