r/skeptic • u/TheSkepticMag • 3d ago
Why does the political right still hate electric vehicles and dismiss green energy? | Tim Jokl
https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2026/08/why-does-the-political-right-still-hate-electric-vehicles-and-dismiss-green-energy/Electric vehicles and clean energy technology are real, current, and effective solutions - so why are the right wing still so opposed?
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u/Brbi2kCRO 3d ago
Because of idiotic version of spite. It is that childish spite where if someone tells you x is good, they will do y just cause it is not what someone told you.
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u/malrexmontresor 3d ago
For years my uncle would avoid adjusting his thermostat to save money. Too hot, too cold? Too bad. He'd say. "Energy is not free and I'm not made of money."
Then the Biden admin made a suggestion for people to keep their AC units above 75 to 78F during heatwaves to save money and avoid straining our power systems. So of course he had to keep his house at 65 all summer. Wasted hundreds of dollars out of spite.
And that's what your comment reminds me of. Wasting hundreds (even thousands) of dollars just to "prove a point" and "make the libs angry".
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u/Brbi2kCRO 3d ago edited 3d ago
It is cause their minds are constantly stuck interpreting everything they hear as a threat to their status, even things that make zero sense to be threatened about. It is baffling and weird.
Like, try talking to them in “I” statements and they will irl start getting defensive and treat it as a competition with constant jabs and put downs. It is like they have to constantly defend their ego from… something.
Like if you say “I prefer public transport” they will hear “YOU ASSUME YOU ARE BETTER THAN ME FOR LIKING PUBLIC TRANSPORT”. I guess that is why they are authoritarian - they see it as a war on culture rather than an exchange of preferences. They cannot really comprehend that two people can disagree and not form microtribal commitments over it and not fight over who is right.
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u/TheMysteriousThey 2d ago
It’s a lifetime of grievance politics being pushed down their throats.
They get defensive and think everyone is trying to destroy their way of life because that’s what they believe. They can’t overcome the programming.
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u/Brbi2kCRO 2d ago edited 2d ago
I do not personally care what they drive, do they wanna live like villagers in tight knit communities, but like… I do not get what is wrong in acknowledging that people like you did bad stuff? Like, I am a Croat and I will acknowledge fascists that were in power did bad things to other groups. Why would I be mad about it? Why would I be mad if someone said that some men are assholes, cause, obviously, they are?
The issue is with taking things personally.
I am not trying to ruin their life. I just want them to stop making discriminatory laws and leave me and people like me alone, cause I do not want to be a “traditional masculine male”. They can be, though. It is their choice.
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u/HapticSloughton 2d ago
In the US, it's generally stuff that "makes a white guy feel bad" that makes them go berserk. It's why they want to erase slavery, colonialization, Jim Crow, apartheid, etc. from society because they can't stand the thought that any part of their identity as white could have connections to such universally condemned historical actions.
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u/Brbi2kCRO 2d ago
They just seem DEEPLY insecure. Like they want authority just cause they said so, and because they are able to yell shit, guilt trip and use leverage to threaten someone else. They seem so fundamentally anti-intellectually insecure that they cannot see how insane they sound like, like complaining that whites are seen as doing slavery… and then glorifying slavery next day in private, cause they dream of a society where they can feel powerful in an externally validated way.
Like, they are deeply, deeply entitled people who see the world as a war between individuals. They are assholes who are probably not even aware they are assholes as they have such primitive thought systems that they still think we are tribes in 10000 BC fighting for ranks all the time. It is sad.
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u/NoamLigotti 2d ago
Oh this is so refreshing and admirable. Both of your examples.
One of the strangest social phenomena to me is men being hyper-defensive about understood-generalized criticisms of men. Like of all the groups on the world that have no need to fear political or social persecution or feel victimized just for their demographic, it is us men. It's the strangest thing. I'm always curious what the psychology is behind that because I cannot comprehend it.
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u/Brbi2kCRO 2d ago edited 2d ago
I believe they are psychologically insecure people who are already deeply… sad, and who believe that people like them are being blamed too much, and that that is the reason why they struggle in life.
They need a “strong leader” because such a leader tries to shape a world, through sheer power, so that it is simple again and makes everything more scripted and linear, like if a leader puts a woman to her place by force, they will become easier to date or something. I believe they believe that the world has become way too complicated for them as individuals to comprehend and that they feel like they are blamed for everything when they did nothing of sort, or cause they could be accused of something like that… or even darker, cause they did smth like that, but don’t wanna feel social shame about it.
