In 1982, President Ronald Reagan declared that “freedom and democracy will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history.” He was right, for a while.
As we close out 2025, socialism has miraculously leaped from the ash heap of history straight into the hearts and minds of America’s youth.
In 2026, socialists will oversee New York City and Seattle. And it sure looks like the socialist wing of the Democratic Party has momentum on its side as the 2026 primary campaigns begin in a few months. We could see several socialists win in the midterm elections.
For strange reasons that I cannot understand, only three decades since the humiliating collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, socialism somehow remains a desirable method to govern society for many Americans.
While it certainly is concerning to see socialism become popular in America, I am glad to report that climate alarmism seems to have replaced socialism on the proverbial ash heap of history for the time being.
On January 20, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that his administration will seek to “unleash America’s affordable and reliable energy and natural resources” while eliminating “burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations [that] have impeded the development of these resources, limited the generation of reliable and affordable electricity, reduced job creation, and inflicted high energy costs upon our citizens.”
Trump, a climate realist to the hilt, immediately sought to end the Green New Scam; expand oil and gas drilling; reduce the inherent climate alarmist bias in the bureaucracy; and prioritize sound climate science; all while continuing to mock and ridicule the imbecilic and malevolent green transition begun by his predecessor.
As the year progressed, the Trump administration has delivered on many energy promises.
Administrator Lee Zeldin said the Environmental Protection Agency is “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion,” and Energy Secretary Chris Wright explained that “improving the human condition depends on expanding access to reliable, affordable energy.”
In July, the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill codified the Trump administration’s pro-domestic energy production agenda into law while “ending market distorting subsidies for unreliable, foreign controlled energy sources.”
While Trump has criticized states like New York and Vermont for their “burdensome and ideologically motivated ‘climate change’ or energy policies that threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security,” energy-producing stalwarts like Pennsylvania said adios to climate alarmist carbon dioxide emissions caps.
On a global stage, the Trump administration said non merci to the Paris Climate Accords as the net zero folly/fantasy crashed into the reality that emerging technology like AI and quantum computing require oodles of energy that only fossil fuels and nuclear can reliably supply for the foreseeable future.
Big banks have abandoned the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero and other climate alarmist coalitions because they would go bankrupt if they failed to finance future technologies and innovations that require the abundant, reliable, and affordable energy of fossil fuels.
Moreover, as the Department of Energy reminds us, “Petrochemicals derived from oil and natural gas make the manufacturing of over 6,000 everyday products and high-tech devices possible.”
After years of virtue-signaling and snuggling with the climate-alarmist Biden administration, big banks and other financial giants have abruptly reversed course on the need to phase out fossil fuels.
This year, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink emphasized “energy pragmatism” in his annual letter to investors while failing to mention terms like “climate change,” “ESG,” “DEI,” or “net zero.”
Speaking of prominent climate alarmists who have forsaken the cause, Bill Gates’ late-October blog post titled “Three tough truths about climate” was music to the ears of climate realists.
Gates admitted that “climate change…will not lead to humanity’s demise” and that “people will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future.”
More importantly, he argues that world leaders are misguidedly prioritizing climate alarmism in poor, developing nations when the “biggest problems are poverty and disease, just as they always have been.”
Gates advises that global climate confabs, like the recent COP 30 in Brazil, focus more on “reducing extreme poverty,” which “will have the greatest impact for the most vulnerable people.”
When COP 30 took place in late November, the formal agreement signed said absolutely nothing about phasing out fossil fuels. As a Nigerian delegate explained, they won’t support climate plans “that will lead to our sudden economic contraction.”
“I’m not saying we’re winning the climate fight. But we are undeniably still in it, and we are fighting back,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell at the closing of COP 30.
Unlike previous UN climate conferences, the lofty, far-fetched green goals took a backseat to the unavoidable reality that the global climate alarmist scam is on the defensive for the first time in my memory.
As 2025 ends and 2026 begins, I believe this trend will continue.
I think the tipping point has been reached. After decades of failed predictions, islands are not being swallowed by rising seas, monster hurricanes are not destroying coastal cities, global crop yields are not decreasing, etc.
As the doom-and-gloom prophecies have failed to materialize, I believe more Americans are questioning the fundamental tenet of climate alarmist dogma.
If more Americans no longer buy the climate alarmist premise and realize that future technologies rely on the use of fossil fuels, I forecast that climate alarmism will continue to flounder.
If prices at the pump continue to fall as the Trump administration unleashes American energy production and if electricity bills begin dropping, especially in blue states with exorbitant electricity rates, the American people will tangibly benefit from climate realism.
Over the long haul, the climate realism position is future-oriented, underscores consumer choice, incubates innovation, and prioritizes abundant, reliable, and affordable energy for all Americans.
On the other hand, climate alarmism is pessimistic, elitist in nature, and particularly harmful for Americans who are more concerned with paying their bills and filling their cars with affordable gas than they are about possibly combating an esoteric, hypothetical problem like climate change.
For these reasons, and the coming global AI arms race, I am very glad that as we embark on the 250th anniversary of this great nation, climate realism is flourishing.
The ash heap of history is designated for ideas and ideologies that impede progress, hinder freedom, and rely on force and coercion. Thus, socialism and climate alarmism both belong on the ash heap of history, side by side.
Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is editorial director at The Heartland Institute.
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