The degree to which the O&G industry has co-opted the Republican Party cannot be understated. This only really took root under Ford, when guys like Bush and Cheney were promoted into the upper echelons of the political leadership while in the midst of converting historically Dixiecrat Gulf Coast states to the Republican Party.
Democrats were late to the party, having more heavily aligned with the NY-based Finance Sector and CA-based global shipping magnets. It’s been the outsized demand for energy in Silicon Valley that has really collapsed the Green-ish Democrats into O&G by way of Obama/Trump/Biden Era rapidly escalating demands for electricity. And even then, Dems are consistently in favor of generic economic growth while Republicans are hyper-fixated on O&G growth exclusively.
The degree to which the O&G industry has co-opted the Republican Party cannot be understated. This only really took root under Ford, when guys like Bush and Cheney were promoted into the upper echelons of the political leadership while in the midst of converting historically Dixiecrat Gulf Coast states to the Republican Party.
Democrats were late to the party, having more heavily aligned with the NY-based Finance Sector and CA-based global shipping magnets. It’s been the outsized demand for energy in Silicon Valley that has really collapsed the Green-ish Democrats into O&G by way of Obama/Trump/Biden Era rapidly escalating demands for electricity. And even then, Dems are consistently in favor of generic economic growth while Republicans are hyper-fixated on O&G growth exclusively.