Writes Maureen Dowd, in "Can Dems Dodge Doomsday?" (NYT). Focused on helping the Democratic Party in the next election, she looks to 3 Democratic Party strategists — James Carville, David Axelrod, and Stan Greenberg.
Biden’s advisers are urging him just to sell harder and people will get it. Axelrod disagrees: “You cannot persuade people if their lived experience is telling them something different. We’ve been through hell in America and around the world.”...
Carville [says Democrats] should work not to seem like an “urban, coastal, arrogant party”... “People don’t like you.”...
... Greenberg warned Democrats not to use Obama.... “Obama did not give voice to the hurt and anger that working class voters were feeling,” Greenberg wrote.... Fretting about the threat of Trumpism, given that the Democrats are bleeding working-class voters, including Black and Hispanic ones, he told me, “If they don’t listen this time, we’re going to end up with fascism, dammit.”
To sum up. Axelrod says: empathize with the people. Carville says: stop being so damned dislikeable. Greenberg says: do class politics, not race politics.
ADDED: I'm reading the comments over there and it's overflowing with denial: Stop trashing Biden! I'm tired of attacks on Democrats!
One comment with over 1400 up votes ends with the poorly thought-out line: "D to go forward; R for reverse....over an endless series of catastrophic cliffs." Don't go forward over even one catastrophic cliff, because that will be the end of it all, and what lies beyond is irrelevant. If the endless cliffs are behind us, so that going in reverse would take us over them, how did we get here in the first place?
Do you visualize history as a landscape? Do you think of the government as a car driving over that landscape? Does that car have an automatic transmission? When I get in my car, I don't see a "D"...
पोस्ट्स
१६६ टिप्पण्या:
Maybe it’s not the messaging, but the product.
Joe Biden is not governing like the moderate he professed to be. Rather, he turned the Democrats over to the progressive wing of the party.
America is not a far left country.
There’s still time for the Dems to pull back from the brink, but they won’t do it. All the energy comes from the lunatic fringe. The party leaders have gone too long without standing up to the squad and its fellow travellers. Those people may happily sell out their family, community, and country rather than vote Republican, but they will just stay home if the Dems stop kissing their feet.
Right now, the Democratic Party is a regional rump party in its death-throes. The liberal tendency to cocoon itself from anything that smacks of intellectual diversity means that the party is becoming more and more dominant in fewer and fewer districts. The only thing that will save them is a Republican meltdown. Which will happen, but not for a couple more election cycles.
Think of it as a system with predictable instabilities. If it's unstable, it doesn't matter what your feelings about the new feature are.
One confidence builder for the dems would be to field only white male candidates.
Do you visualize history as a landscape?
I visualize the sweep of history as a pendulum. You can only go so far in one direction before you swing back. And the further you go, the further you go back when the reaction sets in.
What if it's a self-driving car? What if it's not about the passengers?
Why not? They bought Trump's lies quick enough? I guess populists say things you want to believe, it's called cognitive resonance, while the Dem's news is now causing cognitive dissonance?
H
Six on the floor for Ann Althouse! Ultra cool.
I was working on an estate and there was a Porsche involved; about 2,000 miles on it. It was an automatic! I couldn’t believe it.
The time is coming when no one will drive a stick shift and no one will know how to get along in the world without a computer.
Here's my image.
Our leaders are groping around like people wearing VR headsets, waving their hands in the air and convinced that they've taken effective, popular action. Meanwhile the people are stepping back. Trudeau, Biden, Xi, Putin slowly circling in an empty room. Slowly an empty space forms around them as they lift a hand responding to cheering crowds.
In other words, for our glorious leaders (and thought leaders) it's the Thirties when you could make crowds believe makebelieve - believe the Ukraine is attacking Russia and Russia is defending its citizens (crowd cheers); believe there's no US inflation (crowd cheers) or it was caused by big companies (crowd boos); believe the Canadian truckers are Nazis and deserve to be trampled by mounted troopers (crowd cheers). In 2022 whatever it is that different physical groups really believe or see, it isn't what the delusional VR class is "seeing" and saying. The country is not exhausted, confused and facing mountain ranges; it's sick and tired of Our Betters and the mountain of garbage that is accumulating and which they will leave for us to clean up.
Tim: I don't agree with the squad, but right now they are the only anti-dnc, anti-globalist folks left who haven't been purged from the Democratic party.