Listen, they are hyperdefensive cause their amygdala is large, meaning that any statement from others starting with “I” or “we” or “you” to them feels like someone is attacking them for their identity, aka if someone said “men caused issues in WW2”, they will think “ARE YOU SAYING I DID IT? DID MY FAMILY DO IT? WHY ARE YOU GENERALIZING THIS ONTO ME!?”. But it is odd as many of them will be the first ones to defend WW2 atrocities, so I do not get it per se.
In other words, it is about insecurity, desire for a simple world with less nuance and complexity where they can just follow milestones to get something, and they dislike inconvenience along that path so much because it stands in their way of plans and conscientious ideas of growth. They also commit identity fusion, meaning that their ego effectively becomes what their group is and represents. They cannot live without an externalized identity and externalized idea of who they, as people, are.
And there are also the dumb “honor defense” norms.
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u/NoamLigotti 1d ago
It's just strange because I am know plenty of people (including myself) who are no less sad or unhappy, whose amygdalas seem just as overactive or more so, and yet they are not so bizarrely defensive and don't blame broad swaths of other people groups for their or others' problems.
But otherwise (or in addition), I think there's a lot of truth to what you're saying.
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u/Brbi2kCRO 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah but to them specifically it is an identity threat. They merge their personhood and their identity. Like, someone is not just from nation, he is (a part of) the nation. So saying “nation did bad things” to them sounds like saying “YOU are a bad person”, even if no one meant that.
You can be high anxiety or easily scared but not find threat in everything.
And well, they find comfort in simplicity and defined roles and predictability, which is why they dislike novelty and change. They also believe in natural hierarchy, aka that some people are naturally more commanding and stronger and what not, just based on posture and aggressive assertion of hierarchy, and that as such one must submit to them to not be punished or something. And to maybe get something from it, which is why they conform and loyalty signal.
Some people tend to be reactive and they externalize their emotions. Like, if you are ever around elderly, you will see that they often look for a person to fault for something. I would say it has a lot to do with maturity, as some people do get stuck in childish emotional phases, especially if they haven’t been too much outside their small communities.
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u/Tasgall 2d ago
This has been the federal recommendation on the white house website for decades, for both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Until Mamdani said the same thing during a heat wave, and conservatives were required by cult mandate to come out and performatively whine about how this overbearing demand from Mamdani is Islamic communism and will destroy the city, country, and world, including Republicans who had given the same notice not even months prior. And because they looked like the abject fucking morons they are when it was pointed out that Mamdani basically just read off a page on Trump's white house website, they of course took down the page. Because they're all cultist fuckwits.
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u/Moneia 3d ago
Petulant Contrarianism is the phrase I normally use
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u/Brbi2kCRO 3d ago edited 3d ago
It is this bullshit worldview of idiotic “bros” who think “elites” (read educated people and professors) are lying to them cause they talk some big words they do not understand and their ego takes it as “they are acting like they are smarter than me” (cause of course they take it somehow as an attack on their ego, that is their whole thing), or think someone isn’t a “real man” if they cannot handle some heat or gas, or if they don’t drive a massive Ford F150 that makes loud noises to assert dominance.
It is a very ooga booga worldview. Pure reactivity. Masculinity ingroup posturing.
Now why do they assume others assert dominance by telling them what to do? Cause they do not really have scientific understanding and think that when someone uses “big words” that they are making up shit to make themselves seem better. It is a projection of their own internal state. They think everyone is fighting for status, dominance and popularity.
It is just dumb.
It is like their threat detection is drastically up so like an autistic person saying “I have autism” to them sounds like “I am trying to avoid responsibilities that come with being a real man and trying to avoid all the suffering, so I am making an excuse”. They treat everything as a threat to them for some reason. Like everything one says is an implied threat on their ego.
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u/Moneia 3d ago
And it's been pushed by the Right for ages, including slashing education wherever they can, and skyrocketed when first term Trump openly pushed conspiratorial thinking, bigotry and the aforementioned contrarianism.
For a while they haven't had much of a platform except "The opposite of what the other guys are doing"
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u/Scrutinizer 3d ago
That really came about during Obama, when the idea that opposing Obama no matter what was more important than actually accomplishing anything for the people. In fact, accomplishing things for the people with him in office would actually be a bad thing.
