The Ides of March is a quality political thriller about a man's transition from idealistic human being into a politician. It features a series of shady backroom dealings meant to undermine the integrity of our democracy and manipulate the voting population for reasons unconnected to actual policy decisions. The film goes a long way to explaining why American-style political parties are inherently evil and why we will never be able to move forward as a country as long as they exist, but that is a topic for another day. We are going to talk about the ridiculousness of two of Morris's campaign promises and how one of them should have ensured his unelectability.
In one speech, Morris makes the promise that ten years after he is inaugurated no new vehicle will have an internal combustion engine. While I fully support transitioning away from fossil fuels, from a engineering and logistical prospective a ten year time frame is laughably ridiculous. I would like to see the implementation of the Pickens Plan (even if Pickens himself has sort of given up on it). It seems like a reasonable and practical plan to move to only North American oil and cleaner burning natural gas. We need to use natural gas as a transitional fuel to an all renewable future. The simple fact is we are at the beginning of what will be a 50-100 year transition assuming we have the political will to start immediately and continue on that course. And here's why...
First of all shortly after Morris announces the end of the internal combustion engine, he makes a comment about hydrogen fuel, as if that was the solution to the problem. Unfortunately, hydrogen is a battery, not a fuel. Hydrogen has to be produced by using electricity to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen meaning that hydrogen takes more energy to make than it produces. It's called entropy people, look it up. And while we're on the topic, this is also why any biofuel that is not made from a waste product is a terrible idea. (I'm looking at you corn-based ethanol.)
So between hydrogen electrolysis plants and plug-in electric vehicles, we are talking about a enormous additional load on an already overtaxed electrical grid which means building hundreds of new power plants and upgrading millions of miles of power lines. What kind of plants will we build? Coal or natural gas would be the most likely and practical, but wouldn't quite fit in with the goal of the initiative. Nuclear? Public opinion was almost ready to accept it again, but Japan has taken care of that. Wind or Solar? Both have huge reliability and distribution issues which will never be solved. One day, we could build an all renewable energy system based on wind, distributed solar and biofuel from waste, but that day is a long way off and is certainly not happening in ten years.
And, all of these electric cars and renewable fuel power plants need batteries. Big, expensive, full of heavy metals, lithium-based batteries. And in both an actual and a relative sense, the world's lithium supply is much less than the world remaining oil supply. More batteries also means more of a demand for Rare Earth Elements which are unsurprisingly rare and the supply is controlled by China.
Additionally, there is not currently an electric engine which can practically move an 18-wheeler. Sorry, it just doesn't exist. The size and weight of the necessary engine and batteries makes it unlikely to ever exist. I want my fictional president to understand these kinds of energy issues and that comment shows that Morris does not.
Now, let's move on to the absolutely insane promise. Stephen convinces Morris to run on a position that everyone should be required to join the military or the Peace Corps when they turn 18. I fully support government mandated healthcare. I'd love to see a single payer system, but requiring two years of everyone's life goes way to far in intruding into the lives of private citizens. Stephen sells this plan as a surefire vote-getter with no possible way of backfiring proving that he is terrible at his job. Stephen says "Everyone over 18 will be for it and everyone under 18 can't vote." What Stephen seems to forget is that many people over 18 have children and parents tend to object when their kids are sold into slavery.
What part of promising to bringing back indentured servitude is a brilliant political strategy? I mean even if he wins the primary how is he going to win a general election? Republicans convinced a third of the country that if the government required everyone to have health insurance that couldn't be denied based on pre-existing conditions that Barack Obama would personally stab every grandmother in the county to death. They would salivate at an opportunity to run against a guy who is actually suggesting bringing back the draft for no particular reason. I'm picturing hundreds of political cartoons depicting Morris cracking a whip aboard a slave ship and they wouldn't even be that hyperbolic. Remember a vote for Morris is a vote for child slavery.
Based on Governor Morris's poor understanding of energy policy and frightening assault on civil liberties, No Spoiler Tags endorses Senator Pullman for the Democratic nomination for fictional President of the United States of America.
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