In the US, Republicans are on a crusade against “wake up capitalism”

Of course he loves nature! Guide ? He wears a deer head tie. “You must not believe: I love the outdoors, I walk, I fish, I fish. I also want to save the planet.”. But I have to defend our industry against those who would want us dead. » Funny fellow, Senator Randy E. Smith.

60 days a year, the 63-year-old Republican makes his home in West Virginia’s capital of Charleston, where he chairs the Energy, Industry, and Mining Committee. Who’s there voting to bomb companies that invest in green energy? “This woke up a new fad.”Annoys, using the term now used by conservatives to designate progressive values. And the rest of the year, he works underground in a coal mine. His office as a senator is like a museum. Miners’ helmets on the shelves, pictures of blackheads on the walls. “Here, me, there, it’s my whole team”he says proudly.

That day, as we entered his lair, he was interrupted in the middle of a conversation with two representatives of the West Virginia Coal Society, the chief organization for the defense of coal interests. At the Capitol of West Virginia, one of the five largest producers of fossil fuels in the US, the coal lobby is clearly hanging on. He even managed to install a huge statue of a miner at the entrance to the building.