Affected by extreme weather, the power grid in Texas in the southern United States has been down for a large area, and people in the whole state have endured the cold for several days.
However, in the face of the people, American politicians have turned the power outage into a political issue, taking the opportunity to attack each other, turning a problem related to people’s livelihood into a tool for party struggle, which is eye-opening.
So, how does power outage, a problem that should be solved by professionals, alienate into a political problem?
It turns out that this has led to the energy struggle that has lasted for several years in the United States. Conservative Republicans have always been close to the traditional energy industry, so they say that the power outage is because of the new energy “dropping the chain”, while Democrats who support renewable energy say that we don’t carry the pot, and the power cut is still because traditional energy is not powerful.
In this regard, discerning people can see that the purpose of tearing each other between the two sides is not to solve people’s livelihood, but to seek political interests.
Let’s first take a look at what words both sides use:
Red Party (Republican Party):
Texas Governor Greg Abbott told Fox: “Our wind and solar systems are down, and they provide 10% of the electricity. So this situation leads to a statewide lack of electricity.”
Abbott also said that the paralysis of new energy motors proved that “the Green New Deal is fatal to the United States and further shows that oil is indispensable.”
Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw gave three major reasons for Texas’ power outage on social media: first, the wind power unit was frozen; the second, the nuclear power unit was too cold; and the third, the natural gas power generation capacity was lacking. In the final analysis, it is a sentence. Power outage is that the power supply of new energy is not enough. Traditional energy is used too little, not too much.
Texas Agriculture Director Sid Miller also said on social media: “Wind power generation devices should not be added. This experiment was a big failure… go to hell with green energy and climate change!”
Blue (Democratic Party):
Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said that Republicans’ comments prove that they have been controlled by the oil industry, just like puppets.
Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna said that Congress should investigate the power outage in Texas, examine why fossil energy power supply failed, and who was spreading rumors about new energy sources.
In the United States, where political society is torn apart from extremes, many issues have become the “battleground” of bipartisan struggle, and energy issues are no exception. The above remarks fully prove that the statements of both sides have obvious partisan positions and strong political offensive meanings.
The Democratic Party has always made addressing climate change the main policy platform, so it has vigorously promoted the construction of new energy sources and promoted wind, solar and nuclear energy to replace traditional energy sources such as oil and gas to reduce carbon emissions. Republicans, on the other hand, believe that the new energy technology is not mature enough to provide a reliable energy supply, and that “it has to rely on traditional energy at critical moments”.
The power outage in Texas provided a platform for both sides to attack the gull, and the two sides also unexpectedly began to play.
Those Texas people who have experienced hundreds of hours of water and power outages and are still troubled by sky-high electricity bills have faded into the background of the party struggle.
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