I have spent most of my career arguing that the auto industry is inherently political and that ignoring politics as an enthusiast is to risk all sorts of negative outcomes. Bans on imported cars and unreasonable limits on aftermarket tuning are just two of the ways that politicians who don’t understand our hobby have tried to harm it in the last few years. Now, though, the opposite has happened. Cars are explicitly political in a way that’s unavoidable.
It’s a real monkey’s paw situation here at The Morning Dump today as people are starting to agree with me that cars are explicitly political but in a way that’s more extreme and less fun than I could have predicted. Yesterday, the President of the United States declared a boycott against Tesla to be illegal. He said today he’s going to purchase a Tesla “as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk” after Tesla’s stock had a bad week.
I very much see cars as a hobby that can bring people of disparate views and backgrounds together. That’s what I see this place as, so I try to be careful not to alienate anyone by only highlighting my views. It’s why this particular moment in time is interesting as a journalist and confounding as an enthusiast.
Tesla had an awful day yesterday in the markets, partially as everyone woke up to the fact that Chinese consumers aren’t going to default to buying Model Ys, and just to compound things, one of the company’s newest competitors is also going to build robots. While we’re doing this, let’s just rip off the bandaid and talk about congestion pricing. It’s become another local issue that is now a national political football, although it seems like people who live in New York are fine with it.
And, just to wrap it up, Ford is going to keep dumping money into Germany as it struggles to make ground in the European market.
The Ed Begley, Jr. Effect Is Real
If you’re a new urbanist or an environmentalist, buying a car has always been political, driving is political, really everything you do as a consumer, in a zero-sum view of the world, is political. The environmental activism of the Clinton Era shifted its focus from the hole in the Ozone layer to global warming, which led to a cry for electric cars, making them political in a way they hadn’t really been before.
GM was the first to really answer the call in a consumer-facing way with the GM EV1. This early EV was heralded by celebrities of the lefty California green variety (California being one of the few places you could lease one). In particular, the actor Ed Begley, Jr. became sort of the face of Hollywood environmentalism. It’s why, when GM decided to take back all the EV1s and destroy them, he even hosted a funeral for the car.
After that point, Begley, Jr. would go on to promote a bunch of other electric cars, including the RAV4. It’s no surprise, then, that when Tesla came out with the first Roadster, the company and its CEO Elon Musk got a lot of support from that same community. Begley, Jr. called his Model S the “best car I’ve ever owned” and even drove it cross-country.
There’s been plenty written about Elon Musk joining the Republican Party, though there’s been some cognitive dissonance required to square a President who seemed fairly anti-EV being embraced by the biggest maker of electric cars in the world. The last few weeks, the dissonance has grown unavoidable.
People have stopped buying Teslas for many reasons, but some of them are likely political. Police are now having to guard Tesla facilities in order to avoid the kind of vandalism that has turned Tesla facilities and owners into a target. I asked last week how much goodwill Tesla could afford to lose, and we’re about to find out.
The “left” has found an easy target in Musk, whose companies benefit from valuations far outsized to their actual earnings. Activists, like unofficial Musk biographer Ed Niedermeyer, have focused on an approach summed up by the #TeslaTakedown hashtag, which includes protests at Tesla service centers.
Yesterday was mostly a bad day for stocks, as the market seemed to react to President Trump’s assertion that maybe a little recession is necessary to make things better (President Trump called it a “period of transition”). Tesla did massively worse as a stock, dropping to $222 at close, which erased all of the bump the company got from the election. There seems to be a lift this morning, but whether that’s a real bounce or a dead cat bounce is anyone’s guess.
The President didn’t wait for the market to open today. Here’s what he said yesterday on Truth Social (Twitter/X was down a lot of yesterday, but it’s still funny that the President saves his more important posts for Truth Social):
To Republicans, Conservatives, and all great Americans, Elon Musk is “putting it on the line” in order to help our Nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! But the Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s “baby,” in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for. They tried to do it to me at the 2024 Presidential Ballot Box, but how did that work out? In any event, I’m going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American. Why should he be punished for putting his tremendous skills to work in order to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN???
