The New York Times’s insufferable economics writer Paul Krugman absurdly accused Texas GOP lawmakers of being plagued with “anti-woke mind virus” simply because they’re signaling favor for fossil fuels over green energy pipe dreams.
Krugman’s latest temper-tantrum against the right — headlined “How the Wind Became Woke” — came as a response to what the propaganda artist called “a raft of proposed measures” by Texas Republicans in favor of fossil fuels. These measures, Krugman claimed, include “restrictions that might block many renewable energy products.”
Krugman cited “greed” as one potential motivation for these proposals but outrageously concluded that the real reason for the measures was “that renewable energy has become a victim of the anti-woke mind virus.” Uh, what? Did Krugman forget that Texas recently suffered a power crisis that’s been attributed in-part to a misguided fixation on green energy?
Manhattan Institute adjunct fellow Jonathan Lesser warned Fox News Digital in 2022 on the Texas crisis: “‘The reality is: we're going to have to get used to more blackouts as long as we continue down this green energy path.’” He continued: “‘The technology simply isn't there. You're going to either have more blackouts or more requirements to conserve energy.’”
But in his May 30 tirade, Krugman made it seem as if the Texas GOP were just “Republicans in the Texas legislature have turned hard against renewable energy.” He then referred to one piece of legislation giving subsidies to oil companies.
Krugman went on to call Texas Republicans’ push to subsidize oil companies a “rejection of its own energy success.” He also claimed that “Texas Republicans now see the wind as an enemy,” referring to the GOP-led legislature’s supposed opposition to wind power.
Energy and Environment Legal Institute Legal Senior Policy Fellow Steve Milloy blasted Krugman for once again stepping out of his lane and offering up his two-cents on climate. “Wind turbines are not about energy or free enterprise. It's about the left's Green New Deal political agenda and taxpayer parasites surfing the taxpayer subsidies and the inflated electricity prices wind power needs to work (only when the wind blows),” Milloy told MRC Business. “Let's not forget that hundreds of Texans died in February 2021 when the wind turbines froze, causing blackouts across the state.” This was apparently lost on Krugman.
For Krugman, the so-called “anti-woke mind virus” — not the obvious burden of these leftist green policies on citizens — was responsible for Texas GOP opposition. He even had the audacity to assert that “renewable energy is just good business” despite the fact that wind power in particular — which he painted as a victim of Republican policy, is apparently unsustainable. Krugman decried the “virus” as supposedly being some sort of ideology that causes people to blindly create opinions about topics that are not related.
Krugman railed that the Republican Party “hates anything it considers woke.” Krugman then brazenly mischaracterized wokeness, describing it as “both any acknowledgment of social injustice and any suggestion that people should make sacrifices, or even accept mild inconvenience, in the name of the public good.” On the contrary, as Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby pointed out, wokeness could be defined as “the illiberal insistence that group identity and grievances trump freedom of thought and honest debate.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact The New York Times at 800-698-4637 and demand it continue to distance itself from Krugman’s climate propaganda.