As long as the MSM and the Davos billionaires can keep the little people divided and fighting amongst themselves, they will remain in absolute power.
This is why Joe Rogan is reviled in the media. He has a bigger audience than all networks combined and he's a liberal progressive pothead who likes to fight, drink whiskey, workout and hunt. His broad appeal to young men across the board is the biggest threat to the status quo.
Until the marginalized left breaks through their woke paralysis, the status quo will remain intact. Right now, the best thing going for the oligarchy is the pathetic rumbling of a new civil war. It's ironic but it's clear to me that the Lefty woksters needs to find common ground with the deplorables.
As long as Trump is the spiritual leader of the disenfranchised right, it's not going to happen.
"The time is coming when no one will drive a stick shift and no one will know how to get along in the world without a computer."
We're there.
Democrats, what we refer to as progressives or Liberals (though they don't resemble classical Liberals in any manner) have not had a new idea in over 50 years. They keep repackaging variants of Socialism, collectivism, Marxism using phrases that rotate every few years. Redistribution, equity, fairness, race, race, race, race. Yet nothing changes except one thing: In areas where they hold sway and have held power for decades, life is objectively worse for most people. In areas where they do not hold sway, where they do not hold power for decades, life is better. People are leaving those places held by Democrats. They are moving to places held by 'others'. People react to their own lives, what they see with their own eyes. Pay from their own wallet. Whether or not their kid can get an education that will help them succeed in life, or whether or not their kid can even walk to school safely is becoming important. Even to progressive parents.
These phrases and tacks taken by Democrat consultants for years have worked well beyond their own expectations, I'm sure. But reality, being what it is, always end up showing the way. These Democratic Party ideas, those of progressives and the far left, those Marxist leanings that keep insinuating themselves into Democratic Party platforms, have been shone under a bright light. Once you see it, it's hard to unsee it. Once you taste something and it tastes like garbage, chances are you're not going to want another bite.
They are done. It's only a matter of a few elections now. I'm not sure the Republican Party is up for it's role either. The party heads are pretty lame and are stuck in the old ways. To me they represent styrofoam popcorn. Looks close to the real thing, but it's not real in any way. But that's another story for another post. For now, they are the opposite of Democrats and that may be enough to win.
Millenial anti-theft device.
It’s a bit funny, because the Europe luxury makers like Porsche and BMW are only still making stick shifts because American enthusiasts want them. In Europe almost everyone wants paddle shifters. Because of course those are originally derived from F-1.
Over there it’s only cheap hatchbacks that still have manual transmissions. Whereas here it’s mostly luxury vehicles.
To sum up. Axelrod says: empathize with the people. Carville says: stop being so damned dislikeable. Greenberg says: do class politics, not race politics.
No one suggests they govern better.
Even they know that’s impossible.
I'm a stick-shift snob, and taught all of my kids how to drive one. They (mostly) prefer it, even if they can't get a car these days with one that isn't a sports car.
The day will come when nobody knows about spark advance and retard, first of all because the word is banned.
My second car was a stick. That began a string of at least my next 4 cars with a manuel, which included the first new car I bought.
Got away from them because of other family drivers, but I've since bought a 5-speed 280z. Shook my head at every one with an automatic when I was looking.
My son recounted his experience learning to drive the Datsun in an instructional paper for a college English class.
Keep it up Progressives. Drive hardworking law and order citizens away and keep bowing down to BLM, ANTIFA and the illegal aliens that are spewing into the country. Keep lying to us about covid, the economy, inflation, and how "GOOD" things are, when we have eyes and can see how much you are damaging America.
I've said for years that Obama was a disaster for the dems. He convinced them that they didn't need the white working class, while during his admin the party lost over a thousand seats across all levels of government. That's a lot of rising talent suddenly out of politics.
“If they don’t listen this time, we’re going to end up with fascism, dammit.”
Boy this is some serious self-delusion going on here. The democrat party IS fascist. They and Trudeau in Canada are cut from the same cloth.
I've driven manuals for most of my life, up until my current truck. I prefer them and still feel weird driving an automatic.
And I too remember my dad trying to teach me to drive a stick by having me drive around an empty parking lot in his old Datsun pickup while he occasionally yelled "SHIFT!"
Elon Musk says we are already a symbiote with our phones. All we need is a faster interface than our thumbs.
It's been 20 years now, but I needed a rental car to drive from Holland to Belgium to Germany. Fun fact: you can't get an automatic transmission in a rental car in Europe. At least you couldn't back then. No big deal, I'll rent a car with a manual transmission.