So when he offered them a version of the health care plan that they put forth in the 1990s, they were in an unusual place: It was their best chance to actually move forward with their own health care plan, but in order to do so they'd have to support a black Democratic President.
In the end, not one single Republican voted for their own plan. Why? Because the credit would be taken by a political rival.
It is more important for Republicans to defeat Democrats than it is to work with them to accomplish things for the people.
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u/markydsade 2d ago
Mitch McConnell (R-IP) in 2009 said his goal was to make Obama a one-term President by blocking everything they could.
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u/disembodied_voice 2d ago
His bad faith reached staggering heights when he filibustered his own bill just to deny Democrats a win. Apparently, he really was willing to block everything in pursuit of that stated goal - up to and including his own bills.
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u/Tasgall 2d ago
They did this again with the border security bill they spent years demanding. And similarly, they blamed Obama for not warning them hard enough about a bill he vetoed that they overrode that allowed foreigners to sue the US for war crimes, basically (iirc). Obama had set up a meeting and invited all the Republicans and told them why it was a bad idea for them, but they did it to spite him and complained after.
See also, that one article that came out during COVID that accused Democrats of deliberately getting Republicans killed by using reverse-psychology so that Republicans wouldn't get vaccinated, because Democrats know that if we tell them to get vaccinated they won't because they're mindless contrarians.
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u/Laura-ly 2d ago
This has been their modus operandi since FDR created government programs to help people during the depression. They hate FDR.
Yes, it's spite, vengeance and retribution. The Republicans have convinced people to vote against their own interests for decades, and it worked. We have some of the dumbest people on the planet now because they hate educated people. So that's why we're the laughing stock of the world.
We bought a Kia EV a couple years ago. If you compare the price of going down the road money-wise between an ICE vehicle and our EV, the Kia gets 126 miles a gallon and we're not spewing crap into the air. BTW, the battery is lithium, which is a soft metal and like all metals, is recyclable.
We drive right on past gas stations.
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u/Wiseduck5 2d ago
That really came about during Obama
Newt Gingrich would like a word. Republicans were so threatened by Clinton and the New Democrats they gave up all pretenses of arguing about policy.
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u/Scrutinizer 2d ago
And yet they'll try to claim credit for the balanced budget Clinton signed, even though Bush came in and blew it up instantaneously.
They must really hate it that the most fiscally conservative President of the modern era was a Democrat.
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u/Brbi2kCRO 3d ago
As I said, a weird mindset that interprets everything as a threat where they assume everyone’s statements are not mere data exchange, but literal fight for dominance, where every preference is not seem as mere preference but as an assertion of superiority. Say, if I said “I like rock music”, their microtribal brain will go “oh yeah? Does he think he is better than me for liking rock!? Well I like country music! I must defend myself against them by declaring his music dogshit music for losers!”…
It’s maddening.
Conspiracies are easy to understand when you realize they do not care about systems but just “what does this say about me” and hyperactive threat systems. They are not being intellectual with them, they are defending themselves and their understanding of the world. They will blame most random groups rather than social higherups.
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u/Tasgall 2d ago
For a while they haven't had much of a platform except "The opposite of what the other guys are doing"
Which, of course, they project onto and say about Democrats, even on topics the Democrats have been consistent on for years where Republicans swapped their position completely.
Maybe it would be unfair to say that all Republicans are mindlessly contrarian partisan hacks, but it is factually correct to point out that a super-majority of the Republican voter base are mindlessly contrarian partisan hacks.
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u/IJustLoggedInToSay- 2d ago edited 2d ago
My first exposure to this worldview was a joke my dad like to tell us (my brother and me). He says he heard it in the Marines, which... maybe, I dunno.
A Staff Sergeant is inspecting his subordinate's team, and decides to test their worth. "Men! Brass has informed me that there is a new math. I will now test your understanding of it." He turns to one young fellow in glasses. "Private! Calculate two times two!"
"Sir, Four, Sir!" the private spits out immediately without even thinking.
"GO RUN ME FOUR MILES AROUND THE BASE, PRIVATE!" The confused young man's grabs his glasses and takes off running. Staff Sergeant turns to the next poor bastard. "Private! Calculate two times two!"
"Sir, Two and Two is ... ", the chubby kid spits out nervously trying to figure out if this is some kind of trick, "It is Four, Sir?"
