It would be a dark winter for our country as Joe Biden predicts if “low energy” Joe were to be elected president next week, and not just because of his lack of personal vitality. His supporters’ war on our energy industry would throw our economy into a downward tailspin.
Having a president who hides in his basement, and whose mind has declined to the point that he referred to his opponent as “George,” would be bad enough. Our economy would languish under Biden’s demented leadership, and our foreign enemies would exploit the vacuum in the White House.
It is even worse than that. Biden and his California running mate, Kamala Harris, want to cut off affordable energy for all Americans, and force us to live with frequent energy interruptions and rationing as California already has today.
Californians living under the control of Democrats already suffer from frequent power blackouts. In August and again this week, crippling blackouts rattled the state which has intentionally decreased its own access to traditional energy.
Biden and Harris are beholden to the radical California environmentalists who are enemies of traditional energy: coal, oil, and natural gas. They want to regulate away the heart of our economy on which millions of jobs and our productivity depend.
This assault on traditional energy is led by coastal California, which enjoys revenue from smartphones and internet censorship, against the “Rust Belt” manufacturing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. As President Trump points out at his rallies, manufacturing needs traditional energy to fuel the factories, as does our overall economy.
Liberals pretend that their opposition to traditional energy is based on what they call the “existential crisis” of climate change, but that is a lie because they also oppose nuclear power, which does not contribute to global warming. The Biden-Harris ticket is really at war with efficient energy.
Their hidden agenda slipped into the open at the final presidential debate, when President Trump asked Biden a question that none of the liberal moderators would ask. “Would you close down the oil industry?”
Biden responded, “I would transition from the oil industry. Yes.”
A gasp by viewers was immediately felt. The Biden-supporting moderator, Kristen Welker of NBC, also seemed dismayed.
“Why would you do that?” she asked Biden. He responded that he would impose net zero emissions in energy production by 2025, which would shut down the entire industry because its carbon emissions are impossible to eliminate or entirely offset.
Flashbacks resulted for older voters to the long, tortuous gas lines of the 1970s amid an energy shortage then. No one wants a return of that crisis.
The moderator tried to pivot away, but this was a bombshell of a revelation by Biden that should cost him millions of votes. As Trump immediately said, “Will you remember that Texas, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Ohio?”
On Monday, Trump held three rallies in Pennsylvania and coal-miners turned out to see him in Martinsburg. Pennsylvania is one of the largest coal producers in the country, and Democrats have already lost neighboring West Virginia over this issue.
But Pennsylvania also has Philadelphia, which is governed by a Democrat political machine. More race riots erupted there on Monday night, giving Americans yet another warning of the failure of law-and-order that would occur under a Biden-Harris administration.
Manufacturing and energy production in Pennsylvania have long propped up the liberals in Philadelphia with subsidies and handouts. The economic backbone of the state in coal-mining, fracking, and manufacturing would suffer enormously if low-energy Joe is elected.
As President, Biden could bankrupt the energy industry by strangling it with regulations through the Environmental Protection Agency and other arms of the administrative state. West Virginia voters have “woken” up to that, and Pennsylvania voters should, too.
The radical environmentalists who control Biden are determined to end fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, which produces oil and natural gas from deposits that were not affordably accessible by traditional drilling. This technology has brought jobs and prosperity to rural communities across the Keystone State.
Neighboring New York bans fracking statewide and there is a stark disparity in prosperity along the Pennsylvania-New York border. On the Pennsylvania side the towns are refurbished with wealth produced by fracking, while on the New York side there is decline and despair.
No environmental harm has ever been found to result from fracking. In contrast, windmills supported by Biden and Harris cause devastation to birds, and the clanking noise of the turbines has caused headaches and worse to those unfortunate enough to live nearby.
President Trump has said that reducing regulations is as important as reducing taxes, and from his first moments in office he has cut the regulatory impediments to our economy. Every regulation is a tax, and Biden would regulate traditional energy to death.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.
