Tom Friedman is right about something. This is what happens when you elect a president who thinks he can resurrect the world of 50 years ago and a political majority that is solely organized around their tribal identity:
The Chinese simply can’t believe their luck: that at the dawn of the electricity-guzzling era of artificial intelligence, the U.S. president and his party have decided to engage in one of the greatest acts of strategic self-harm imaginable. They have passed a giant bill that, among other craziness, deliberately undermines America’s ability to generate electricity through renewables — solar, battery and wind power in particular.
And why? Because they view those as “liberal” energy sources, even though today they are the quickest and cheapest ways to boost our electricity grid to meet the explosion of demand from A.I. data centers.
It is exactly the opposite of what China is doing. Indeed, Beijing may have to make July 4 its own national holiday going forward: American Electricity Dependence Day.
Don’t worry. Trump is bringing back coal and gas guzzlers and that will make America great again.
There’s a lot to hate in this disastrous legislation — the suffering from the cuts to the safety net and the terror of the impending police state are horrific. But the dismantling of scientific research and the energy industries of the future is the most destructive in the long term. The country will be vastly behind our competitors, for sure. But we will also be hastening climate change in ways that are going to be impossible to reverse and destroying our own ability function in the future.
And it’s all because these Trump thinks windmills aren’t solar farms are ugly and the cretins running our government think they are “liberal.” (Also they are very stupid people of low character.)