You seem to supporting the concept though. More people didn't keep voting left, they voted center/left which sounds like has been moving right, so things stayed the same/went right. Who you vote for matters too - we have multiple opportunities to vote between "dems". To me OPs comment is a simple truism - we can't move left by not electing leftist individuals (and parties by extension). Any other strategy is some pie in the sky game theory.
I appreciate your lived experience, but at the same time the rest of us will seek answers in basic physics concepts, none of which help explain such phenomenon. Is it possible you just got stronger or subconsciously tried harder because you wanted the heavy bike to be faster? Did you add weight but also make sure your bike was well tuned? Tire pressure and a greased chain go a long way. I certainly agree that the weight weenies can go way overboard though.
It's s tough problem since a large part of the market is internet sales from random brands that are using non standard parts in many cases. Quality is sus, electronics are not UL listed, they are largely viewed as disposable , etc. Also separately I think many local bike shops have been bought by manufacturers and only service their stuff. These ebike brands need to get serious about standardizing component and building relationships with bike shops, but that costs money.
The holy grail is the mid drive assist with integrated sealed transmission, coupled with belt drive. There's one company doing this now and hopefully it takes off. Throttle people can fight me (but also no reason that couldn't be integrated since the chainring is now decoupled from the cranks).
Wat? The law of conservation of energy tends to disagree. Commuters are generally starting and ending at the same elevation so there's no trick. We're not going to convince anyone to carry heavy loads on bikes by saying "pedal more downhill to smooth out the power requirements if you hate grinding it out on uphills", the answer is just ebikes.
Are we just going to ignore the millions of acres of vast grasslands that supported like 50 million buffalo in the US 200 year ago? Healthy grassland ecosystems and ruminants are a thing.
The real issue is one of attribution. "Traced to" isn't the same as "responsible for". I have a hard time blaming Saudi Aramco for massive volume of oil consumption in the US. Yes the oil companies are eco terrorists too but the binary take is absurd.