Donald Trump isn’t exactly Don Quixote, but he does have an anti-windmill stance.
Indeed, President Trump’s hostility to wind power is one of the strangest obsessions of a man with many unusual interests (toilets! Hairspray!). He has falsely claimed for years that wind turbines can cause cancer, can cause power outages, and that wind energy “kills birds” (cats and windows are far more harmful). I’ve been doing it. He now says if he wins in November, he will issue an executive order putting the brakes on offshore wind farm construction “on day one.”
President Trump has claimed, without evidence, that such wind farms are whalers, but if you think he cares about whales anyway, I’d recommend Truth Social. I own the stock, so why not buy it?
But President Trump’s mental windmills aside, there is a broader story here that goes far beyond the former president. It is the astonishing narrow-mindedness of many in power, and the danger it poses to both American democracy and the future of the planet.
First, a word about wind. Over the past 15 years or so, we have seen revolutionary advances in renewable energy technology. The idea of ​​an economy dependent on solar and wind power has gone from a hippie fantasy to a realistic policy goal. Not only has the cost of renewable power generation come down; Related technologies, especially storage batteries, have greatly contributed to solving the problem that the sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow.
And while renewable energy, like almost everything in the modern economy, has some impact on the environment—certainly there are birds that fly into wind turbines—these effects are difficult to focus on, even if we ignore climate change. Even if we hit the target, the damage would be insignificant compared to the damage caused by burning fossil fuels. It only covers the health effects of pollutants such as suspended particulate matter and nitrous oxide.
So why would President Trump want to block such a highly beneficial technological advancement? His motives aren’t really all that mysterious.
First, it’s greedy. Fossil fuel producers remain significant contributors to the campaign and have a financial stake in blocking or slowing down policies that move us toward renewable energy. (And that often seems to override concerns about whether their grandchildren will inherit a livable planet.) At a dinner with oil company executives in April, Trump told his campaign It would encourage people to donate $1 billion in exchange for reversing many of President Biden’s policies. environmental policy.
But it’s not just about money. Like almost everything else, environmental protection is embroiled in culture wars. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday slammed “wokeness,” a law aimed at shutting down Florida’s government, which has recently made headlines for its anti-artificial meat movement and is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. signed. So much so that insurance companies avoid considering this issue when formulating their policies.
But more than that, wind power is personal to Trump. His hatred of turbines can be traced back to a feud more than a decade ago when he tried to bully Scottish politicians into halting construction of an offshore wind farm because it would spoil the view from his golf course. It will be done. Although he was unable to prevent the construction of a wind farm, it appears that it ultimately did not hurt the value of his property. But it doesn’t matter. His self-esteem seems to have been hurt. And all signs point to him being prepared to inflict significant economic and environmental damage to assuage his insulted pride.
I wish I could say that this dynamic is uniquely Trumpian. But that’s not the case.
The power of plutocracy’s vileness was brought into sharp focus during the Obama administration, when many wealthy financiers were outraged by a president who objectively had done nothing to deserve it. On the contrary, he helped rescue many of them from the consequences of the financial crisis they had caused. But he occasionally dared to say that Wall Street was actually contributing to the crisis, and generally didn’t seem to treat wealthy bankers with the extreme respect they deserved.
As I wrote at the time, what men who can afford anything desire, more than money itself, is to be admired. And when we don’t understand that, we often go politically insane.
We’ve seen this trajectory among some of the tech establishments in Silicon Valley. Although they are still incredibly wealthy, they are no longer the cultural darlings they once were. Elon Musk’s forays into the realm of conspiracy theories are more flamboyant than most, but he’s far from alone. And it seems likely that a significant portion of the tech elite will support Mr. Trump (or Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who could spoil 2024) in the coming months.
So while Trump is a classic example of making politics personal, he is not unique in foisting petty grievances onto his policy positions. And because money buys power, even plutocrats with no interest in becoming president can do great damage.
However, there is a good chance that Trump will regain the White House. And if you do, beware of the consequences of his fragile ego.
