As the world grapples with the existential crisis of climate change, environmental activists want President Joe Biden to phase out the oil industry, and Republicans argue he’s already doing that. Meanwhile, the surprising reality is the United States is pumping oil at a blistering pace and is on track to produce more oil than any country has in history.
I really enjoy that the core idea at the start of the article is “Republicans are just lying. This is surprising!” The result of media (not necessarily this piece but it all feeds off each other) all just functioning as an unquestioning mouthpiece for the state and its actors. “Well, this guy said it, and we MUST continue pretending they have legitimacy and aren’t literally always lying.”
Stuff like this makes me think. The ruling class has access to canonicity that regular people just don’t, so even if we know they’re lying and they know they’re lying to us, we are still obliged to treat their narratives as fact. Republicans said that Biden is cutting off our oil so that’s canon now, end of story.
Is there a red sails essay on this? There’s got to be someone who wrote about this topic in better words than I could express.