When gas prices go up due to environmental regulation and taxes, it seems like more working people turn to the right both in USA and parts of Europe. Yellow Vest protests in France and populist support for Trump in USA.
Now that Trump's war on Iran is pushing up gas prices, the opposite may be happening, working masses turning to the left.
Grassroots dependency on fossil fuels means that politics at the top has a big effect. Regulations and taxes, from the top, are passed along in higher prices and more inconvenience to average people. This is a big reason why I believe that changes in lifestyles, at the grassroots level, needs to be there also. Not just top down down solutions, such as taxing the oil industry.
When fossil fuel production gets restricted, people, who are still dependent on fossil fuels, tend to turn to the right advocating lower taxes and less regulation. Today, however populism's swings has brought us Donald Trump with his war on Iran and higher gas prices.
Grassroots changes, rather than just top down solutions, are needed. One grassroots solution is for ordinary people to turn out and vote.
Even if people dismiss the power of lifestyle changes, a lifestyle that includes voting is needed to create the top down solutions anyway. We can't rein in the power of the super wealthy and large corporations if voters don't consistently support those kind of solutions.
For decades, it seems like we have oscillated between top down Republican ideas of deregulating business and left leaning ideas of regulating and taxing business. Both are top down ideas.
The people's personal lifestyles creates power in mass also. It moves mass markets and influences government with voting. That tends to be more what I talk about. Lifestyles make a difference as well as just how the top is arranged.
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