First of all, it’s definitely illegal to get together with your friends and to decide to damage property. That’s how the law works. To some, though, this is more like a Boston Tea Party-like movement, wherein attacking a commercial entity connected to a political one makes a bigger point. Honestly, I’m surprised that no one has dumped a Tesla into the Boston Harbor yet. Other people see this as vandalism. And while vandalism is obviously illegal, just getting together with your friends and boycotting a car company sure seems like free speech to me.
This is weird, though, right? President Trump’s own right-wing movement in this country has been vehemently against electric cars and has even attacked electric car owners. But now he’s going to buy, I presume, a Cybertruck and tell other people to buy electric cars?
It’s clearly weighing on Musk a bit, who talked to Fox host Larry Kudlow in an interview about this yesterday. Kudlow asked him how he stayed on top of DOGE and his businesses, to which Musk replied, sighing, “With great difficulty.”
I have my own political beliefs that are not hard to find or, really, hard to intuit. One of my strongest beliefs, and this is a non-partisan one (I hope), is that we all do better when we can all communicate. The last few years have seen a Balkanization of thought, with people breaking off into little groups without much contact with the outside world. I don’t think that helps. If we can talk about cars on a level playing field, maybe we can talk about other things without the immediate anger or judgment that has made political conversation so hard.
There are other car websites that are very good at making it clear you’re not welcome if you don’t share their politics, and that’s totally fine for them. Some of the people who write for those sites have been critical of me for not doing the same. That’s valid criticism, but I just think an approach that tells a lot of people to go to hell isn’t going to change many minds. This country won’t get better with one side overwhelmingly prevailing over the other.
If you put crabs in a bucket, you don’t need to put a lid on it, because the other crabs will always pull down any crab that tries to get away. That’s a terrible way to live and I, for one, choose not to live that way.
[Ed Note: Just to state it explicitly: We welcome Democrats, Republicans, and everyone else to The Autopian, both as readers and writers. -DT].
Xpeng Is Going To Do Robots
Car companies, which rely on robots to make cars, love making humanoid ones. Honda had ASIMO, GM had Robonaut, and Tesla has Optimus. While Tesla saw its stock fall yesterday, Xpeng had the opposite happen as it announced it would be building humanoid robots and flying cars. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the company has also seen its sales grow instead of shrink in China.
“Xpeng shares have got a lift this year from its improving monthly sales figures, demonstrating to investors that its product strategy are working well despite intense competition,” said Steven Leung, executive director at UOB Kay Hian Hong Kong Limited. While the company’s latest updates on flying cars and humanoid robots could boost sentiment, “it’s still distant for those projects to translate into earnings contributions.”
FYI, we’re also doing robots. The Autopian is doing robots. Become a member now! Robots!
New Yorkers Now Support Congestion Pricing
After much delay, the New York State/City plan to charge an extra toll to certain drivers going into lower Manhattan went into effect. This is called “Congestion pricing,” and the goal was to reduce the number of car trips into the city and increase revenue for transit.
It was a political hot button issue for all of a minute, until it went into effect and most people saw that it worked as promised. Now, for the first time, New Yorkers seem to be in support, with a new poll from Siena College (who will not win the MAAC Basketball Tournament) showing more support than opposition according to The NYC Streetsblog:
A new poll released Monday from Siena College found that more New York City residents approve of congestion pricing than don’t, a dramatic turnaround from a previous poll by the same firm.
Now, 42 percent of city residents told the pollsters that they think congestion pricing should stick around, despite the Trump administration’s attempt to end it, while only 35 percent of city voters think Trump should end it.
When Siena last asked about the toll in December, support for congestion pricing among city voters was underwater: Only 32 percent favored the poll and 56 percent opposed it.
