No. of Recommendations: 9
Red states lead the nation in wind electrical generation. Now they should prepare for a disproportionate rise in electricity prices:
Furthermore, to the extent that Trump has offered any specifics on energy policy, they involve a promise to destroy one of the major sources of American success. From the new White House issues page:
President Trump’s energy policies will end leasing to massive wind farms that degrade our natural landscapes and fail to serve American energy consumers.
Wind power has actually been a huge success story, a major source of rising U.S. energy production. It now generates 10 percent of our electricity, overall, and much more than that in some states — mostly, as it happens, red states. Trump is, in effect, promising to raise his own supporters’ electricity bills:Graph of wind generated electricity production by state:
substackcdn.com - F auto,q auto:good,fl progressive:steepBut Trump hates windmills, because the government of Scotland once rejected his demands that it cancel an offshore wind farm that, he claimed, spoiled the view from a golf course he owned. Oh, and since when has he been deeply concerned about natural landscapes?
So what’s going on with the proclamation that American energy production, which is one of our economic strong points, is in crisis?
Partly it’s a cynical payoff to the oil industry, which more or less openly made a deal to give Trump $1 billion in return for reduced taxes and environmental regulation.
But I also believe that it reflects MAGA brain, the belief that the only way you can get results is by being tough and nasty, avoiding anything that might be considered woke. Thus, to achieve energy independence, we must put aside worries about pollution and climate change while blocking clean energy.
So administrations that care about climate change and the environment in general must be crippling the energy sector. Biden may have presided over record oil production and growing energy exports, but we’ll just say that we have an energy emergency anyway.
I’ve long been a fan of a very old quote from Sweden’s Count Oxenstierna: “Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?” Four centuries later, that remains as true as ever. But I might modify it to say, with how little wisdom and how much pettiness.In addition to pettiness, I’m beginning to believe that Trump’s strong suits are cruelty and stupidity, and that these are precisely the qualities that MAGA cherishes, as they pull out their guns, take careful and precise aim, before shooting themselves (and the rest of us) in the foot.
