Melissa Joskow / Media Matters

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced a Green New Deal resolution on Thursday -- a framework for what they intend to include in detailed legislation down the line. Ocasio-Cortez's office also released a less formal summary and answers to frequently asked questions about the plan.

Right-wing media figures and outlets -- who've been freaking out over the Green New Deal and Ocasio-Cortez in general over the last couple of months -- swiftly went on the attack, insulting Ocasio-Cortez's intelligence and employing misinformation, mockery, and straight-up climate denial to argue against the plan.

Many of the attackers appear not to have actually read the 14-page resolution. Instead, they focused on the FAQ document and mischaracterized it, so Ocasio-Cortez's office removed it from her website and said they'll post a better version later, but it's still available in other places online. [Update, 2/11/19: In a February 9 Twitter thread, Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff explained that “an early draft of a FAQ that was clearly unfinished and that doesn’t represent the GND resolution got published to the website by mistake.”]

Here's a sampling of comments and arguments from right-wing media.

Right-wing media made unhinged claims that the Green New Deal would destroy civilization

MSNBC contributor Hugh Hewitt waxed melodramatic while discussing the Green New Deal on his radio program on February 8: “It is not socialism; it is communism, it is fascism, it is despotism.”

Sean Hannity went on an extended rant on his Fox show Hannity on February 7:

History is riddled with the roadkill and the misery and of many versions of socialism, almost always ending the same way: false promises, broken promises, failure, poverty, misery among the people. This is a real, serious threat to our way of life. … Ocasio-Cortez and others put forth one of the most dangerous, impractical, misguided, economically guaranteed-to-be-devastating plans ever championed by any American politician. … All aboard, the poverty express is coming.

Fox's Laura Ingraham said the Green New Deal would result in a “hellscape.” Fox's Tucker Carlson said, “It's literally insane and anti-American.” Watch these and other lowlights:

Right-wing media attacked Ocasio-Cortez's intelligence

Ocasio-Cortez introduced the legislation jointly with longtime lawmaker Markey, who has served in Congress since 1976 and co-authored major climate legislation that passed the House in 2009. But in attacking the measure, conservative commentators focused almost exclusively on Ocasio-Cortez, calling her “immature” and an “idiot.”

Ben Stein, an actor, political commentator, and climate denier who frequently appears on Fox programs, offered sexist insults about Ocasio-Cortez during Fox Business Network's Cavuto Coast to Coast on February 7:

The fact that we listen to her is just amazing. The fact that we pay attention to anything she says is just amazing. I mean, she doesn't know her ass from her elbow about investments and the return on investments. Why do we even listen to her? I mean, she’s charming and she’s very good-looking, but why do we even listen to her?

Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade and climate-denying blogger Marc Morano took turns ratcheting up the insults during a segment on Fox & Friends on February 8:

BRIAN KILMEADE: Why would you stand behind a deal like this when it is -- looks like something that was put out by a 10th-grader? MARC MORANO: Actually, 10th is being very, very generous. KILMEADE: Let's go seventh. MORANO: I would go as low as third grade.

Ben Shapiro, editor-in-chief of the right-wing Daily Wire, attacked Ocasio-Cortez in a tweet:

Whoever wrote AOC's Green New Deal document is a full-scale idiot. There is no way to read that document as a rational person and think otherwise. — Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) February 7, 2019

Shapiro elaborated on this theme in a blog post at The Daily Wire titled “AOC's Green New Deal Proposal Is One Of The Stupidest Documents Ever Written” :

Whoever wrote the proposal is, to put it kindly, dense. Idiotic. Moronic. … How bad is the Green New Deal paper? Putting aside the fact that, as written, it would receive a C+ in any high school English class, it essentially articulates a magical world in which the skies rain chocolate, the world is powered by unicorn farts, and AOC dances through the gumdrop meadows to Lisztomania. … My two-year-old son could come up with a better, more realistic proposal than this one.