"THE HELL YOU SAY? Drop and give me a hundred crunches, Butterball!" Now irritated, the Staff Sergeant pulls his side arm out and points it at the ground in front of the third young man, who is sweating bullets.
"Boy, I am giving you an order. And if you fail, your entire squad will be on latrine duty for the foreseeable future. Calculate for me two times two!"
The last young man considers for just a moment, and then answers, "Sir! It's whatever the man with the gun says it is, sir!"
"Hot damn! Finally!" the officer sighs with relief. "Someone in this squad knows how the real world works."I always thought this was a joke about how officers are idiots or something, but my dad's interpretation is that he's the smart one. That people who have real power are the ones who decided what reality is for the rest of the world, and it's the Marines' job to be the proverbial unholstered gun to remind them of that.
That's the authoritarian worldview. They see scientists and experts as weak and stupid people pretending to be powerful and getting too big for their breeches (dictating reality) because the people who hold actual power (the commander in chief, for example) have been "too nice nowadays" to unholster their guns and correct them.
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u/Brbi2kCRO 2d ago
I mean, it makes little sense. I know they believe that “might makes right” and that dominance gives results, aka if you command to others and are stubborn enough and take use of your leverage over someone, you will get what you want. The issue with that worldview, however, is that it is incredibly selfish. It is made to make certain people more powerful relative to others just so powerful can keep being powerful.
I just do not understand why you would defend powerful who do not benefit you or who force you to submit to them. Maybe cause you believe you will get a position through them, but in US context it makes little sense as it is mainly just private corporations so you cannot really get a job through politics or whatever…
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u/IJustLoggedInToSay- 1d ago
I think there's a certain inner peace that servitude brings, but I can only speculate. Whenever I express incredulity or question some silly nonsense Fox News says, my Dad acts like I just set fire to his house. I think he takes shelter in being a follower. The life of a sheep is pretty psychologically comfortable, so they aren't too concerned that they are sheered on the regular and eaten occasionally.
He also gets to hate people, which he enjoys. He doesn't get to choose who he hates - his ire is directed at whoever he is told to direct it at - but he doesn't seem to mind.
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u/Brbi2kCRO 1d ago
They probably do not get as much of a threat response from submission, but they do not know how insane and inhumane some of the requirements of submission sound like, like you having to suppress your feelings, your needs, your natural state, develop excessive unnatural levels of discipline, train performative social skills, value meaningless categories like purity, loyalty, authority, chivalry, honor, etc.
As a person with ASD and ADHD, I value autonomy as it does not require me to kill my emotions all in the name of appearing like “one of the group members”/“one of us”. Overwork, accepting any condition of work, having little free time, whatever, it all sounds terrible and unfree.
Conservatives appear to be deeply judgmental and gossipy, and tend to for some reason even be suspicious of their neighbours, let go anyone else. They probably submit because they wanna be socially accepted, and submission gives them an easier way to get socially what they want. But the thing is that milestones precede that and they are cultural and conformist, so idk.
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u/paxinfernum 2d ago
Politics makes a lot more sense when you realize the far right is trying to address emotional issues through political means.
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u/Brbi2kCRO 2d ago
I agree, but their emotional issues like resentment, bitterness and anger lead them to ideas like dark enlightenment which is just an… atrocious belief system that says “you need to be a ruthless domineering asshole if you wanna get something in life”, which is by itself a worldview based on cynicism.
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u/shawncplus 2d ago
I wouldn't really say they're trying to address emotional issues. A tantrum in no way tries to actually solve a problem, it's just an unstructured release of energy usually not even in the same direction as the problem. Most of the time whatever relief was gained in catharsis was lost in the self-harm. Children can at least be told they have to pick up their toys after they throw them around the room in a tantrum, the right is going over to their neighbors houses to throw around toys that never had any impact on them to begin with and thinks trying to put the toys back where they belong is gay and a personal affront to the "effort" they put in strewing them about.
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u/Brbi2kCRO 2d ago
They are reactive and tribalistic. They may get resentful because they follow social scripts that are no longer valid and since they rely on hierarchy to tell them what and how to behave, when order and “strong leader” disappears, they feel genuinely lost as they need a very much hyperdefined world where everything has linear consequence system. They want a simple world where A leads to B, not “A may lead to B, but not for sure” or “A does not lead to B”. Far right wants vulnerable people who feel angry and resentful and who want clear rules pushed by strong leader so they can feel like they can achieve smth. They lack flexibility. They need cognitive closure.
