On Tuesday, President Trump met with Republican senators to discuss policies to fight the economic shock of the coronavirus and dramatic fall in oil prices that’s accompanied it. Ahead of the meeting, CNN had reported paid sick leave, small business loans, payroll tax breaks, and hospitality industry bailouts might all be on the table. Coming out of the meeting, a Washington Post report focused on another possibility: federal aid for oil and natural gas companies like the one owned by Trump supporter and adviser Harold Hamm, who lost $2 billion in Monday’s price dive. At this point, there’s no telling which of these measures will materialize. Yet there’s a real possibility that Trump could turn Republicans into the party of industrial policy and social safety nets. Establishment Democrats, now on the march to nominating Joe Biden, will probably protest the expense.

In theory, it’s hard to imagine a crisis better suited for Democratic policy: Containing disease requires the kind of big and active government response Trump’s inner circle has been incapable of mustering and will keep fumbling through whatever the stimulus looks like. The country’s biggest polluters are in crisis, and some massive stimulus package—one likely to require approval from the House of Representatives—could be the foundation for charting a path away from fossil fuels that prioritizes investing in public health infrastructure, raising living standards, and reducing emissions along a science-based timeline. Instead, both parties seem poised to make the worst of this crisis.

Since the last financial crash in 2007–2008, unconventional shale drilling has taken off in the United States. Most of that has been premised on a precarious mix of cheap debt, rapid growth, and reasonably high fuel prices. With the latter now off the table, thanks to coronavirus-related demand drop-off and a Saudi-Russian price war, some shale drillers—in a sector that carries the economy’s largest corporate debt load—have come begging to the White House for a bailout, per the Post’s Jeff Stein. Naturally, Trump seems more than happy to oblige. He may soon hand over billions, if not more, in low-interest loans (“targeted assistance”) to oil and gas companies as well as support for airlines and cruise lines, all hurting in their own way from a coronavirus-induced slowdown that’s grinding travel and tourism to a halt around the world.

Hundreds of thousands of workers in the shale fields will find their jobs at risk as more drillers declare bankruptcy, something that already looked likely before the COVID-19 outbreak picked up. That said, bailing out their bosses will probably do about as much for shale-field communities in West Texas as bailing out Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein did for people saddled with subprime mortgages. There’s a supply glut, so paying drillers to produce more could do more harm than good. And there’s little about shale fuel’s house-of-cards business model that seems built to last, with or without the proposed stimulus.

In the absence of any meaningful alternative, Trump could become a hero of the shale and hospitality workers while the Democratic Party wags its finger at the price tag.

As rigs are decommissioned—whether now or later—magnates like Harold Hamm and Trump’s other wealthy friends will walk away unscathed as wildcatters are left to deal with layoffs, poisoned air and water, and an ever-warming world; coal miners know this dynamic all too well. What shale-field workers and communities almost certainly need—more than a temporary loan to oil barons—is investment to diversify their economies with well-paid work and industries that strengthen former boomtowns for the long haul, fully honoring the contributions that generations of workers have made to the country and transitioning into the future of American energy. All of that also needs to be bolstered by the kind of strong social safety net that’s helping some European countries weather the COVID-19 crisis: commonsense policies like universal health care and paid sick leave.