My European colleagues were astounded when I arrived to pick them up in a stick shift car. They thought all American cars had automatics.
I learned to drive a stick shift when I was 17. I bought a Ford Falcon with 3 on the tree and I had to get it home. I taught myself to drive it on the way home.
BTW I'm coming up on my 50th wedding anniversary and the closest we ever came to divorce was when I tried to teach my wife to drive my 1972 Pinto with a 4 speed transmission. I made the mistake of saying "your sister can drive a 4 speed, why the hell can't you?
“My second car was a stick. That began a string of at least my next 4 cars with a manuel, which included the first new car I bought.”
It’s hard to find good help these days!
My first car was a Beetle. It blew my mind to push ‘down’ for reverse. Now entering another dimension…
"Dave Begley said...
I was working on an estate and there was a Porsche involved; about 2,000 miles on it. It was an automatic! I couldn’t believe it."
Really? Porsche sells a lot more automatics than manuals. In some models its above 90%. And this true of all makes, MB, BMW, Audi, etc. Mercedes Benz doesn't sell a manual.
Relax. The Dems will be fine because voters are stupid.
I taught my wife (of 46 years now) how to drive a stick in my first new car… a ‘74 Fiat X1/9. She did well from the get-go. The last time she drove a car with a manual trans was in my daily driver 350Z, and as I watched her pull away - smoking tires and engine roaring - I vowed it would be the last if she safely returned.
rhhardin said...
One confidence builder for the dems would be to field only white male candidates.
They've done that twice with pudding head. His polling indicates it isn't likely to work a third time.
Temujin - good comment. We're running up on a century since FDR set the pattern.
I had one of the first Porsche doppelkaplungs or whatever they’re called. The dual clutch transmission. I gave up explaining to enthusiasts why my ‘automatic’ was faster than the manual.,,
If you're trying to peddle a C-2 Corvette with an automatic Powerglide transmission be prepared to offer a discount.
The new automatic/dual clutch transmissions in today’s performance cars change gears faster than a manual shift can be made. But still, the “snick-snick” shifting of a great manual transmission can be a near religious experience.
Hilarious. Three advisors: Democrats, don't be like you are. Or don't seem that way.
Sincerity. If you can fake that, you've got it made.
“Millenial anti-theft device.”
Word…
“If they don’t listen this time, we’re going to end up with fascism, dammit.”
The Dems create hell on earth w/fascist mandates, calling those who wish to drop said mandates hitler- and if they do not retain “power”- we’re going to end up w/fascism.
W/these gemstones of sparkly perfect sense- I mean, c’mon man! Listen to your betters!!
Part of the logic of modernity is that if it doesn't seem to work--I don't know, it might not achieve a combination of happiness and justice--you just double down and become post-modern. Words mean what we say they mean.
Temujin- there’s still a little redneck subset tinkering away on old trucks and reveling in diesel exhaust. The odds are stacked against w/all new animated machination requiring “chips”. We are bottlenecking to a dead end.
Negotiating a hill stop is the most gratifying maneuver in a manual…until you learn to heel toe into a corner.
The D/R machine is a clown car in trouble.
I've replaced the stock photo of a stick shift with a photograph I took this morning of my actual stick shift (on a 2005 Audi TT).
“If they don’t listen this time, we’re going to end up with fascism, dammit.”
Some of us look at countries like Australia, New Zealand, and now Canada, and we see real fascism in action, put in place by the political parties of the left “purely for the good of the citizens” (but incidentally perpetuating the reigns of those in power).
Our youngest learned to drive on an older vw manual car. We think it probably kept him whole, cuz he couldn’t fuss w music and such while driving. He’s that type. Now, it’s the only kind of car he wants to drive.
a photograph I took this morning of my actual stick shift (on a 2005 Audi TT)
Clintonesque is an adjective appropriate for that photo in this post…
Greenberg: "“If they don’t listen this time, we’re going to end up with fascism, dammit.”
These people are flat-out deceived.
Shorter versions:
Axelrod: 'If you can't make the lie credible, deflect.'
Carville: 'Make the people think they like you.'
Greenberg: 'If the message doesn't work, try a different one, and don't say what we really mean out loud.'
The last stick I drove was a 6-speed Porsche 911 GT3 RS with a Shark Werks clutch upgrade. Obviously not mine.
