Energy Hero Ken Bone Wins US Debate - And The Internet

I want you to put aside all the ludicrous, mind-blowing and outrageous insanity that is US election for just a moment to focus on something very, very important.

I’m talking about The Man With The Question. The man the entire Internet agrees was the real hero of last night’s presidential debate. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m talking about Mr. Kenneth Bone. For reasons unknown, the Internet has fallen in love with this man. And this man is ALL ABOUT energy policy.

That’s right: bespectacled, sweater-clad Ken Bone, transfigured overnight into the Internet’s latest and legendary meme, asked the second-last and perhaps most hard-hitting question of the night: …and it was about energy policy.

Ken Bone: The Man With The Question

Couldn’t watch the debate?

Let’s recap: it was town hall-style, meaning the pre-selected audience members were the ones posing questions to the candidates. “And in that group of well-behaved, articulate, truth seekers,” revels CNN’s Saeed Ahmed, “was one Mr. Bone.”

Some argue that it was his fetching outfit or endearingly quaint use of a disposable camera in 2016 that elevated Ken Bone to national treasure status. Others insist it is his uncanny semblance of the human version of a hug.

Here at DEXMA, we’re convinced it was because of his disarming question on energy:

“What steps will your energy policy take to meet our energy needs while at the same time remaining environmentally friendly and minimizing job loss for fossil power plant workers?”

And just like that, almost before finishing the question, Kenneth Bone became internet famous. Even Bill Clinton himself took a moment to thank Mr. Bone for his outstanding query that brought a ray of light to an otherwise dark and ugly reckoning.

As the rest of the planet revels in the meme factory that Bone has inadvertently created, let’s take a look at each of the candidates’ unedited responses to the question heard round the world:

Trump’s response

“I think it’s such a great question, because energy is under siege by the Obama administration. Under absolutely siege (sic). The EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, is killing these energy companies. And foreign companies are now coming in buying our different plants and then re-jiggering the plant so that they can take care of their oil.

We are killing — absolutely killing our energy business in this country. Now, I’m all for alternative forms of energy, including wind, solar, et cetera. But we need much more than wind and solar.

And you look at our miners. Hillary Clinton wants to put all the miners out of business. There is a thing called clean coal. Coal will last for 1,000 years in this country. Now we have natural gas and so many other things because of technology. We have unbelievable — we have found over the last seven years, we have found tremendous wealth right under our feet. So good. Especially when you have $20 trillion in debt.

I will bring our energy companies back. They’ll be able to compete. They’ll make money. They’ll pay off our national debt. They’ll pay off our tremendous budget deficits, which are tremendous. But we are putting our energy companies out of business. We have to bring back our workers.

You take a look at what’s happening to steel and the cost of steel and China dumping vast amounts of steel all over the United States, which essentially is killing our steelworkers and our steel companies. We have to guard our energy companies. We have to make it possible.

The EPA is so restrictive that they are putting our energy companies out of business. And all you have to do is go to a great place like West Virginia or places like Ohio, which is phenomenal, or places like Pennsylvania and you see what they’re doing to the people, miners and others in the energy business. It’s a disgrace.”

Clinton’s response

“First of all, China is illegally dumping steel in the United States and Donald Trump is buying it to build his buildings, putting steelworkers and American steel plants out of business. That’s something that I fought against as a senator and that I would have a trade prosecutor make sure that we don’t get taken advantage of by China on steel or anything else.

You know, because it sounds like you’re in the business or you’re aware of people in the business — you know that we are now for the first time ever energy-independent. We are not dependent upon the Middle East. But the Middle East still controls a lot of the prices. So the price of oil has been way down. And that has had a damaging effect on a lot of the oil companies, right? We are, however, producing a lot of natural gas, which serves as a bridge to more renewable fuels. And I think that’s an important transition.

We’ve got to remain energy-independent. It gives us much more power and freedom than to be worried about what goes on in the Middle East. We have enough worries over there without having to worry about that.

So I have a comprehensive energy policy, but it really does include fighting climate change, because I think that is a serious problem. And I support moving toward more clean, renewable energy as quickly as we can, because I think we can be the 21st century clean energy superpower and create millions of new jobs and businesses.

But I also want to be sure that we don’t leave people behind. That’s why I’m the only candidate from the very beginning of this campaign who had a plan to help us revitalize coal country, because those coal miners and their fathers and their grandfathers, they dug that coal out. A lot of them lost their lives. They were injured, but they turned the lights on and they powered their factories. I don’t want to walk away from them. So we’ve got to do something for them.”

Stay tuned for an upcoming post where we’ll break down each candidate’s final platform on energy policy in more detail. And in the meantime, I’m just going to leave this here.

Final Thoughts: America’s Hero is an Energy Manager at Heart

That’s right. We wouldn’t be surprised if Ken Bone’s day job has something to do with energy management, since he’s already cemented his place as the Alpha Energy Manager of our hearts. We should all be more like Ken Bone: humble, honest, and passionate about energy policy.

Check out this handy guide we published to help you do just that!