Link: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/17/trump-fossil-fuels-industry

…part of Trump’s love of fossil fuels – and his accompanying hostility to climate change mitigation, green initiatives, and nature conservation – might be less transactional than libidinal. Because to him, part of the appeal of climate-destroying, future-inhibiting, polluting energy industries is not merely that their executives are writing him checks. It’s that he sees these industries, and these forms of energy consumption, as more manly.

He's also the kind of person who doesn't feel like he's winning unless he's making someone else feel like they're losing -- there's no such thing as win-win. So a "rising tide lifts all boats" scenario does nothing for him.

So they are basically saying he is intellectually on a similar level and shares the same views as the BMW driving, lower secondary school graduates with cringe anti-BEV bumper stickers that you can occasionally see while traveling through the rural outbacks?

That's shocking and totally unexpected!

/s

The funny thing is that it turned out that most of the BEVs they are selling now can absolutely smoke any BMW. The image of the electric car is now performance, not ecology. That BMW guy probably drives a Tesla now.

i think it just comes down to him being a petty vindictive little shit over not getting his way back with the offshore wind project in scotland adjacent to property he acquired (after the project was already known and in development) for a golf course.

If I owned land in the area next to his golf course I would be so tempted to rent it out to a group of travellers for £1 a night. The closer and more visible to the golf course the better.

Yes yes, place your caravans all along the borderline by trumps golf course. When he visits make sure you teach him what proper hate speech sounds like.

It's not about logic and reason, though.
That's exactly the point about those exhaust-sniffing, roaring-gasoline-engine-idolizing guys (and also about Trump).

I mean, yeah we know he’s a demented rapist

This article has a massive leap of logic, it alleges that Trump is thinking.

Ignorant and destructive men think ignorance and destruction are masculine qualities.

This is actually makes a surprising amount of sense when you think about it.

What's with conservatives and their love of hyper-masculinity? Are they fucking gay or something?

It's basically like horseshoe-theory, but for sexuality.

The most hardcore, hyper-machismo homophobes are just so deep in the closet they are coming out in the next room.

Big if true

Wanting a high performance car is not about logic and reason either. If you want a group that represents idolizing the internal combustion engine, it's not the performance junkies or the status seekers, it's Harley Davidson riders and diesel pickup drivers.

I hope Aslan told them off over tea along the way.

Yeah, and ozone depleting hairspray is more manly lol

I'm from Germany, here this group is represented primarily by the BMW 5-series drivers.
Neither Diesel Pickups nor Harleys are culturally a big thing here.

But speaking for the US you are probably right :-)

Yes, I'm in the US. The Harleys and coal rollers are probably an American thing... loud bikes and smoky pickups. (I ride a loud bike too, but mine is a Kawasaki.)