The President called the plan “Dead” and the Secretary of Transportation is trying to stop it, saying:
“New York State’s congestion pricing plan is a slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. “Commuters using the highway system to enter New York City have already financed the construction and improvement of these highways through the payment of gas taxes and other taxes. But now the toll program leaves drivers without any free highway alternative, and instead, takes more money from working people to pay for a transit system and not highways. It’s backwards and unfair. The program also hurts small businesses in New York that rely on customers from New Jersey and Connecticut. Finally, it impedes the flow of commerce into New York by increasing costs for trucks, which in turn could make goods more expensive for consumer. Every American should be able to access New York City regardless of their economic means. It shouldn’t be reserved for an elite few.”
The interesting thing about living in New York as a non-native is that I always had the impression that New York got a disproportionate amount of attention. Now that I’ve lived here for a while, I realize it’s just because we’re awesome and everyone is obsessed with us.
Ford Is Going To Try To Save German Operations
Everyone knows that Ford or Ford-associated companies have been involved in two of the greatest cars of all time, the Mazda Miata (out of Japan) and the Merkur XR4Ti (out of Germany). Oh, how far the mighty have fallen. Ford is now having to put $5 billion into the German branch of the company to keep it afloat:
Ford announced Monday that it will inject the money to support the ongoing transformation of its business in Europe and increase long-term competitiveness. The money will fund a plan to turn around Ford’s German subsidiary, Ford-Werke GmbH.
The Dearborn-based automaker has already made significant investments in its German operations in recent years, including a $2 billion upgrade of its plant in Cologne to produce electric vehicles.
Europe is a tough market now, though the possibility of Germany untightening a bit on spending is a sign that maybe things can turn around in the medium term. Hopefully, it’ll be just long enough to get a successor to the XR4Ti.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
While we’re still talking about great pop/indie acts from the early part of the 21st Century, I don’t think any song landed quite like “Time To Pretend” from MGMT did. It’s not “Yellow,” but it’s pretty good.
The Big Question
Was buying (or selling) your car a political decision?
Top photo: GM/Tesla
Nope, still driving the free Jeep I was given because I am stingy AF. I wanted to get a Prius, not to save the world, but to save my wallet. But alas, the dealership didn’t want to sell it to me. But right now I refuse to buy anything that isn’t necessary because of politics. And if I do want something I will make sure it’s from anywhere BUT made in America.
Yes, some cars have always been seen as a political decision. I was an early PHEV adopter with a 2014 Volt. I’m an EE and loved the tech and the way it drove, but I often had people assume I had a political sway because of it. It was very annoying to me. I do not enjoy having random political discussions with strangers (or even close friends and family).
I support EV’s because it’s a choice and choice is good. I don’t support it being the only choice consumers have. Our grid and charging infrastructure isn’t ready for a huge expansion of EV’s. It needs to be gradual to give the slow moving utilities time to adjust. I do a lot of work for EV charging and it’s shocking how little our local utilities has done and how often they tell us an area doesn’t have capacity right now. Most public charging costs way more than gas does. Anyone without a place to charge at home is often paying way more than they would for a gas vehicle. I have a PHEV, a full size truck to tow our camper, and a few little convertibles. I’d have a full EV if it had been a good fit for my life, but for now, a PHEV significantly cuts down on my gas usage and doesn’t force me into charging on long trips, because we often use it trips because it gets nearly 3x the fuel economy of the truck. My next truck will probably be a range extended EV if it’s an option, but I don’t have that choice yet, and an EV truck won’t work well for my use case of pulling a camper.
In the same way that explorers “found” mountain ranges: by having their eyes open and observing the surroundings.
IOW there were no shenanigans involved in Musky becoming a target; nothing was contrived or fabricated. To borrow a line from a film character, “It would appear he has done everything in his power to earn it”.
I do have a question for you all. I happen to be the proud owner of a Orange Rally Pontiac Aztek that looks very clean, with off-roady after market weels (one of the hugest downsides of an Aztek corrected).
I am thinking of plastering yuge CYBERTRUCK FOUNDATION SERIES decals in the back, as an ironic trolling move. Should I do it?
[When I buy its dream replacement, an HHR SS, I’ll make sure to plaster it with AMG GLB decals, that one is not up for discussion]
Do it.