I've driven innumerable large dump trucks, garbage trucks, endloaders, back hoes, and large delivery trucks, all manuals. In the past, I've owned a Beetle, a VW squareback and other economy cars, all manual.
Why anyone today would choose to drive a manual transmission, especially living in an urban area, is beyond me. I guess it really is a form of snobbery, as some describe themselves. But then, I'm not a car guy.
My mileage varies.
"the poorly thought-out line: "D to go forward; R for reverse....over an endless series of catastrophic cliffs.""
Sure, you can deconstruct the sentence and the metaphor, but it's also beside the point: for Dems, R means reverse, and everything that will happen is catastrophic. From an actual Dem standpoint, the line is very well thought out: it means despise R, fight for D, at all cost. In actual battle, it makes good sense, even if it doesn't accord with the sensibilities of nice women on the sideline, who have the luxury of abstaining and observing.
Opinion of Althouse jumped six points at least. If she drives that car, she has to have a lot upstairs.
I had a six speed Acura. Nicest car I have ever owned and the most fun. I loved that car but finally had to get something more practical for my business.
My first car was a Beetle. It blew my mind to push ‘down’ for reverse.
Mine was a Bug too — a used one, 1960-vintage — it didn't even have a gas gauge! (A reserve gas tank was provided, with a lever to flip to it when you ran out of gas.)
After that I had a '68 VW van, outfitted as a camper (which was originally my mom's), for many years — I put more than half a million miles on it, and so have a lot of experience driving a stick shift. (They used to call the stick on the VW van “an oar for rowing up hills.”)
Nowadays, though, I'm a hybrid driver — a Toyota Highlander Hybrid SUV, to be exact (while my partner Ann has a Prius-C). Gas-electric hybrids are more flexible and capable than either all-gas or (a whole lot worse) all-electric vehicles at this stage of the technology.
For one thing, I like having my vehicle not have to run the gas engine all the time that it's operational — and I also like having very considerable electrical capability available wherever I am (with the car) — including while in the back-country — but even in the midst of the San Francisco Bay Area (where we lived until a couple of years back), the vehicle's electrical output got our house through several lengthy PG&E (local Calif. power company) outages, both planned and otherwise.
That was achieved using only the manufacturer's (rather limited) supported electrical output (plus an inverter), but any hybrid (even e.g. tiny compact Priuses) are potentially capable of supplying tens of kilowatts of power to external applications using after-market equipment. This web site discusses the principles involved in tapping into the electrical power output potentially available in hybrids. Another exemplar of this principle is the new-ish Ford F-150 hybrid pickup which — natively from the manufacturer — supports numerous kilowatts of power available externally, no separate generator required.
Getting back to the issue of stick-shifts in the hybrid context, the gas engine isn't even running for a lot of the time in hybrids (while it's underway under control of its electrical motors, which happens on-and-off, nearly foot by foot sometimes) — thus in my view it doesn't make sense to employ a stick-shift purely to set the transmission for the gas-engine portion of a hybrid vehicle — though I suppose one could do it.
Note, however, that hybrids generally employ a continuously variable (CVT) transmission, not one with (only a few) discrete gears that one could — possibly, in theory — manually do the shifting to and from (during those moments that the engine is, perhaps briefly, running).
If the government is a car, why can't it be a flying car, like the Jetsons? Then we wouldn't worry about the cliffs. We'd have other worries to be sure, just not the cliffs.
I love driving my Miata, with stick.
If you've never driven a Tesla Model S, go drive one right away. Last fall an acquaintance tossed me his fob and said, go have fun. Ho Lee Smoke. The acceleration was mind blowing. The only noise was the wind and the tires. So much fun. I could never own one. I'm too self-indulgent. I'd lose my license or worse.
"doomsday"
Sure, but winning and losing don't mean the same thing for left and right. The left wins and moves the goal posts, not to be moved back, the right wins, and fiddles with some details.
Dems pass the ACA, GOP doesn't repeal. Dems pass trillions in new benefits, GOP helps out. Dems open borders, GOP doesn't kick illegals out. The only somewhat lasting GOP power effect is on the courts, and even there victories are few--see Roberts Kavanaugh, Gorsuch on "sex," Kennedy moving the biggest goal post of all.
“If they don’t listen this time, we’re going to end up with fascism, dammit.”