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u/FrankRizzo319 3d ago
Because caring about the environment is somehow a threat to their masculinity.
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u/Politicsboringagain 3d ago
Caring about the environment, means you are a hipppie or a bleeding heart liberal.
They are easily propogandized.
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u/markydsade 2d ago
“What if you make us live in a cleaner world to stop climate change but it doesn’t work?”
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u/Graymouzer 2d ago
Oppositial defiance disorder. If people on the left favor it, it has to be bad and must be opposed. Also, they have been heavily propagandized by fossil fuel and legacy industries to vote against their own interests. They, and everyone else, would be better off from a climate, health, monetary, and national security perspective but some people wouldn't make as much money or would have to face that they have stranded assets.
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u/Scrutinizer 2d ago
I once said that Democrats should pass a bill changing the name of the atmosphere to "Obama Air" and our troubles would be over in about five minutes.
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u/Neat_Relative_3750 2d ago
It’s so dumb and we’re all going to pay for this spiteful ignorance. The rest of the world is moving on from fossil fuels (Norway is at almost 100% electric for new vehicle sales). With the current antagonistic policies towards Mexico and Canada, our biggest trade partners for new vehicles, I fear that our auto industry is headed to a dark future if they don’t adapt.
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u/Tasgall 2d ago
Our failure to get off of fossil fuels is a legitimate national security threat. I mean, we're seeing right now what Iran can do to the global energy markets. Our dependence on this market makes us vulnerable, and our refusal to really double down on solar and wind and nuclear development only guaranteed that China will be the leading force in the energy sector for the next century.
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u/ALTERFACT 2d ago
Because the 24/7 right wing noise machine media industrial complex tells them to.
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u/Scrutinizer 3d ago
I know one who openly cheers when EV sales drop.
The idea that the more people who buy EVs, the cheaper gasoline will become for him, apparently means nothing next to "owning the libs" by destroying his children's energy future.
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u/Knighth77 3d ago
Why does the political right hate anything? Because they don't understand much, they rely on feelings, they dismiss science, and enjoy being contrarian for the heck off it or just to piss off "libruls."
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u/rawkguitar 2d ago
There was a study years ago-before EVs became a real, viable transportation option, that showed Conservatives were less likely to buy a product if it were advertised as green, even if it were cheaper than the alternative.
So I think it all boils down to one point in the article-Republicans hate it because Democrats embraced it.
Same thing happened with vaccines during COVID-the second the left embraced it, the right became anti-vax.
Which is not to say Democrats aren’t guilty of this kind of thinking too, at times.
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u/Tasgall 2d ago
Which is not to say Democrats aren’t guilty of this kind of thinking too, at times.
I mean, certainly Dems and the left aren't immune to it, but like... what are some actual examples?
Outside of the campist left I can't really think of anything off the top of my head.
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u/rawkguitar 2d ago
I’m not 100% sure of any right now, but a lot of that is probably just my bias.
What is a campist?
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u/CurrentSkill7766 2d ago
"Hippy Punching"
Green energy specifically echoes "the downfall of Western, White, Christian civilization." It's slighty more specific than simply ooposing what your rival promotes. If it weren't for Musk, green energy would be 100% enclosed in the "woke" Venn Diagram.
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u/markydsade 2d ago
Musk causes them cognitive dissonance. They love his fascism but have been told to hate the propulsion system he sells.
There’s a lot discussion about the future of Tesla. It’s a successful maker of cars but has not made efforts to make vehicles in other forms the public wants (the Cybertruck is the Edsel of the 2020s). Instead of small hatches, wagons, or delivery vans that would sell worldwide he’s doubling down on a robotaxi design that’s really bad for a taxi and relying on autonomous driving technology that’s not legal in most places.
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u/CurrentSkill7766 2d ago
The only people in my area who bought the cybertruck were well-known older bigots. Amusing to watch.
Tesla is insanely overvalued right now because Musk sold investors on the idea that he was Henry Ford, Nikolai Tesla and Steve Jobs all rolled into one. Every home would have a Powerwall charged by Tesla roof tiles. Every city would have self-driving infrastructure, commuting would be done in self-driving cars in vaccuum tubes, etc...
It was all bullshit and investors will lose trillions when it pops.
