Dude's Congressional Climate Change Testimony Runs Up Against Stupid Congress Creatures

Olympic skier Gus Schumacher earlier this year gave
Congressional testimony on how climate change affects the
winter sports industry.  Troll, oops, I mean esteemed
Sen. John Kennedy, R-LA had other ideas. 

Earlier this spring,  Gus Schumacher a young dude (23) who is an Olympic cross-country skier, recently took up an invitation recently to testify before a U.S. House committee about how climate change is affecting the outdoor recreation industry. 

Two other outdoorsy types testified as well.

But the hearing went off the rails quickly. As Congressional hearings usually do, it was all about politicians' grandstanding and trolling.  This ended up having little to do with climate change or the outdoor recreation industry. 

Because social media trolling during supposed serious congressional work is now good politics, apparently.

Enter Sen John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana. As the Alaska Beacon reported:

"Kennedy did not ask Schumacher substantive questions about climate change's impacts on cross-country skiing, nor did he ask about the challenges posed to Alaska's oil-dependent economy by reducing the use of fossil fuels. Instead, he presented the Olympian with a deep excavation of his social media accounts, and a pop quiz on climate economics and science."

Now, granted, Schumacher is not the world's foremost authority on climate change and its impacts on winter recreation. I suppose he was there because his Olympic star power means something to some people. He was there representing a group call Save Our Winters. 

But Kennedy and other GOPers saw an opportunity for a weird ambush and took it. And it did get weird. 

Kennedy started by asking Schumacher about carbon dioxide. He didn't claim to be an expert. 

"I'm not a professional to talk about carbon dioxide so much."

Kennedy: "But you want to abolish it, right?"

Schumacher: "No. There's always going to be carbon dioxide."

From there, Kennedy surely congratulated himself by gotcha-ing Schumacher for saying incorrectly that carbon dioxide is a major component of the atmosphere, when it's actually just a small part of it. 

Kennedy: "You was to abolish fossil fuel?"

Schumacher: "I never said that."

Then a little back and forth, then Kennedy, referring to a past tweet Schumacher either wrote or re-tweeted about holding police involved in misconduct accountable, asked,  "Do you think we ought to abolish the police?" 

 Schumaker tried to point out past tweets unrelated to the topic of the Congressional hearing were "not the topic of this conversation."

Kennedy then asked, "Should we do that before or after we get rid of fossil fuels?"

Sigh. 

The standards of political success now seem to be if you act like a patronizing, ignorant twit, you are politically victorious. Or something like that. 

This was all planned to shut Schumacher up, and anyone else who dares to speak out on climate change. 

The playbook is familiar:  Get some Republican Congress creature to do some performance art by asking irrelevant questions and try to make the witness look like a fool. Then post it on your social media, tag right wing "news" sites, and let the MAGA minions go on the attack against the target, in this case Schumacher. 

The point is to make a political opponent's life so miserable that they'll shut up, and scare any like minded person into keeping their mouth shut. 

Worried about climate change? Want to speak up about it?  Then prepare for the death threats against you and your family. 

This Instagram message Schumacher got was typical. "One easy way to minimize CO2 on Earth is of you to STOP BREATHING! Will you do that for us?"

Yep, that commenter wanted Schumacher to commit suicide for the high crime of being concerned about climate change. 

I wonder if Kennedy agrees that advocating suicide of your political opponents is a good idea. But I'm sure he won't answer that. Because ultimately, the bullies are wimps.

Of course, MAGA's attempts to shut up opponents, be it in climate issues or anything else, doesn't always work. Sometimes it backfires.  "They're not going to get to me," (Schumacher) said. "I'm happy to be able to talk about what I see at home and abroad. And I'm definitely motivated to continue it," he told the Alaska Beacon. 

 Schumacher gets what happened. "'In hindsight, the point was just to derail this hearing,' Schumacher said in a phone interview....'I was kind of thrown off, obviously, which was his goal.'"

As for Kennedy, he's part of the federal government as a congressman.  The government suppressing free speech is a First Amendment problem. I'm not sure whether he's legally culpable. I'm not a lawyer. But he's certainly violating the spirit of the First Amendment. 

 Kennedy is being  paid handsomely for his "work"  by the way.  Alaska Beacon reported that Kennedy collected $343,000 in oil and gas-industry-aligned contributions in the two years before his re-election in 2022.