Speaking of self-indulgence, that's the kind of thinking that justifies anything and that's how you end up with "fascism." And the statement is false. He sounds hysterical and I don't mean funny. I get the idea that, for Greenberg, "facism" is anyone but his party in power.
I mentioned the other day, after the ship containing all of those (probably EV) Audis that burned up, that I gave up on manual transmissions after burning up a clutch, on the western access to the Eisenhower Tunnel, under the Continental Divide, on I-70. On a clear day, with no traffic, I have done it in maybe 15 minutes. Sometimes, after a day or two of skiing, it can take two hours, or so, of stop and go, uphill driving (we mostly missed the Sunday evening ski traffic, with a place in Summit County). It’s easy with an automatic. Extremely difficult with a stick.
We all quickly learned to drive sticks, because our father liked them, and when we were in HS, his was usually the car we could use for the night. We started with a couple of Corvairs. But then, being unable to afford the Porsche of his dreams, he bought himself a 1967 Pontiac Firebird 400. Beatable from 0-60, from 60-120 it was really fast. Just the way it was geared, but we did beat some Corvettes. Our mother couldn’t drive it worth beans - clunking into the driveway in 4th gear (the gear that took you north of 120). We were just plain lucky that we survived that car with our family intact.
My parents had a truce for the next decade or so, with her car having an automatic, and his a stick. Until one night he put her Volvo through the garage door. One of the few times he put his foot down. It was going to be sticks from here out. Then, in their 70s, my father had his knee replaced, and couldn’t drive a stick for a couple weeks. So, while he was in the hospital, she went out and bought a shiftless Audi A6 with “her” money (the logic makes no sense to me that his money is their money, but hers is hers - I argue this with my partner all the time, and inevitably lose). I pointed out it would have been far cheaper to have just rented a car for a couple weeks. But then after driving her A6 for awhile, when he bought his next car, it was an automatic (that did allow for shifting, if you wanted to). By then, Audi wasn’t importing that many stick shift cars. We knew it was bad when my next brother finally bit the bullet and bought a shifty automatic. He had long driven Audi’s S (Sport) line, with stiffer suspension, etc, and when clutches disappeared from them, he knew that the writing was on the wall.
I never cared that much. Once you learn a stick, and drive one for awhile, it becomes automatic. I would drive whatever was most convenient. Some of my vehicles had clutches, some didn’t. Didn’t really notice, until that night on the approach to the Eisenhower tunnel. I was into my 50s by then, and didn’t need the bother anymore. A stick was still better if you had to rock a car, stuck in snow. But that’s what AAA was for anyway. Haven’t had a clutch for almost 20 years, but still instinctively know how to drive them. Just don’t miss them, in my early 70s, like I did when I had automatics, in my 20s.
Curious George:
I thought a Porsche was a sports car. That means a stick shift. The last time I drove a Porsche was 1975 and it had a stick.I haven’t been in the market for a Porsche.
Wilbur said..."Why anyone today would choose to drive a manual transmission, especially living in an urban area, is beyond me. I guess it really is a form of snobbery, as some describe themselves. But then, I'm not a car guy."
Manual transmissions appear to work as an anti-theft device (or anti-carjacking) in large cities like Minneapolis as the ghetto youth aren't suitably educated in manual transmissions.
Has this entered your mind?
By November, the wuflu will have faded to an annoyance by natural progression, and the NYT will be the megaphone for the D's celebrating how they "shut down the virus, not the country."
Mask mandates will have evaporated, and nobody will be talking about vaccines because they will continue to decrease in effectiveness. Pfizer hardest hit.
Inflation will be down to ~5%, and the NYT will be celebrating how D policies have been so successful (at least in part due to the modern way of calculating inflation).
The most recent popular uprisings will be from the right- truckers, "insurrectionists," maybe something else will come up. NYT will proclaim them to be orders of magnitude more damaging to our society than Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis. They will claim that Defund the Police was a Republican plan. Maybe they will get real lucky and a white cop will shoot a youth who was just turning his life around.
MoDo and the rest are trying to lure us into complacency.
Sebastian said...
"doomsday"
Sure, but winning and losing don't mean the same thing for left and right. The left wins and moves the goal posts, not to be moved back, the right wins, and fiddles with some details.
Dems pass the ACA, GOP doesn't repeal. Dems pass trillions in new benefits, GOP helps out. Dems open borders, GOP doesn't kick illegals out. The only somewhat lasting GOP power effect is on the courts, and even there victories are few--see Roberts Kavanaugh, Gorsuch on "sex," Kennedy moving the biggest goal post of all.
