Oh my, oh my.
How many debates have I had over the years with people I genuinely respect — intelligent, informed, well-meaning individuals — repeating the same mantra: If only the right party gets into power, they will end the fraud.
For a while it was framed as a partisan salvation story. If only the Republicans take the reins, the climate racket will be dismantled. The distortions will be exposed. The machinery will grind to a halt.
Reality is less cinematic.
Yes, President Trump made moves that required political courage — repealing the endangerment finding, for instance, was not a trivial gesture. It disrupted entrenched narratives and challenged regulatory orthodoxy. Credit where credit is due.
But let us not drift into mythology.
They are still politicians.
And the notion that there exists a large, waiting cohort of elected officials who are primarily motivated by the well-being of the people and the long-term health of the nation is a comforting illusion. It is emotionally satisfying. It is also deeply naive.
Yet that illusion clings.
It sticks to public consciousness more persistently than a dog turd to the sole of your shoe after one careless step. Facts scrape at it. Experience challenges it. Disappointment piles up. And still the belief survives: This time will be different. These ones are the good ones.
Beliefs, once anchored in identity, are extraordinarily resilient to reality.
So here comes the unpleasant reminder.
Your average politician did not stumble accidentally into office. They endured years — often decades — of maneuvering, networking, compromising, flattering, positioning. They kissed more backsides than most people can fathom. They navigated party hierarchies, donor expectations, factional battles, media scrutiny, and relentless campaigning.
And the costs are not abstract.
Many sacrifice stable family life. Marriages buckle. Children grow up in the shadow of ambition. Health deteriorates. Privacy evaporates. Self-respect is negotiated away in increments so small they barely register — until they accumulate.
By the time someone reaches serious political power, they are deeply invested in the system that elevated them. They are not standing at its edge contemplating heroic rebellion. They are woven into its fabric.
And then there is the climate industrial complex.
A multi-trillion-dollar ecosystem. Subsidies. Grants. Regulatory authority. Corporate partnerships. Global conferences. Prestige panels. Institutional alliances. Media amplification.
It is one enormous apple pie cooling on the windowsill of power.
Expecting politicians — regardless of party branding — to resist that combination of money, influence, and status is optimistic at best. To a career politician, vast funding streams and elevated stature are not abstract temptations. They are gravitational forces.
Cow dung to a dung beetle.
The label on the jersey matters less than people think. What camp they claim to represent is often secondary to the incentives embedded in the system itself. Structures outlast slogans. Financial flows outlive campaign rhetoric.
This does not mean there are no principled individuals in politics. It means the system selects for certain traits and rewards certain behaviors. And those behaviors rarely align with dismantling powerful revenue-generating frameworks.
The fairy tale persists because it offers hope without requiring structural analysis. It promises that the right personalities will fix systemic incentive problems. It allows voters to outsource responsibility to heroic figures.
But systems respond to incentives, not to applause lines.
If reform is to occur, it will not be because a tribe won an election. It will be because incentives were altered, power centers were challenged in sustained ways, and political costs shifted meaningfully.
Until then, swapping jerseys while the same machinery hums in the background is not revolution. It is rotation.