You could also epoxy some stainless cookware to the body.
I thought that was initially pretty funny, and then you get to the HHR SS bit and I lost it. Terrific stuff!!
Just add “Uber” before the word foundation.
I think it’s hilarious, but I also think you run the risk of having your day unpleasantly interrupted by people who aren’t as funny as I am.
Damn you, voice of reason!
That would certainly draw some attention. Not the kind of attention I’d want, though. Not everyone would get the joke, and those are the people whose attention you’d rather not draw.
Well, I wouldn’t put the Cybertruck decals on it. That’s just inviting people to be nasty to you. AMG decals on the HHR are a great idea though. I put an AMG emblem on the back of my Maverick. I’m pretty sure it increases the HP by at least 100.
Hopefully your maintenance & repair costs don’t increase commensurately with that badge-granted extra hp!
My decision to buy recently wasn’t a political decision so much as a practical decision informed by political reality. With impending tariffs (or not; who knows? Whee!) and the decreasing likelihood of further interest rate cuts by the Fed (unless the economy really tanks and they desperately need to try to stave off a recession) I decided to pull the trigger a few months before I was planning to.
We got a new car in November, right after Trumps election because who knows what the tariffs would be doing to the price of everything.
Also I’m glad that our politicians are largely united (except Alberta) and fighting back. Might not like Doug Ford but like a broken clock he is right occasionally.
And I wonder how many people (at least here in the US) are doing exactly the same thing. The economic picture might not even be as good as it currently looks, which is scary.
Seems like a time of uncertainty is a good time to have more cash, less debt.
It’s pretty myopic to blame the left for political car purchases when the right has been borderline or explicitly racist about Asian imports since they gave the domestic market a black eye last century.
Harley Davidson literally names one of their models after the nukes dropped on Japan.
Uh no. The bombs were Fat Man and Little Boy. HD sells a Fat Boy bike.
First word + Last word
+ sold with a color and style scheme that imitated the bombs colors and plane designs
One or the other you could claim coincidence but both, combined with HD getting beaten so badly by Japanese bikes that they needed the government to save them, makes it easy to see the intent.
HD is trying hard to bury this history but it’s there if you dig
Edit; and are we going to also ignore the widespread anti-Japanese car import sentiment in the “American” car enthusiast spaces since the 80s? They feed off each other.
” sold with a color and style scheme that imitated the bombs colors and plane designs”
This is nonsense. Just for starters very few people alive during the production of the Fat Boy bikes have any idea what “colors” the bombs were or about the “plane designs”. Most of the photos of that stuff are black and white.
A designer in the 1990s would have no idea what they looked like? That’s a bold claim.
The buying public who would supposedly be attracted to these occult signs and symbols.
WW2 was certainly a big hero worshipping aspect of older American men in those days, and older men are HDs biggest supporters
It’s really not that hard to understand and it’s borderline disingenuous to claim people in the 90s just had no clue what WW2 was
I don’t think many WW2 vets were riding Fat Boy bikes in the 1990s. They’d have been in their late 60s-70s. The middle aged Harley guy is more of a boomer thing.
You’re not arguing they “knew what WW2 was”. You’re arguing they knew esoteric details of the appearance of Enola Gay, Fat Man, and Little Boy, so that the design of the bike would be recognized as an homage to the Bomb.
In any case, the bike wasn’t designed to look like a bomber or a bomb, at all.
The mere existence of anti-Japanese prejudice and stereotypes in 1980s America is not proof that HD had them in mind when designing the bike.
And I HATE Harleys.
agree with the statement about how conservatives have been anti-imports for years. But H-D did not name a bike after an A-Bomb.
Want to be offended about that stuff? Look up Richland, Washington High school. Their colors are green and yellow, their emblem is a mushroom cloud with an R in it, the name of their team is the “Bombers” and their motto is “be proud of the cloud”.
Richland is the closest city to Hanford WA. Hanford is the location that we refined Plutonium.
