Let’s Face Reality

Populism is always a reliable strategy in any election to find connections with voters dissatisfied with the status quo. Politicians exploiting this appeal should consider whether their election is worth certain outcomes.

Immigration and energy policies seem to pit broader national and international needs against grassroots realities and perceptions. Distortions and deflections can be rampant from either direction. After the COVID-19 pandemic, trust started to dwindle in research, science and academia; institutional consensus can be dislodged by narratives of convenience or conspiracy. Some of the sources I used for this column may be wiped from the internet by the time it is published.

At any rate, these aren’t fun subjects, but frequently lost in modern debate are two facts staring us in the face: We are running out of people and oil.

I do hear about the people thing a lot – in Georgia, it’s usually about workforce needs. And yet the U.S. is not alone in having certain factions pushing for fewer immigrants, not more. Recent backlash to immigration, long simmering perhaps, emerged after spikes in Europe and the U.S. that they weren’t prepared for. In America, where levels have been high since the 1980s, some campaigns have implied that leaders were deliberately letting it go unchecked and allowing violent criminals to invade the border.

Keeping criminals out and securing the borders must be a priority. The difficulty comes in stopping illegal immigration when there is no path to legal immigration. Good people become criminals just by entering the country, even with no other choice for survival. The asylum process in the U.S. has been practically obliterated, limited essentially to white South Africans.

Many support a hard-line stance aimed at removing violent criminals. For all the 610,000 detained and deported so far by ICE, however, only 5% have been convicted of violent crimes. That’s potentially 579,500 detained or deported immigrants who were never a threat. Paths to legal immigration – including work visas and family sponsors – have been severely reduced if not eliminated.

Most readers of Georgia Trend will agree that growth is important to any economy, whether on the local, state or national level; even slow population growth can send an economy into recession. From July 2024 to July 2025, the U.S. population grew at half the rate of the previous year, and it’s not likely to pick up soon.

If immigration is stopped altogether, the older population would balloon and the younger population would decrease, and by 2035 the entire U.S. population would shrink. If 10% of illegal immigrants are removed each year instead of being given a path to citizenship, nearly $1 trillion in consumer spending and tax revenue could be erased over 10 years. Without immigrants – who make up some 26% of doctors and 40% of home healthcare workers – there would be an even bigger shortage of medical workers. Social Security, long propped up by immigrants, would likely collapse. Many of our agriculture, construction, manufacturing and hospitality workers would vanish with no one to replace them (certainly not AI).

But now let’s talk about oil. This I hear much less about, even as we’re at war with Iran.

Even if the U.S. grabs it all, or as much as it can get, there’s still only enough left – globally – for another 100 years. What seems like elitist disconnect in the quest for renewable energy at the expense of the fossil fuel economy is based on real science: There were only so many dinosaurs, and there’s no oil in space. So no matter how you feel about climate change – which scientists believe will bring brutally hot temperatures to much of the world’s population if fossil fuel production doesn’t cease by 2070 – you’re still looking at a supply issue that makes renewable energy an imperative.

There are ramifications to this as well. Countries like Iran, Nigeria and Russia that depend heavily on oil could collapse. Countries that have advanced renewable energy will emerge as the most powerful. Currently, China dominates with 32% of its electricity from renewables. The U.S. is currently No. 2 – but not even close at 9% and shrinking fast due to punitive policies.

I know enough people on both sides to know that these issues aren’t as partisan as they appear. Actually, most Americans support both renewable energy and legal immigration. It’s not too late to find paths to beat the clock.

As the challenges both become more acute, there will be more backlash. But the time will come – possibly in my lifetime – when countries will compete both for immigrants and access to a renewable grid to survive. And politicians that discouraged both will have to reckon with their legacy.

Ben Young is Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Georgia Trend.