Trump removed the masks.
Now people are forced to see what is going on.
The republicans in DC go first.
Stick shifts are to modern dual clutch automatic transmissions as vinyl LPs are to mp3s.
I hadn't driven a stick in 20 years when my wife and I took a trip to Madiera; all they had for rentals were manual trans. Most of the roads in Madiera are about one and a half cars wide, with about 30 degree slopes, with sheer drops overlooking the wide Atlantic. I picked it up eventually, but not without some loud and unpleasant grinding, and several moments of genuine terror.
The loud and unpleasant grinding may have been my wife's teeth; I'm not sure.
The left is scared shitless. They pushed so much and thought they had reached the end of history, like they always do when they win anything.
The gains the left made with middle class women is thinning as they denigrate all parents that want their kids to be educated not indoctrinated. They are losing Hispanics in places like TX and Arizona because they are pandering to groups antiethical to their prosperity.
It's going to be a bloodbath and all they have is become more likeable? It's the policies as much as "likeability". They took their masks off and now it's going to be hard to put them back on.
A buddy of mine has a Tesla. The acceleration is truly mind-boggling. Hits you right in the middle of your lower back. No lag at all.
The manual on my 2019 Corolla Hatchback is a joy. And with automatic rev matching and automatic hill hold, extremely easy to drive.
Not a car going forward or backward. More like Wily E. Coyote, out over the edge of the cliff already, with a very few like Carville looking down, but all the rest still hovering in air and denial.
The weirdest thing about driving in Ireland, yes even weirder than driving on the wrong side of the road, was trying to shift with my left hand. That took some getting used to.
All the blogger kids learned to drive a stick. Even the one who is not legally allowed to drive due to uncorrectable vision issues. One drives a VW turbo with a stick. She enjoys it. The other has a Cavalier that he enjoys driving. I have a performance vehicle that I drive on occasion with paddle shifters. It is not the same as a stick and I almost never use them because the onboard computer overrides them a lot anyway, even when I am set for manual mode. I bought it used, so I didn't have a lot of choice in the matter, but maybe next time I will be choosier.
My grandfather taught me to drive a stick shift on a VW Beetle converted to a dune buggy. I was 13 and it took me a few hours to master it. I drove sticks until the late 90's when I sold my '95 Toyota Corolla. It was my favorite car of all time for fun and value, but living in the city makes driving a stick a pain in the butt.
If you want a car that will last forever, manual transmissions are the way to go.
Isn't it more fun to talk about cars than the Democrat party?
R or D, I’m here to tell you if you lose the next election it will be the end of America as we knows it.
The Washington State legislature (D) is going full out on making our lives worse. They want to ban gun magazines of more than 10 rounds but won't up the penalties for illegal gun sales nor for using a gun in a crime. The state has a $10B surplus, but their $16B "transportation fix" bill raises taxes and fees; it allocates 30% to transit, which only a few percent use; and doesn't do anything to fix bridges.
Last year they "fixed" policing by making sure the cops couldn't pursue criminals. The banned the sale of new gasoline-powered cars in 2030 in favor of mobile fire-prone electric vehicles. This year, they've proposed removing the sales tax on battery-powered outdoor tools, which they think will encourage people to buy them. They fail to realize, probably because none of they actually use outdoor tools, that gas- and batter-powered tools are two different markets.
Democrats are constantly sowing chaos in our lives instead of promoting order. That makes them neobarbarians.
Is there anyone left that learned to use a stick shift driving a tractor at age 12? How many people still know how to double-clutch to line up the gears? (A function replaced by "synchromesh".)
Renting a car in England 20 years ago -- all rentals were sticks. I drove a stick in the US, a Dodge Colt, but the combination of driving a stick and being on the wrong side was pretty difficult. Over and over I would go to shift, and instead turn the wipers on.
I am reminded of a CS Lewis quote— I paraphrase— if the crowd is hurtling toward an abyss, the one who turns back soonest is the progressive.
Achilles: "Trump removed the masks. Now people are forced to see what is going on. The republicans in DC go first."
Wishful thinking. "People" also like their ACA subsidies and think it's mean to exclude people with pre-existing conditions from insurance; they like the checks shoveled in their direction and won't vote for serious deficit reduction; they get upset at some things they see, as in schools, but whether they can make anti-wokeness stick when teacher indoctrination proceeds year after year remains to be seen; and the Republicans in DC are the same old same old. The one thing people are "forced to see" that can actually help the right, though not in moving goal posts back, is inflation.
