Taylor Sheridan has caught the attention of the President.
The Yellowstone creator and writer is often branded as a right-wing propagandist by the liberal media, it’s almost like anyone in a cowboy hat might as well have “REPUBLICAN” stamped on their forehead. And yet, every other day, some LA pop star is going “country” to try and cash a check… makes me laugh.
But the truth is, Taylor has spent a good chunk of his career advocating on behalf of Native Americans, especially Native American women, who are 2.5 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than any other woman in the United States. Of course, Yellowstone is all about fighting against corporate greed and land grabbing in the American West. You know, the fight against rich people and developers buying up the entire state of Montana… and then they end up giving it all back to the Native Americans. The “eat the rich” crowd should love that. And he’s even been on record about his politics. In 2017, he was critical of Donald Trump saying “can we just impeach the mf’er right now?” He walked that back more recently, saying he didn’t remember saying that, and called Colorado’s attempt to remove him from the ballot “dangerous sh*t,” so perhaps he’s moved further to the right in recent years. To be fair, a lot of people have given the way the country was run during the Biden administration.
But it goes beyond Yellowstone…
His show Lioness, which features a badass female lead, largely seems to question the Unites States’ military industrial complex and the motives regarding the endless wars in the Middle East, Mayor Of Kingstown shines a light on the prison industrial complex, and when it comes to the environment, Sheridan also takes quite the stewardship approach, while not ignoring the idealistic fallacies of completely “green energy” and veganism. In Yellowstone he introduced the vegan activist from Portland, Summer Higgins (Piper Perabo), and it seems like her only purpose in the show is so Taylor can deliver an epic rant on veganism through Kevin Costner’s character, John Dutton.
And then in his newest series Landman, starring Billy Bob Thornton, Jon Hamm and Demi Moore, he takes a shot at so called “clean energy,” which you would probably expect from characters in a “Big Oil” show. Is anyone surprise that the oil guy hates windmills? Long story short, Episode 3 finds Billy Bob’s character, Tommy Norris, chatting with hot shot, big city lawyer Rebecca Savage (Kayla Wallace), who gets excited to see some windmills in big oil country.
She says:
“They use clean energy to power the oil wells?”
To which, he says, “They use alternative energy, there’s nothing clean about this,” before launching into another epic Taylor Sheridan rant meant for the “100% electric” crowd. You know, the folks in California who wants to have the entire world run on “clean” electric energy like wind or solar.
There’s just a few problems with that… as Billy Bob Thornton’s character masterfully explains:
“Do you have any idea how much diesel they have to burn to mix that much concrete or make that steel, and haul this sh*t out here and put it together with a 450 foot crane? You wanna guess how much oil it takes to lubricate that thing or winterize it? In its 20-year lifespan it won’t offset the carbon footprint of making it.
And don’t even get me started on solar panels and the lithium in your Tesla battery. And never mind the fact that if the whole world decided to go electric tomorrow, we don’t have the transmission lines to get the electricity to the cities. It would take 30 years if we started tomorrow. And unfortunately for your grandkids, we have a 120-year petroleum-based infrastructure. Our whole lives depend on it.
Hell, it’s in everything… that road we came in on, the wheels on every car ever made, including yours, tennis rackets, lipstick, refrigerators antihistamines, anything plastic, your cell phone case, artificial heart valves, any kind of clothing that’s not made with animal or plant fibers, soap, hand lotion, garbage bags, fishing boats, you name it… every f***ing thing. And you know what the kicker is… we’re gonna run out before we find a replacement.
And believe me, if Exxon thought them f***ing things were the future, they’d be putting them all over the goddamn place. Getting oil out of the ground is the most dangerous job in the world, we don’t do it because we like it, we do it because we’ve run out of options. And you’re out here trying to find something to blame for the danger besides your boss. There ain’t nobody to blame but the demand that we keep pumping it.”
Mic drop…
And President Trump just shared the clip to his Truth Social account, days after signing an executive order regarding American energy.
NO WAY: President Trump just posted this legendary clip from the Paramount+ hit show Landman, where Tommy Norris schools a lawyer on why oil is essential and windmills are costly and horrible for the environment. pic.twitter.com/wNnoGIS0Le
— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) April 11, 2025
And Tommy is not wrong about some of that…
Granted, the argument about how much oil it takes to make “clean energy” infrastructure doesn’t exactly convince me that the United States shouldn’t invest in green energy to supplement oil and gas resources. Cars used to get 10 miles per gallon, and now, thanks to investment in technology and innovation, they get nearly 30 or more in many cases. We should be using all available resources, and as many renewable resources as possible where it makes sense, BUT, oil and gas isn’t going anywhere, and anyone dreaming about a world without oil is living in fantasy land. Right now, offshore wind in particular is very expensive compared to other forms of renewable energy, like solar. That being said, we probably need a healthy balance of investing in renewables AND “drill baby, drill” right now to achieve energy independence. Or at least get closer to it…
But Tommy wasn’t wrong about all the products that rely on oil, the plastics industry in particular, and he wasn’t lying about Exxon making windmills if it was the future (they’re working on lithium mines in Arkansas now to make batteries), and he wasn’t lying about how heavily we rely on oil. Just think of how much the military depends on it… he didn’t even mention that, but we’re not gonna be seeing electric tanks anytime soon. He also didn’t mention how many birds wind turbines kill every single year… a number that is estimated to be north of 500,000 every single year. Perhaps even much more… Truth is, the cost, reliability and environmental impacts of wind and other forms of “green energy” are often thrown to the side and left out of the argument while climate activists lecture you about killing the planet. And then they hold up traffic… so even more emissions are thrown into the environment.
And if you want some real world proof, just look at the state of California and their initiative to have only electric cars by the year 2035. Problem is… the state’s power grid cannot handle it. Back in 2022, just days after they announced their plan to go completely electric with vehicles, officials begged Californians to stop charging their cars because a heatwave was already hammering the power grid.
You can’t make it up…
In anticipation of stress on the power grid due to a heat wave, CA’s grid operator is asking Californians to avoid charging their electric vehicles & to voluntarily conserve energy, just days after the state announced a plan to ban the sale of gas vehicles by 2035. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/ZYzBGQZLgc
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) August 31, 2022
I’m not gonna lie, I love when Taylor Sheridan does this… it makes for an epic and memorable moment from the show, and perhaps, drops a little knowledge on the dorks who are chained together in the middle of the road protesting oil companies, you know, just locking up traffic so cars can sit there even longer and burn more fuel… it’s genius. And look, I’m all for being good stewards of the land, taking care of our resources and maintaining healthy ecosystems that can thrive. I’m 100% in favor of protecting the environment within reason. Hell, I don’t even wash my own car in the driveway because I don’t want the soap to runoff into the lake that I live on and affect the balance of the aquatic ecosystem.
So no, I’m not some big oil apologist, and I’m not saying the oil companies stuffing billions in their pockets every year are the good guys here… but a world without oil is just not gonna happen… not anytime soon, and probably not ever. So get out of the road… weirdos.
That being said, Landman is fairly entertaining, a bit overly dramatic, and the hyper-sexualization of the teenage daughter creeps me out, but the soundtrack is KILLER. Season 2 is in the works… stay tuned.
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