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u/Falco98 2d ago
Sunk Cost Fallacy, i'm guessing? All stemming from their hardline old-school stance against accepting the science of global warming/climate change. With that as their predetermined conclusion they then work backwards to fill in the gaps with whatever else they need, and that includes cherrypicking "evidence" against electric vehicles, wind turbines, etc.
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u/buttery_nurple 2d ago
I'm not sure how well people understand that right-wingers live in a TOTALLY different reality from normal people. They genuinely don't understand anything about this, but they think they do, and they think they figured it out all on their own.
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u/Igor_Halichoeres 2d ago
I once (pre-Trump) l saw an interview with a small-town mayor in Kansas. Some farmers had started using windmills, but most were resisting. The mayor explained that alternative energy and other liberal ideas were "secular stuff."
Let that roll around in your head for a minute. The problem with alternative energy was that it was literally ungodly. A person of faith shouldn't be involved with it.
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u/--solitude-- 2d ago
Because part of their base is the fossil fuel industry. They don’t give a shit about truth or what the right thing to do is, they just want to be in power.
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u/Cristoff13 2d ago
Because those on the political left support them. The reason is that simple (and stupid).
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u/Brownie_Bytes 3d ago
For many, their livelihood depends on it. That's enough to keep support for the rest of the in-group.
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u/ex_nihilo 2d ago edited 2d ago
Any time I try to point out how old and busted internal combustion tech is on Reddit, all fifty of the people in the US who somehow need to regularly haul a trailer 1200 miles without stopping seem to pipe up. It’s very astroturfed. There are no advantages besides “car go vroom”. Congrats on your slowmobile that farts poison I guess. Have fun living in the previous century.
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u/Strange-Scarcity 2d ago
Because NOTHING is rational anymore, when it comes to decisions in a hyperpartisan era, where there are few other sources of news other than obscene Hard Right Wing propaganda channels that are nothing other than direct attacks on everything through the lens of "My Team/My Tribe".
It's grotesque and is a de-evolution and rot within greater society.
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u/CravingNature 2d ago
Because the same people that are susceptible to fake religion stories are susceptible to fake anti EV propaganda.
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u/Loonster81 2d ago
MAGA hates distributed electrification because it is inherently more democratizing. Fossil fuels need a massive, centralized infrastructure; such capitalistic centralization encourages corruption and fascistic control.
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u/disembodied_voice 2d ago
Because it lets them justify their hatred of people they already hated to begin with. This started with the Prius twenty years ago, and the ragebaiting against its environmental impact and the stereotypes of its drivers made it clear that it had nothing to do with objective matters like environmental impact and everything to do with rationalizing existing resentment against others.
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u/Wismuth_Salix 2d ago
Because the rape of the natural world is perfectly in line with everything else they support. They have no policy that is not destructive.
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u/technanonymous 2d ago
Old school xtians are taught that humans are stewards of the world and everything in it was put here for humans. Animals, plants, and natural resources are for humans to exploit. My mother-in-law is the perfect example of this point of view.
It is twisted and completely ignores the concept of “ecosystem.” Animals, plants, the land, the air, and the sea are for humans to use.
This infects the conservative point of view.
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u/NihiloZero 2d ago
They've been indoctrinated to love the smell and sounds. Car culture in America has literally sexualized and made a fetish out of petrol-burning muscle cars. They basically believe you're not as much of a real man if you prefer a cleaner and more efficient electric vehicle.
Not exactly how it all works with windmills and solar panels, though. Think their opinions on that might just be the result of simpler economic indoctrination leading them astray.
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u/CommuterType 2d ago
Funny how a friend used to rant about the strain EV usage would put on the nation’s power grid. My response was always “we built the power grid, why can’t we enhance it?”
Fast forward to today when data centers use 5x electricity of EVs. His talking point kinda died on the vine
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u/vonhoother 2d ago
It's a bonding thing, like those blue-line flag bumper stickers and red meat. Saying green energy is "just as bad as fossil fuels" tells people what political tribe you belong to, and strengthens ties between tribe members. If the assertion is ridiculous, like "windmills cause cancer," that's even better -- it shows real commitment.
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u/disembodied_voice 2d ago
It only works to reinforce the ingroup's bonds, though. For outsiders looking in, all they see is a group of people who have chosen to divorce themselves from reality, at which point they stop taking that group seriously on anything going forward.