So Trump removed some masks. My point was about Dem goalpost-moving. What did he accomplish that lasted? What has the GOP done that lasts? Dem doomsdays are temporary setbacks.
Clutches are too annoying when in the lines to get tested for the virus, or pick up free food at the closed schools, or buy fast food at the places with closed dining rooms. Hybrids are the bomb for waiting in lines in your car.
Stick shifts have obvious drawbacks for coffee-drinking commuters, but maybe they'll make a comeback with more people working from home.
What’s striking about what these political consultants say is how manipulative and deceptive their craft is. Perhaps that is why people are “exhausted, confused, isolated and depressed.” Nothing the almighty government does seems to work. Think of all the nonsense we’ve been sold about flattening the curve, mask-up, we’re all in this together, trust the science, vaccines are safe for everyone, etc. Pick your slogan. Then Omicron happened, and most sentient people stopped and said “Wait a minute…”
And then there are the Canadian truckers, who are the logistical backbone of an enormous nation. Given that we can’t beam-up food, fuel and other hard goods, these guys (for the most part) are all that are standing in the way of starvation, cold and poverty. And deep down, everyone knows this. These guys live in the physical world, despite whatever political consultants want to posit for our consideration. They represent the reality of what preserves man in the cold, dark, ruthless wilderness.and the urban centers are much more fragile and exposed without what the truckers provide. Once off the electric grid, modern cities can’t produce much at all.
And that’s why Trudeau’s virtual world has betrayed him, and the same with Biden and his enviro-racist-mandate nonsense. You cannot make someone get a “vaccine.” If you make it a transparently political enterprise — which Western politicos and their corrupt blowhard posses (commonly known as the mainstream press) have — then you’re going to get resistance. When you have truckers who live in a world of forced quarantines after they come back with a haul of goods from their largest trading partner, you will see this is self-evidently intolerable. How do they make a living? Why is it so important that they take a “vaccine,” especially when it’s not going to do what the authorities say it will (at the level of certainty those authorities claim)? Why is it so important?
So the government doesn’t relent, the truckers don’t relent, and we see this standoff. The truckers are peaceful. Trudeau commits combined egregious unforced errors of (a) not considering their real grievances,(b) fleeing the capital, and (c) amassing a massive, disproportionate law enforcement response to break up a peaceful protest, complete with cavalry who trample demonstrators. Bad move. And the world can see it, and can see the rabid, appalling indifference of people like Matt Yglesias.
And now there is an American trucker convoy set to rollout on February 23 which will take a path through red states to arrive at D.C.’s doorstep. And Biden will say “C’mon, you sonofabitch,” and dig his heels in because his advisors say it’s good politics. At this point, none of this has anything to do with COVID-19. This is an unnecessary showdown between government power used against the citizenry. And it will not be pretty. And again, both unnecessary and avoidable. Canada has shown us the way. And for those who think it’s funny, imagine how unfunny it would be if truckers north and south of the border united for a general freight strike. That would be as devastating as it would be unstoppable. I guess this is what “exhausted, confused, isolated and depressed” people do, eh? Backed into a corner, nowhere to go. Gives a whole new meaning to the Fauci approach: vaxx or die. No hope, but for the “vaccine” no one can actually force anyone to take.
Now we see the stakes and the risk of all this supposedly sophisticated political calculus. Buyer beware.
And… irony of ironies, all those big rig truckers drive manual transmissions.
I don’t subscribe to the NYT so I can’t read Dowd’s article. But it’s the same old warning that we’ve been hearing now for several months. Large number of Congress-D have announced their retirements because they know the Red Wave is coming. Americans have had it with a Pretend President and the unknown shadow officials who are really running and destroying this country. What it amounts to now is ABB, Anybody But Biden, and ABD, Anybody But Democrats.
The country is definitely going in the wrong direction. We all know the list of problems that we face and that the Progs. have either created or caused to make worse, so I won’t list them here.
IMO, this country desperately needs term limits in office. Politicians go to Washington and don’t leave. It becomes their permanent position in life. This leads to them becoming complacent and corrupt.
“ I visualize the sweep of history as a pendulum. You can only go so far in one direction before you swing back. And the further you go, the further you go back when the reaction sets in.”