That’s actually kind of a dope tie in to the local industry…
The entire city of Richland is insane, but in a good way. The local brewery is Atomic Ale. The cab company is Rad Cab. etc. etc. etc. I lived there for over a year and had personal issues lead to bad memories, but the town itself has a cool sense of not giving three farts about what people think about them.
But with that being said, once you leave the tri-cities area, you are pretty much in a desert in the middle of nowhere. There are cool things to do and see around the area, but it’s not a place I would not plan a trip around. If you are in Portland, OR and bored because it is raining (again), drive down the gorge (which is very much a pretty trip), there are some cool things to do in the Tri-Cities area and it’s almost certain that it will be sunny and not rainy there.
“There’s been plenty written about Elon Musk joining the Republican Party”
Only because the AFD isn’t available.
Consumerism became the religion of the modern era. It’s such a sad statement about the modern era and about humanity in the developed world.
The best part about Apple products today is that they’ve lost ‘the cult’ following. Which means it’s just another device. They’re pretty decent devices, but I’m no longer buying into a ‘lifestyle’ or making a ‘statement’. I just need a phone/mini-computer to do things.
I just want my car to be transportation and occasional entertainment as a device unto itself. All the better that it can do with less environmental damage, if possible.
Sometimes things are just things. Some are utilitarian. Some can bring joy, certainly. But…they’re things. They don’t feel pain. They don’t have hopes and dreams of a better tomorrow. They don’t suffer when we make bad decisions. Crush them, neglect them, enjoy them, use them for their intended purpose.
At the end of the day the cult of consumerism is appalling. It’s a really unhealthy thing, and if there’s a sign of the erosion of the base of one’s society, it might just be one of them.
Brave New World, indeed.
Ah, it’s almost as if eschewing religion and replacing it with the intertwining altar of politics and consumerism has had some very very delitirous societal effects.
I largely agree with you, and having been on Apple devices all my life (I remember when my dad brought back the first iMac to finally replace some of the shitty clone Macs we had), I was/is all in on the cult side of things… but if you ask me what iPhone I have and what iOS number it runs, I can’t really tell you. There is a feeling where the device is great, but it blends into the back like a device really should. My mechanical watches on the other hand? I can probably talk your ear off about them, but it’s a fundamentally different thing that isn’t meant for a short duration use then replacement.
Musk made Tesla political. Going full fascist isn’t something anyone with any sense of reality can ignore. It isn’t like anyone with a functioning brain could have missed Musk’s current stance. For those who have been paying attention, this comes as no surprise.
I do feel a bit of sympathy for those who didn’t really pay attention a year ago or more and bought a Tesla. But anyone who purchased one in the last six months made a choice that is 100% political, even if they don’t want to admit it. At a minimum, they are saying they don’t care about supporting a fascist.
With your stance, does this mean that anyone who buys a Volkswagen or Porsche is also a fascist?
No, because their CEOs aren’t doing Nazi salutes (go watch the comparison of Hitler and Musk doing the same gesture if you don’t believe it was a Nazi salute)
Logic, reasoning is hard now? LOL.
Only if they get in their time machine and travel back 80 years to buy it.
This legit sounds like project that Musk is currently working on
If they did before 1946, yes, absolutely. Because they undoubtedly were.
I didn’t buy a Tesla because even several years ago, Musk demonstrated he is impulsive and has a short attention span. Not good for working folks like my dear wife and I when buying an expensive thing for the long term. Suddenly might not be able to get service or parts to do DIY repairs with. Very glad we bought other brands.
Hey man.
“It’s not a car company…now get off my cloud.
Can I interest you in a flamethrower? LOL
(your friend Elon)
Nah, my state has plenty of all fires that pop up w/o me buying a flame thrower. Besides, I can buy something similar at Harbor Freight for $30.
I await a coherent explanation of how reducing the size and scope of government is fascist, given that it runs diametrically in opposition to the characteristics of fascism.
But I strongly suspect this is, like all Leftoid Musk/Trump seethe, just this.
