Politics & Power Quote by Cathy McMorris

Energy independence gets marketed as moral hygiene, and Cathy McMorris turns the scrub brush into a slogan. “No longer should we rely on oil from countries that are not necessarily friendly or democratic” pairs a pocketbook worry (prices, stability) with a values claim (democracy), letting policy preference read like civic virtue. The phrase “not necessarily” is doing strategic work: it’s a wink that avoids naming Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, or any particular ally-of-convenience, so the line can travel across audiences without triggering immediate objections about hypocrisy.

The intent is clear: justify expanding domestic production and infrastructure by reframing the debate from climate math to geopolitical character. It’s a pivot away from “drill vs. green” toward “freedom vs. dependence,” a frame that plays well in a post-9/11 political culture and resurfaces whenever oil prices spike or conflict threatens supply chains. “Rely” suggests weakness; “friendly” suggests betrayal; “democratic” suggests a moral ledger. That triple bind compresses complex global energy markets into an ethical binary, conveniently sidestepping the inconvenient truth that U.S. oil consumption itself is the dependency, and that “friendly” petrostates are often democratic only on paper.

Subtext: American energy policy becomes a referendum on other nations’ legitimacy, not on our own demand or emissions. The line also sets up a clean villain without asking voters to change behavior. It’s a politics of comfort: keep the car culture, keep the consumption, just swap the supplier and call it patriotism.