Sen. Mike Lee took the Senate floor on Tuesday to present images of Ronald Reagan riding a velociraptor, Aquaman’s sea horse, and Luke Skywalker on the back of a Tauntaun. Lee used the amusing visuals to jab at the equally silly Green New Deal before the Senate’s procedural vote on the questionable legislation.
“The aspirations of the proposal have been called radical and extreme. But mostly they are ridiculous,” Lee said.
.@SenMikeLee #charts for "Green New Deal" debate … pic.twitter.com/kMmQna2SCc
— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) March 26, 2019
The senator from Utah addressed just two of the most ridiculous goals of the policy spear-headed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: eliminating airplanes and cows. Lee explained that eliminating air travel would leave Alaskans to travel by Tauntaun, a snow lizard species found in the Star Wars universe, and Hawaiians to travel by giant sea horse, just like the superhero Aquaman.
Lee admitted that while sea horses would be really cool, we must consider factors like scalability, and domestic capacity. “The last thing we want is to ban all airplanes, and only then find out that China or Russia have already established strategic hippocampus programs designed to cut the United States out of the global market,” he said. “Mr. President, we must not allow a giant seahorse gap!”
Lee’s striking visuals were employed to emphasize that the Green New Deal is not a policy document worth taking seriously. He mocked the Green New Deal’s failed roll-out, when staff accidentally published an unfinished draft, and called the ideas a “token of elite tribal identity.” Both proponents of the Green New Deal and of Tauntauns rebuked Lee for his hyperbolic speech.
Ocasio-Cortez criticized Lee for spending money on cartoonish posters.
GOP Senators are using their Congressional allowances to print Aquaman posters for themselves to argue that a #GreenNewDeal saving our nation from climate change is a ‘waste of money’ 😂 https://t.co/iMNY0dJmCy
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 26, 2019
Like many other women + working people, I occasionally suffer from impostor syndrome: those small moments, especially on hard days, where you wonder if the haters are right.
But then they do things like this to clear it right up.
If this guy can be Senator, you can do anything. https://t.co/vU4ChbTnnr
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 26, 2019
Actor Mark Hamill seemed concerned his beloved Tauntaun was being used as a pawn.
Please tell me this is photoshopped. 😩#CongressionalTauntaunPawn https://t.co/oDIuw2bd6x
— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) March 26, 2019
Ultimately, on Tuesday afternoon the much-talked-about bill failed to get the necessary 60 votes in the Senate to begin debate on the non-binding resolution. Democratic senators Joe Manchin, Doug Jones, Kyrsten Sinema, and Angus King joined 53 Republican senators in voting “no.”
Perhaps if we lived in a world where Tauntauns and sea horses were real transportation alternatives, Lee would be more willing to get on board with the Green New Deal’s grand ideas.
