Trump's Energy Proposals Reveals Incompetence and Ignorance of Economics

One of the most pressing issues for voters in the United States is the economy. It is important for the future President to have a strong grasp on the various factors affecting the U.S economy. However, Donald Trump's vague proposals regarding the U.S. energy industry show just how inept he really is when it comes to economics.

Coal vs. Natural Gas

Trump claims he wants to take measures to increase coal production in the U.S. in order to rejuvenate the ailing coal industry. However, he also proposes to boost the natural gas industry at the same time in order to create more jobs within that sector. This is all well and good, except the fact that it flies in the face of any contemporary understanding of how energy markets actually work.

Inverse Correlation

Demand in the coal and natural gas markets is inversely correlated. This means that when demand for natural gas goes up, demand for coal goes down. Natural gas and coal act as replacements for one another in the energy markets. Most of this has been caused by dramatic decreases in the price of natural gas due to more efficient natural gas-fired combined-cycle technology. Cheap prices for natural gas make it a more practical choice for many energy producers to meet demand as opposed to using coal. (2)

Fracking

Fracking causes an increase in natural gas consumption by causing dramatic increases in supply of natural gas. Any increase in production of natural gas, as Trump is proposing to do, will result in increasingly lower natural gas prices making coal comparatively even more expensive. More energy producers will start switching from coal to natural gas, further draining the coal industry of jobs. Therefore, it is impossible for Trump to actually be able to do what he proposes, which is to increase both production of natural gas and coal at the same time. (3)

Economists Find Trump's Energy Proposals Implausible and Ignorant

Most economists quickly discredited Trump's proposals for the energy industry. “He [Trump] can't have it both ways – talk up expanding natural gas supply when in North Dakota, and talk about bringing coal mining jobs when in Kentucky!” said Robert N. Stavins, director of the environmental economics program at Harvard. In other words, it is not possible to promise more jobs in the natural gas sector while simultaneously strengthening the coal industry. (1)

Clearly, Trump is either ignorant of how global and energy markets work or he is purposely misleading his followers, opting to consider politics over economics when proposing economic policies. Whichever it is, this shows he is obviously unfit to manage the world's largest economy. Allowing him to do so could bring about extraordinary disaster to the U.S. economy as well as the rest of the world.

Sources

      1. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/28/us/donald-trump-energy-economy.html?_r=0

2. http://www.oilandgas360.com/natural-gas-used-electricity-generation-responsible-low-co2-emissions/
3. http://www.pennenergy.com/articles/pennenergy/2016/05/industrial-and-electric-power-sectors-drive-projected-growth-in-u-s-natural-gas-use.html

The Rise of Trump: From the KKK to the Tea Party

Many in America may be stunned by the sudden rise of a presidential candidate who seems to be purposely pandering to the followers of known white supremacists, such as David Duke. Most political pundits would have considered that political suicide for any contemporary presidential candidate prior to Donald Trump's candidacy. However, Trump's rise is no fluke and had been in the works for about seven years.

Ever since the election of the first Black American President, the right planted the seeds which allowed white supremacists, the KKK and neo-Nazis to gain a significantly stronger voice and influence in American politics. It was the response of right-wing GOP politicians to Obama being elected President which opened the door for white supremacist groups to infiltrate the Republican party, ultimately allowing Trump to appeal to their racist and nativist ideologies in order to win the 2016 GOP nomination.

The Tea Party and Obama

The far right-wing of the GOP, known as the Tea Party, was born in opposition to Obama, the first Black American President. The birth of the Tea Party movement can be traced to one specific moment. One morning in mid-February 2009, Rick Santelli, a former commodities trader and Vice President at Drexel Burnham Lambert was angry over the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan. This Obama Administration proposal would reduce the monthly mortgage payments of 9 million U.S. homeowners who were facing foreclosure at the time. (1)

This prompted Santelli, who had been encouraged by CNBC anchors, to deliver a speech on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. In the speech he accused the government of “promoting bad behavior.” A CNBC anchor likened Santelli to “a revolutionary leader” who was rising up against the oppressive Obama government. Santelli responded by suggesting holding a “Chicago Tea Party” by “dumping in [to Lake Michigan] some derivative securities.” Through this anti-government rant against the Obama Administration, the Tea Party movement was born. (1)

The Tea Party and the Ku Klux Klan

Along with Santelli's anti-government sentiment and anger towards Obama, the resulting Tea Party Movement began incorporating other values into its platform. These values also happened to align with another previous far right-wing movement: the Ku Klux Klan.

The KKK and other white supremacist groups had always espoused inflammatory anti-government sentiments along with their racist ideologies. This could be seen when a Mississippi attorney with ties to the KKK, Carl Ford, made headlines in 2014 after donating to the campaign of Tea Party Republican Chris McDaniel. Ford considered himself “pro-confederacy and anti-Lincoln” while McDaniel had been known to appear at neo-Confederacy conferences. Ford expressed anti-establishment and anti-government sentiment when explaining his support of Tea Party candidates. (4)

Reformed neo-Nazi leader Frank Meeink described in an interview with David Pakman in 2014 about the significant role anti-government sentiment played within the white supremacist movements. In this same interview Meeink described how white supremacist groups were openly encouraging their followers to join the Tea Party movement for the purpose of influencing the ideological slant of the burgeoning right-wing phenomenon. Clearly, the ideas of anti-establishment and anti-government sentiment had begun to blend into each other within the far right-wing movement. (6)

Christianity's Role in the Tea Party and KKK

On the other hand, anti-government and anti-establishment sentiments are not the only ideological parallels between the Tea Party and the KKK. The contemporary Tea Party platform also promotes the idea of America being a “Christian nation” which mirrors the KKK's assertion that “our Nation have no future unless we unite and organize White Christian Patriots.” Forty-seven percent of American Tea Party members also identify themselves with the religious right, according to a recent survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute. Also,75 percent of Americans identifying with the Tea Party movement also call themselves Christian conservatives. (2)(3)(7)

These factors provided the KKK and other white supremacist groups the ideologically fertile ground to plant their seeds and begin their take over of the GOP via the Tea Party. The fruit of these seeds would eventually lead to the rise of Trump. It was not that the white supremacist groups had specifically chosen Trump. They were simply waiting for a candidate who would not be afraid to espouse their racist ideologies via fear-mongering around immigration and their ideas of a “Christian nation” via Islamophobia. Although the Trump campaign may now be looking to soften its rhetoric in preparation of the general election, now that it has clinched the GOP nomination, one should not fall for the media's attempt to sanitize the Trump campaign. At its ideological core and beginnings, the Trump campaign is simply a political puppet of the KKK, white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

Sources

1. https://www.yahoo.com/news/brief-history-tea-party-143629528.html?ref=gs
2. http://traditionalistamericanknights.com/
3. http://www.teaparty.org/about-us/
4. http://www.rawstory.com/2014/06/former-kkk-member-explains-why-he-supports-tea-partys-chris-mcdaniel-in-mississippi/
5. http://www.thenation.com/article/tea-partys-distant-cousin/
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXQFfCNuhms
7. http://www.thenation.com/article/tea-partys-distant-cousin/

Trump's Racism Negative Effect on Children

If you are considering voting Donald Trump for President please think if the children first.