What’s With the Windmills?

Michael and Sarah Walker

What's With the Windmills?

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Trump and the Windmill: A Case Study in Manufactured Enemies

Donald Trump’s bizarre vendetta against wind turbines might seem like comic relief—a sideshow of sound effects, bird-killing accusations, and cancer conspiracies—but it actually offers a telling window into how he operates politically. Like so many of his obsessions, the war on windmills began as a personal grievance, was inflated into a populist symbol, and has now become a permanent part of his rhetorical arsenal.

The origin is almost petty: Trump’s long, losing legal battle in Scotland, where he tried to block an offshore wind farm near his Aberdeenshire golf course. He claimed the turbines would ruin the view and diminish property values. When the courts and the Scottish government didn’t side with him, the issue metastasized into something larger. It was no longer about one golf course; it became about betrayal, liberal overreach, and the indignity of being told “no.”

And so, from that personal defeat, Trump built a narrative villain: the windmill. Not just a clean energy device—but a symbol of everything he resents: environmental regulation, international cooperation, changing technology, and a world where his preferences don’t automatically carry the day.

Trump’s windmill rants are more than comic outbursts. They’re a blueprint for his political style. He takes something real (wind energy), attaches a lie or distortion (“they cause cancer”), sprinkles in some emotional bait (“your property values will collapse”), and then sells it as a righteous fight. Facts don’t matter—what matters is that his audience feels under attack and sees him as their champion. Even when the “enemy” is a giant fan.

By mocking wind energy, he also draws a line in the sand between traditional energy (coal, oil, gas—industries tied to his base) and the future he’s convinced his supporters to fear. It’s climate denialism packaged in slapstick, grievance dressed up as policy. His windmill routine is both absurd and strategic.

It also fits into a larger pattern: Trump doesn’t battle real problems; he invents ones he can beat. Immigrants are “invaders.” Journalists are “enemies of the people.” Wind turbines are death machines. These inflated threats allow him to present himself as a larger-than-life warrior defending the country—when in fact, he’s just tilting at windmills.

In Don Quixote, Cervantes gave us a man so lost in his own delusion that he charged at windmills thinking they were giants. In Trump, we’ve somehow elected the same archetype—with a gold-plated golf cart instead of a horse, and a microphone instead of a lance.

We laugh at his windmill tirades because they’re ridiculous. But underneath the absurdity is a political strategy: Create the enemy. Exaggerate the threat. Declare yourself the savior. Rinse and repeat. The windmill is just the punchline. The pattern is the warning.