I have a new job: I stand at the edge of a neighborhood Arco station at rush hour with a big sign that reads, "When You Buy Gas, You Support Trump."
It's true. Every trip to the pump demands, with your dollars, that Big Oil stay in business. And, Big Oil spent $445 million--which doesn't include likely obscene sums of dark money--to install Drill, Baby, Drill Donald and his crony Congress. Trump continues to stockpile cash almost as fast and ferociously as he works to desecrate environmental safeguards and our democracy.
So, every time you pump, you support Trump.
It's just math. You, gas-car driver, are adding to the stockpile.
I'm sure that pisses off a lot of people. I occasionally get the finger as I stand with my sign on the corner.
Even liberals are likely angry at my message. They should be:
Americans spent nearly $425 billion on gasoline last year. Given that the electorate is split roughly 50-50, this means people on the left gave oil companies over $200 billion. Even while working tirelessly on policy campaigns, petitions and sidewalk protests to fight Trump and the conservative agenda, most liberals are simultaneously funding their opponents' war chest.
This analogy works: Protesting fossil fuels while driving a gas car is like smoking two packs a day while trying to take down Big Tobacco. You're sustaining the very thing you're trying to destroy.
Can't you just picture Big Oil execs laughing as they overturn laws we've spent years to pass--all while buying their products and boosting their stock?
I've attended more than a few climate rallies whose protestors got there on gas.
Yes, this is an inconvenient truth. We can't slay Goliath while feeding him.
But facts are inconvenient, too: Climate change is accelerating, with some impacts now irreversible for centuries, according to a new scientific report which confirmed that global temperatures, greenhouse gas emissions and sea levels all reached record highs in 2024. Meanwhile, just the other day I saw several slickly produced primetime TV commercials from Energy Transfer, the company that recently won a suit ordering Greenpeace to pay a staggering $660 million for alleged defamation. The ads made oil and gas seem nearly as essential to daily life as oxygen.
All this while Trump and his stooges eviscerate domestic clean air and water protections and cancel millions in aid to help vulnerable countries avoid climate disasters. Trump's latest is to proclaim he wants to convince the world that climate change is a good thing.
Some people think I'm crazy, a 72-year-old dude with a bad back standing on the corner. They tell me I need to get a real job, or worse. But I've been trying to get this message across for decades. Along with others striving to get the world off oil, we've cajoled, we've rallied, we've educated, we've petitioned, we've post-carded and we've voted. Yet, we're nowhere close to where we need to be. I had to try something new. And I don't care what people think of me.
I do care what people are thinking, though, and I am imploring people to acknowledge this truth and connect the dots: When you buy gas, you support Trump.
I am also urging this: With transportation as the country's largest source of greenhouse gasses, don't ever buy a new gas car again. This should be especially easy for millions who have known about EVs for years and have been implored to carpool or take mass transit but won't budge.
Above all, to break the lethal hold Big Oil has on political power, we've got to kill the internal combustion engine industry and we've got to strive to do it by 2035. That's the year plans call for no new gas cars to be sold in California, in 11 other states and the European Union. The UK wants to prohibit internal combustion engine vehicle sales five years sooner and last year, nearly all new cars sold in Norway were fully electric.
I'm far from alone in my thinking, you see.
The fact is, we can wield tremendous power by refusing to buy gas cars, despite the billions Big Oil has spent over decades. We can help defund the opposition.
And guess what, even if my back does ache and I get yelled at now and then, I get a lot of solidarity honks and thumbs up. Far more than middle fingers, in fact.
So, connect the dots: Don't buy gas. Refuse to support Trump. And don't ever buy a new gas car again. We've got the power of the purse. Let's use it.
Paul Scott
Co-Founder, Plug In America
