That may be true over some timeframes of comparison, but it doesn't explain 2007 to now, when the Vox chart shows electricity demand plateauing.

Here is Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's energy flow chart for the United States in 2007:

https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/energy/energy_archive/en...

And here's the most recent one, from 2016:

https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/energy/us/...

Industrial sector primary energy demand barely declined, from 24.84 quads in 2007 to 24.5 in 2016. That's less than the decline from the residential sector, 11.43 to 11.00.

"U.S. Electricity Sales", as shown in the graph, is net of any restrictions, generation efficiency, transmission losses, etc.

What is "rejected energy"?

It's energy that is dissipated without providing energy services. For example, electrical transmission line losses and the less-than-100% efficiency of heat engine electrical generators both contribute to rejected energy. Those numbers can't be directly compared between the 2007 and 2016 charts. LLNL changed methodology for reporting them in recent years. The input primary energy numbers can be compared across the whole time frame, though.

People really gravitate toward the flattering interpretation, don't they? If electricity demand is down, it's because of something we're succeeding at (energy efficiency). If jobs are going away it's because of our success at automating the work.

It's not flattering to say the US is moving toward massive low-paying underemployment

The flattery comes in when, rather than attributing the fact to the real reason, you chalk it up to our awesome success at automating people out of jobs (a constant drumbeat in the press lately). Now, like magic, instead of having a failed economic policy on our hands and people justifiably upset over it, there's nothing to blame but the steady, noble, and relentless march of Innovation and Progress, and better get with the program, people!

It's not really automation, it's more outsourcing and competitive advantage. In fact, automation could theoretically make production more viable, which would bring electricity demand back up.