David Harsanyi, a climate denier and senior editor at the conservative online magazine The Federalist, played on similar themes during an appearance on Fox's The Ingraham Angle:

A Federalist editor just called the Green New Deal “immature,” said it's something “a high-schooler would write,” and would “cost $25 bazillion dollars.” pic.twitter.com/oHfnHfljGA — jordan (@JordanUhl) February 8, 2019

Right-wing media spread misinformation about the Green New Deal

Conservative media figures propagated a number of falsehoods about the Green New Deal. Here are a few:

They say the plan would ban cars. It wouldn't: Madison Gesiotto, a columnist for The Hill and a member of the Trump campaign's advisory board, suggested in a tweet that the Green New Deal would require Americans to give up their cars. In fact, the resolution calls for “investment in … zero-emissions vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing,” not the banning of vehicles.

Who would like to give up driving their car for @AOC’s #GreenNewDeal? — Madison Gesiotto (@madisongesiotto) February 8, 2019

They say the plan would ban airplanes. It wouldn't: Longtime climate denier Rush Limbaugh claimed on his radio show on February 7, “They want to phase out air travel in 10 years.” Fox & Friends hosts made the same claim on February 8, including Ainsley Earhardt, who said, “No more airplanes. Airplanes are -- exactly, you have to take a train now.” In fact, the resolution makes no mention of airplanes or air travel. The FAQ acknowledges that it's likely not feasible to phase out traditional airplanes within a decade, so it calls for “build[ing] out highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary.” The Green New Deal aims to give people a cleaner option than flying, but it doesn't call for the elimination of flying.

They say the plan would ban meat. It wouldn't: Morano said during his February 8 appearance on Fox & Friends that the plan calls for “banning meat.” In fact, the resolution makes no mention whatsoever of meat. In contrast, it calls for “working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible, including ... by supporting family farming [and] by investing in sustainable farming and land use practices that increase soil health.” The FAQ mentions just one potential meat source, “farting cows,” but says it doesn't appear feasible to get rid of them within 10 years.

Right-wing media mocked the Green New Deal

Many of the conservative critiques were short on substance, long on silliness and scorn.

Fox personality Laura Ingraham suggested the Green New Deal would send the country back to the time of the Flintstones and the Stone Age:

Climate-denying blogger Steve Milloy called the plan “bedwetting” :

Breitbart's Joel Pollak disingenuously accuses the plan of being “homophobic and transphobic.”

Note: the legislation fails to mention — even once — the historic oppression of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities. This is a homophobic and transphobic document.

Right-wing media displayed their climate denial while criticizing the Green New Deal

In many cases, right-wing media figures failed to acknowledge that the Green New Deal is so ambitious because it's trying to address an incredibly serious and deadly threat: climate change. The hosts of Fox & Friends, for example, neglected to mention climate change at all during an extended rant on February 8.

But in some cases, the conservative commentators put their climate denial on full display, making clear that part of the reason they disdain the Green New Deal is because they don't believe climate change is even happening.

Limbaugh launched into a climate-denying diatribe during his Green New Deal segment on February 7:

It is a crime what has been done to these kids. It is literally a crime the way they have been propagandized from the moment they started watching television, from early childhood. They literally believe this planet is under destruction as we sit here today and that human beings in the United States of America are responsible for it, primarily Republicans, and they’re calling for drastic action.

Breitbart's Pollak explicitly contradicted climate science in his Green New Deal blog post:

The “Green New Deal” begins by asserting “human activity is the dominant cause of observed climate change over the past century” — far beyond the “consensus” that humans have some significant impact on global temperature. It goes on to declare that “a changing climate is causing sea levels to rise and an increase in wildfires, severe storms, droughts, and other extreme weather events that threaten human life” — all speculative claims that even scientists who endorse anthropogenic global warming (AGW) are hesitant to endorse.

In fact, climate scientists have been very clear that climate change is human-caused, it is exacerbating extreme weather, and we have a small window in which to dramatically overhaul our energy, transportation, and agriculture systems if we want to avoid the worst impacts. But if you deny that climate change is a problem, then of course an ambitious plan to address it is going to be anathema.