Such a lazy take. The idea that purging all levels of the national government without any regard for competence, cause, or even knowing what the impact is going to be isn’t out of a desire for efficiency. It is overtly a step to ensure there isn’t any internal resistance. Doing so in a highly nationalistic, xenophobic, racist, ultra-right context makes it clear it is fascism.
Here, start with the basics.
Remember your passivity when you wonder why there aren’t any more elections.
What a braindead reply.
Let’s see, it’s suspiciously hard to find an actual number on federal employees fired (or “purged” if you want), but it’s roughly 31,000 as of right now according to Forbes and NY Mag. Which, given the 3 million workers in direct federal employment, you’re looking at… oh, barely over 1%. Which, compared to the normal annual attrition rate for feds of 14.5% is… a rounding error compared to normal annual attrition. Lol, some purge.
Citation needed. Reminder: every government employee is paid for by tax dollars, and could be contributing to the economy in the private sector.
That’s a roundabout way of saying “I don’t like elected representatives running my country, I much prefer unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats!” Trump may have made the Deep State cool, but it was 70’s Leftists who coined it. They were right then, and guess what? Hasn’t changed just because a 90’s democrat used it.
Log off reddit and touch grass.
Hmm, yup, yup… funny how most of those apply to the last 4 years than they do now.
You get the sticker again, woooo!
Ooo tell me more, please!
A boycott illegal? How much is my government mandated purchase of a Cybertruck going to cost me?
Fortunately my most recent purchase is a car from 1972 that was made in Czechoslovakia, a part of the world with little or no political history…
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54354345696_9ef9006318_c.jpg
I sold my Holden recently because I can’t stand the government of Australia (am I doing this right?).
Seeing how tesla’s sales are going, trump buying one might be helping out musk more than one would think.
Considering Trump’s ‘popularity’ worldwide, it will more than likely just be another nail in Tesla’s coffin.
I like Paul N, but Ed N can go to the Phantom Zone for all I care. Rooting for companies to fail is just gross, and it’s been his schtick since the TTAC days. You may not like the founder, but Tesla has a lot of employees, and I’d wager anyone with a retirement account has some level of exposure to Tesla stock.
Unlike Ed N, I can say I don’t like him while still wishing him well in his career. I just won’t be reading his articles, and haven’t been for over a decade. I guess that’s my own kind of boycott, but I’m not running around trying to get him cancelled or whatever.
Now apply that idea to Musk’s business. But with the proportion reserved for a fascist. All the people impacted negatively should be pissed at Musk. Not the sane people who want him to fail.
Ed N has had a hard-on for Musk a long time before he showed those colors. Plus all the other deathwatch articles on GM and Chrysler. Sorry, but Ed is simply rooting for a negative outcome.
Musk has been a shitstain for a long time. But again, if you don’t like Ed and don’t want to read his stuff, that is fine. But you should be alright with people doing the same to Musk but with the force that is proportional to Musk being a fascist with massive political power based off the wealth he has amassed with Tesla.
I don’t care if people boycott Tesla. What I don’t care for is vandalism, and reporting actively wishing ill on companies the reporter doesn’t like. The latter is a hallmark of Ed’s for over 15 years.
Boycotting is wishing ill on the company, and there is more than enough reason to do so. Boycotting Ed is the same deal. It just sounds like you are mad at Ed because he was better at predicting what an abhorrently vile person Musk is than you were.
Musk is the world’s richest man, and he is getting his rocks of firing people without cause as a political stunt. Musk supports an administration that openly claims they are above the law. Tesla supports him. Everyone who supports this administration has made it clear they don’t want the law applied to them. As such, they don’t get to claim the law should protect them. Musk did this to himself.
The amount of people who don’t know, or don’t care to know, that every aspect of your life is defined by political choices is staggering. Whether or not you or voters had direct impacts on say; regulations, zoning, farming, labor laws, etc. everything is all products of politics.
Musk for a long time chose to either lie about being left leaning or used to be left leaning, and used that political choice to sell cars. If it wasn’t for liberals there wouldn’t be a Tesla.
