The Republican Party has never been able to tolerate prosperity without finding ways to mess it all up. As we are finding out in real time these days, that longstanding party dynamic hasn’t really changed in this second Trump presidency, as prominent party members kick off their jockeying for the 2028 presidential nomination.
President Donald Trump enjoyed about eight months of semi-loyalty and at least nominal unity from the GOP at large before unbridled hubris and political ambition started to set in. That’s eight more months than he received in 2017, so perhaps he should be grateful for that, at least. But now the race for 2028 is on, with Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz already angling for position, setting the stage for intra-party strife and limiting hopes for more major legislative victories before next year’s mid-term elections.
This becomes a troublesome reality given the failure by Congress to act to memorialize any of President Trump’s executive orders and actions taken by his key energy-related cabinet members into statute thus far, despite the GOP’s majorities in both houses of Congress. Granted, those majorities are slim and become slimmer still by political outliers like Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie and liberal GOP senators like Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski when the time comes to count votes. Add Greene, Cruz, and most likely other members who might jump into the presidential fray into that mix and hopes for real congressional action fade into near-oblivion. (RELATED: Miranda Devine Asks JD Vance If There’d Be ‘Tension’ With Marco Rubio Over Who Leads 2028 GOP Ticket)
As we witness at the outset of every new presidency, executive branch actions taken by one president and his appointees can be easily reversed en masse on Day One of the next presidency. Reversing policies put into law via statute by Congress can be done – as we saw in July with the reversal of green subsidies contained in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act – but doing that is much more difficult and involves cooperative action between a president and Congress. It’s the kind of cooperative action Trump hasn’t received from the current House and Senate.
The constant ebbs and flows in energy and climate policy every four or, at best, eight years has the effect of lowering confidence in the constancy and predictability of U.S. laws and regulations in the business world. That in turn robs company management teams of the ability to effectively plan their business ventures and major investments beyond the term of the current administration.
Much has been made of the dearth of investment over the last decade in the finding and development of new major reserves of oil and natural gas. Analysts have correctly laid much of the blame for that reality on the obsession with ESG (environment, social, governance) focused investing that diverted major slices of corporate capital budgets from 2015 through 2022 to non-core projects designed to signal virtue at the cost of generating profits. The ESG craze has been on the decline since 2022, as companies from ExxonMobil to Chevron to Shell to BP have rededicated themselves to their fiduciary duties to maximize investor returns.
But the damage has been done, and it will take many years for the industry to catch up. Worse, blaming the shortage of investment in the United States solely on ESG mania is not correct. The lack of trust in the continuity and consistent application of U.S. law has also helped create this problem, and that is also something that will not be regained overnight. Sure, companies are investing heavily in big energy projects and infrastructure during this second Trump presidency to take advantage of its “build, baby, build” agenda, but that could all come to a quick halt if a Democrat is elected in 2028.
Unfortunately, the disunity and back-biting building in the GOP today will only render that scenario increasingly likely. It could also lead to another poor Republican performance in the 2026 mid-term elections, ensuring Trump will be saddled with another sham impeachment effort for the final two years of his second term.
Democracy can be messy, but it gets even messier when members of a president’s own party work so hard to undermine his agenda.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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