Nearly a year after the 2024 election, Democrats are still trying to figure out what went wrong. Through this soul-searching community, a new piece of advice emerged: “Don’t mention climate change.”
That’s the takeaway from a recent release by the Searchlight Institute, a new democracy think tank. Americans say they see climate change as a problem, but it’s rarely their top issue — voters in rural areas say they’re most affected by income and health care. But when asked what they thought the Democratic party was prioritizing, climate change was number one.
This mismatch may explain, at least in part, why Democrats are often singled out for being out of touch. “Lawyers and elected officials must understand that their messages are being actively weakened by the ‘climate’ by finding low-cost solutions to mounting problems rather than solutions to non-problems,” Searchlight posted about the poll.
The results didn’t stop Representative Sean Casten, an Illinois Democrat and former Climate Champion from making the case that clean energy could lower electric bills. Casten Recendel Restraft REDFATION called the cheap energy agenda, and Representative Mike Levin, California Democrat.
“There’s no obvious choice between smart phones and climate policy,” Casten said. But he still talks about climate change all the time. “Voting doesn’t tell you what you’re talking about,” he said. “It tells you how you talk about it.”
Pressure groups are on board, too, with the League of Environmental Voters, Climate Energy, and others running an ad blitz this summer blaming Republicans for raising energy costs.
Over the past decade, activists and organizations have pushed Democratic politicians to get serious about climate change. The solar-led youth movement has emerged as a political force for climate change in 2018, with activists occupying Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, demanding a new green deal. They were ultimately successful in helping to raise climate change in the group’s environment. Democrats even passed the country’s most ambitious national climate law, the Depreciation Act, in 2022 to accelerate the adoption of clean energy through tax credits and incentives — a sweeping effort that Republicans are scuttling this year.
Searchlight’s Pragmatic voting style, Praglight’s Pragmatic, voting style has been interpreted by some Democrats as a push to leave what they believe. “It’s not that Democrats should just kill their longstanding policy beliefs and their values,” he said. “It’s that there needs to be a redesign of how they do those voter factories. Because frankly, I think the results of the 2024 election will show that something is not working.”
In fact, it appears that climate change has already faded from the national debate, before the searchlight polls come out. Media coverage of the topic has dropped by nearly half since 2023, according to Anthony Leiserowitz, director of Yale’s program on climate change. His party’s poll found that compared to previous years, Americans say they hear less about climate change in the news, on social media, and from people they know. They don’t want much information on their own, either: There has been a sharp decline in Google News searches for “Climate Change” since 2023.
Google News Search results for “Climate change,” percent change from January 2023
Source: Google Styles
Clayton Aldern / Grist
“The truth is we talk about things we say are important,” Leiserowitz said. “The conclusion most people will draw is that if no one is talking about climate change, then it can’t be important.” Out of sight, out of mind.
Leiserowitz points out that the 2024 election was not an indication of climate change. Most Americans are still worried about global warming, according to a recent Yale poll. “They hadn’t changed their views and concerns about climate change at all,” Leiserowitz said. “What -nana it has changed to be a direct expression of it. “
It’s not just democrat politicians talking about mild climate change. The progressive left is also turning its attention to other pressing problems. For example, the solar movement, turned its focus on climate change to fight for the right to free speech and protest under President Donald Trump, training its non-strategic tactics. Progressive activists are going back to the breakdown of supplies at the end of immigration, protesting without ICE I ICETILITILITITE, and Washington, Portland, and Washings, No Sings Addom, by being the organizers.
“At least for us – and I don’t know how many others think the same way – but it’s like a place of approval, something that we all try to fight for,” said Sunripy-Ajay, the Managing Director of Shine. Still, he said, it’s important not to lose sight of their signature issue.
“No one wants to walk the path of climate change,” Bheney-Ajay said. “I think everyone can clearly see that we need to constantly remind people that we are doing this because we are still young and fighting for the foreseeable future.”
Leiserowitz said that searchlight advice (“How to talk about climate change: Don’t”) fails to distinguish between climate activists and democrats running for office in Sweden’s provinces. It might make sense for a politician in a tight race to align their message to the polls, but climate organizations have different goals than getting Democrats. “If your goal is to get general social action on climate change, it’s crazy not to talk about it.”
Searchlight and others dispute the idea that Democrats – they are Discussing climate change in order to get political action on it, it is easy to pass legislation on an issue that has not been drawn into the polarizing national debate. “There is a lot of action that was very important in climate change, for example, that happened in what is called ‘secret’ or ‘Heate Congress, instead of these scenes,” behind the scenes, “behind the scenes,” behind the scenes, He pointed out the growth of Bipartisan support for the nuclear energy law as an example. Last year, members of Congress from both parties supported the Advance action, signed into law by President Joe Beriden, which aims to speed up the development of new reactors.
There is growing recognition that the way politicians talk about climate change, full of jargon and vague language, is part of the problem. “The way to win is to talk about price,” said Senator Schatz, a Hawai’i Democrat who has been a vocal advocate for Climate Action, at a recent York Times event. “You can talk about the emergency and mitigation and adaptation, and you can throw in some environmental justice, and by the time you’re done talking, people think you don’t care about them.”
While the “Energy Energy” debate is in vogue, not everyone is convinced that it resonates with voters. “Voters can tell when enthusiasm is behind it, and it’s not neutral about the poison of the climate that says ‘” “Beapcelight’s post says.
“We found it a provocative way to find a way to communicate,” Easton said. But he thinks there’s still room for Democrats to speak up on the issue. “When you have an issue as important as climate change, but it’s a problem, you have to think creatively about how you approach it and the policy perspective.”
This story was originally published by Grist with an article titled Why Democrats Don’t Talk About Climate Change Too Much on Oct 21, 2025.