Musk is in a FAFO period right now.
Tesla is in a FAFO period right now. Unfortunately I think Musk is right where he wants to be. He’s leveled up from running a company to running a country.
It’s so depressing that politics is seen as this incredibly contentious field for weirdos and nannys instead of the tool by which we organize large groups in mostly peaceful ways.
I’d rather more people cared the barest minimum about politics so we could have some semblance of a functioning infrastructure.
Dumb people are easier to control.
::Gestures at everything::
Boy howdy. It kinda makes me want to get back into teaching, if only to make sure that there are a handful of youth that are literate and numerate.
So are the ignorant half of our country.
Trump calling Tesla boycotts illegal is one of the most telling (and damning) things to ever come out of his mouth, and that’s saying a lot.
In one sentence, he shows both an ignorance of the law AND his extremely fragile ego at the same time. He could have just said “Good luck with that, I’m buying two!” but instead he’s crying in public.
But Bud Light boycott was ‘beautiful’?
Has Trump ever even driven a car?
There’s a semi-famous picture of him at a gas station refueling a Lamborghini Diablo.
I stand corrected on the driving…he evidently has a small collection of $$ cars according to the interwebs.
Hopefully, they don’t allow him to drive anymore.
We had to take my Mom’s HHR away when her dementia kicked in.
If someone’s mental faculties don’t allow them to be in the driver’s seat of a motor vehicle… I think that it should also preclude them from being in the driver’s seat of a country. Might just be me, though.
And not just any country….I definitely agree, but most of my neighbors/family evidently didn’t think so.
Nope Biden definitely should not have been running the country, if he was.
Did he actually drive it there or just pose for the picture?
Probably borrowed it, or bought it and then screwed the bank until it was repo’ed…
President Trump is the expert in illegality. After all, he’s a felon. Are you?
On another note.
Waiting for Minnesota to ask for Canadian asylum asap.
Fucking idiot.
Ô Canada!
Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!
I would post the lines of Canada’s other national anthem but YYZ has no lyrics.
I am ALL in on MN becoming Canadian.
As a Minnesota resident I endorse this message.
Similarly amusing, the proposition that Denmark buys California.
https://denmarkification.com/
No boycott of Tesla – so will we now all be forced to buy Tesla’s or face retribution?
Hear hear. I didn’t realize boycotts were illegal. If so, where are the prosecutions of beer drinkers who stopped buying Bud Light?
You can’t have it both ways. I support a (regulated) free market. The market is clearly speaking. TANSTAAFL, somebody always pays.
I stopped buying Yuengling in 2015 the moment I saw them endorse Trump, and they had just started exploding in popularity. I really liked their beer, too. It’s too bad, they didn’t have to support him, but chose to.
The Keurig controversy from a few years ago has been standing out in my mind recently too.
I’m glad our Odyssey was built 30 miles away by non-union employees with good pay and benefits. I like to know that the experiment is working, and that it diversifies our country’s economic base a bit and hedges manufacturers against currency fluctuations or tariffs. I said that a decade ago when we bought. I feel that’s apolitical.
Because I also would have bought the same van if it had been made in Japan by the most protectionist union on earth. As long as the quality and price are there, I’m happy as a consumer.
The self-congratulatory aspect should always come second. It’s just a fun little rationalization exercise. Just like how obsessive levels of domestic purchasing (at the expense of product quality) didn’t actually help Detroit much at all.
A foundational issue here is that if the people who say the law doesn’t apply to them, and Musk and his vile ilk most certainly have, it also means the law doesn’t protect them.
Ignatius, I am sorry to tell you that “the law” will dedicate enormous resources to protecting Musk and his vile ilk
Using quotes around “the law” is appropriate. What you say is true, but that doesn’t change the moral imperative. I imagine that dismantling the FBI will quickly be followed by a personal police force that dwarfs the old agency in size and authority.
It’s not the right-wing politics. It’s the being a primary instrument of an active fascist coup, destroying the US government and — bizarrely — all secondary sources of our power in the rest of the world. (The primary source being our nuclear ICBMs.)