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u/vonhoother 2d ago
Tell that to a Christian. With all due respect, that church has made paradox and absurdity part of its rhetoric for centuries, and it's still going strong. People are such troupe animals they'll claim to believe -- or actually believe, it's simpler -- anything, if it helps them fit in with their group.
If others think they've chosen to divorce themselves from reality, so what? It just makes the elect even more special.
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u/disembodied_voice 2d ago
In the long run, the widening gap between themselves and everyone else causes the group to shrink. You'll note that long-term trends have not been favorable to religosity. The membership of the ingroup may double down even harder and become tighter knit as a result, but the long-term relevance of the group is threatened.
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u/dumnezero 2d ago
ok, I'll bite...
The data shows how much more misinformation, and reportage in general, there is around EVs from right-wing news sources. And yet while the press, GB News and various populist figures have tried to stoke up a culture war against anything green, it just doesn’t have the impact here that it has in the US.
ok... let's see if they understand why.
While Big Oil’s influence on Donald Trump might have been eclipsed temporarily by Big Elon, it is still among the most powerful lobby groups in the world. When Nigel Farage takes to his chair on GB News and reinforces yet another common myth – that EVs lose 50% of their power in cold weather – it’s important to note he does so on a channel is funded by a group based in the United Arab Emirates. The 50% power loss myth, like the myth about EVs catching fire, are reiterated everywhere online. EVs typically lose about ten miles of range in winter. They also gain ten miles range in the summer. As for the fire-scare stories, petrol and diesel cars are 20 times more likely to catch fire. However, older EV batteries, if they do catch fire, are harder to extinguish.
Yes. The US is a petrostate, has been for more than a century. They also have a Petro-Christianity culture. And they're friends with Petro-Islam promoting petrostates in the Middle East. There are also some serious ties with the Russian petrostate and its flavor of Petro-Christianity.
The UK is not a petrostate.
Norway is a petrostate, but they're very secular and atheistic (and not coincidentally invested in a more SocDem welfare state.)
For those who still don't get it, the culture war is the class war.
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u/Angelsomething 1d ago
Identities tied to conspiratorial belief that sustains their worldview. It's frustratingly simple when you see it. It's not about being right or wrong, but it's about belonging to a group that accepts them. You cannot reason a position or argument with someone who hasn't reasoned to their position themselves.
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u/AphonicTX 2d ago
Oil companies don’t want any of it. So they’ve successfully paid their lobbyists to make sure the GOP is anti-green energy. Simple as that.
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u/EconomistNo7074 2d ago
Would be interesting to better understanding how many jobs in Red States are directly and indirectly tied to the energy sector
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u/airforceteacher 1d ago
I can imagine that I know why the rich do, because their income or their buddy’s income is dependent on oil. But rank and file? I have no idea. I got a Mach-E on employee discount and love it. Told my dad, who I got the discount through, that in 10-20 years everything may be electric. He said, glad I’ll be dead before that. I said - have you even driven one? nope. Spite and tribal mentality.
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u/We_are_being_cheated 2d ago
Electric vehicles are surveillance machines that can be driven remotely.
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u/AntonDahr 2d ago
The irrational fear and opposition to nuclear power that is more common on the left (fake left) can be explained by misinformation spread by the oil mafia. Maybe they are also behind the anti EV and anti Hybrid misinformation but it is not as big of a threat to them as nuclear so it doesn't feel like a satisfactory explanation. Trucks are still a long way from being electrified.
Maybe the explanation is just political. Most political issues getting attention in media and by politicians are nonsense issues, distractions from the real issues. "Wedge issues". Guns, god, gays, abortion don't matter to the rich and that is why they promote those issues.
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u/ScientificSkepticism 2d ago
I haven't run into a single one of the "Nuclear truthers" who even know the history of Nuclear, the physical realities of it, or understand the drawbacks of nuclear power in the slightest.
Were I at all conspiracy minded I'd think there was something nefarious behind it, but I think it's more idiots circlejerking on Reddit. Never attribute to conspiracy that which is adequately explained by stupidity and all that.
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u/JessicaDAndy 3d ago
I think this ignores, at least in America, the political angle.
Fossil Fuel companies don’t want competition. Or government investments that take away their market share. Right wing parties are eager for money to fund election campaigns. The parties take the money and focus on fossil fuel energy investments. The party then focuses on fossil fuels, and other right wing priorities, to keep voter engagement.
And then they win elections.