Ahem.
But really, we all know this seethe is just this.
Cars have always been political, as cars are often an extension of our personalities. The second gen Prius was the poster child of the Left for years, even if Toyota publicly wasn’t.
Where I get frustrated is when the business becomes political. Businesses should stay neutral. I am as wary of Elon as I am with the clowns from Ben and Jerry’s.
You can simply avoid buying Ben and Jerry’s. There’ll be a point where Trump funnels billions directly to Tesla from the government.
As President I will funnel billions of dollars to Ben and Jerry’s (and Blue Bell and Carvel, I just love ice cream);.
you have my support, and vote.
and who da fuck declares a boycott illegal?
as mentioned above, we have an imbecile in charge…
Well, back in the day Reagan declared the air traffic controller’s work boycott illegal, and fired all of the striking ones… So I guess one could argue there is precedent.
Refusing to buy some company’s product is a world away from striking for better pay and/or working conditions, though. I personally wouldn’t equate the two situations, but I’m not the one sitting in the Oval Office.
totally different things…sorry
Agreed. To a reasonable person, the two situations aren’t equal. But what constitutes “precedent” seems to be very open to interpretation these days.
Good point.
But I am an unreasonable, deplorable, left wing piece of crap.
Turd’s words, not mine.
And proud of it too.
Now time to go find a cat for supper. LOL!
Only because you’re apparently not far enough upstate in NY to have Stewart’s Shops nearby.
Anything north of Times Square is “Upstate.”
Kind of like how anything east of Worcester is “Boston”
+1 for Stewart’s. The only gas station chain I simp for.
…I am at least 15 years older than that sentence would let on.
You have my vote if some of that money makes it’s way to Moomers to expand into the southern part of Michigan’s lower peninsula.
Carvel……….(fresh) Ice Cream…..(fresh)
Carvel……….(fresh) Ice Cream…..(fresh)
…
Omg have you tried the Ava Duvernay flavor? Lights, Camera, Action. It has salted caramel swirls AND cookie dough chunks.
I may or may not have eaten an entire pint last night …
Hardigree/Streeter 2028!
Alas, there is no difference between actual Fascists and people who want disadvantaged groups to be treated better.
Covid had shown us that businesses, and business owners, are willing to make a hot take – and thus suffer (and often complain about) the results.
Fuck no, perhaps the only thing that swayed me beyond the purely technical aspects of the car was the fact that my car was built in Detroit. I wouldn’t call that political.
Would you have bought the same car if it was made in China?
Probably not. Some might consider that political, but I really look at it as supporting this continents industrial base. I do have a certain pride in knowing all of my vehicles (6) were built in North America. Two in Canada, two in Michigan, one in Ohio and one in Missouri.
Yes, it was, THAAAAANKS!
rolls window up
“Was buying (or selling) your car a political decision?”
No.
That is all I have to say about this matter.
What’s your take on chocolates? /s
I am pro chocolates. I am particularly fond of chocolates with coconut. Anyone who disagrees with me on this matter is wrong.
And where are you on chocolate with embedded cherry or orange? Those combinations are vile, in my self-righteous opinion.
Pro cherry, although only when they are explicitly identified as cherry containing. I don’t like being surprised with fruit when I want snacks.
I have yet to see a chocolate with embedded orange. That sounds intriguing.
Controversial candy take: candy corn is very good.
There’s some really great chocolates made with orange filling, almost a gum drop consistency. And they kick ass!
Memory is bad but I think Brachs and Whitman’s are two of the makers.
“Try it, you’ll like it.”
You had some respect until you said candy corn is good. SMH
Damn you coconut loving peoples! It has ruined far too many cakes and other sweets! Most of the time it is there in hiding, just waiting to ambush the casual chocolate eater reaching into an assortment. I’m not a picky eater but coconut is not, and will never – be an acceptable ingredient in anything! /s
Hear, Hear! You just keep chewing and it never goes away…gag.
I am pro chocolate but must start a boycott against you for coconut.