I have always respected Carrillo as a realist (and love his debates with his wife - one of the few people who can shut him up). I think that he, in particular, is right here. The Dems are losing market share in the middle faster than they are gaining it on the top. The Dems now have the welfare class, the rich and very rich, the over educated hanger ons, and a rapidly disappearing rump of the working class. Sure, the private college elites are moving towards, and following, their betters, the centamillionaires and billionaires. That’s what I think happened to the Bush Clan. But what Trump did, was make it ok for working class people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds to make common cause, find common ground, on class, and not ethnicity. Why are the Dems so race obsessed? Because they are having a harder and harder time keeping their traditional base, based on racial and ethnic divisions and appeals. They have to shout their racial and ethnic claims ever more stridently,
I was surprised how quickly this is moving. Spent a couple hours yesterday on the phone with a Jewish fraternity brother. He is, or least was, a generational Democrat. No more. The Biden Administration blatant lies about COVID-19, have pushed him most of the way out of his party. He was in the pharmaceutical industry for a number of years, and knows what drug trials are supposed to be like. These weren’t. His favorite saying is “follow the money”, and he has, back to the billionaires getting rich, while we all suffer needlessly. The thing is, is that we can talk specifics about the virus, the vaccines, etc, while these conversations on these subjects are verboten these days in more and more venues. It’s misinformation, and must be squelched, even if it is true.
Appeals to authority have always worked better with the upper middle class than the working class. But now, the credibility of the “experts” is in tatters. We are supposed to believe Biden, mumbling incoherently, as he loses track of where he was on his teleprompter? Or our top public health bureaucrats, who switch proclamations as quickly as they change underwear, taking their marching orders from teachers’ unions, instead of real scientists, like Dr Malone. And by now, a lot of middle America knows more about these subjects than their betters do. Think of it as a fight about whether we should believe the elite appointed experts, and that they are full of excrement, and say what they are told to say. Every time the Administration’s experts tell us that adults don’t need to mask, but our kindergartners do, loses the Dems countless supporters and future votes. The working class has never been as enamored with expertise as the upper middle class (where the experts typically come from) is, but now their skepticism is being confirmed.
And this is the class that Carville has always spoken for - the common sense wing of the Dem party. They are the ones being pushed out of their party. Common sense transcends ethnic and racial boundaries. We go into the store, and see steeply rising prices, fill up at the pump, or get a utility bill. Common sense says that we are facing the first real inflation of 40 years. Anyone trying to pretend otherwise is a lying partisan hack. The constant, inveterate, lying by the Dems are quickly solidifying the common sense constituency in opposition. They don’t even try that hard anymore. They just tell every one with a dissident voice to just shut up. That works with the law worshipping upper middle class, but never has with the working class.
If you were Greenberg and you wanted to move the party to take an interest in working class concerns, would you really be talking about fascism? Isn't such talk more inclined to push the party to double down on its policies and crack down on dissenters? If the dissenters and deplorables are actual or potential fascists, wouldn't that make Democrats even less inclined to placate or appease them? Look at Canada and then get back to me.
HISTORY AS A LANDSCAPE??! GOVERNMENT DRIVING??! Gotcha right here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqpJvey-7-s
The time is coming when no one will drive a stick shift and no one will know how to get along in the world without a computer.
I can drive a stick and I can use a slide rule. I don’t, because sometimes progress really is better.
Danno said...
Manual transmissions appear to work as an anti-theft device (or anti-carjacking) in large cities like Minneapolis as the ghetto youth aren't suitably educated in manual transmissions.
Has this entered your mind?
Yes and 99% of suburban youths have no idea how to drive a manual as well. But I think what Wilbur was referring to is those of us who live in urban areas and still have to commute during rush hour. I can personally attest that manual transmissions are great for cruising on the open highway, but not so much for stop and roll. Did that ever occur to you?
I saw your poor Audi parked on the street on Friday. It looked cold. (I was cold too!)
There is an eternity between now and Election Day. I'll be curious to see who is on the ballot. The local paper is in all anti-Ron Johnson all the time mode now.
Renting a car in England 20 years ago -- all rentals were sticks. I drove a stick in the US, a Dodge Colt, but the combination of driving a stick and being on the wrong side was pretty difficult. Over and over I would go to shift, and instead turn the wipers on.
It was in the mid-90's for me. Add to that that It'd been about 10-years since I drove a stick. I'd had a 5-speed Plymouth Arrow for about 10 years when I was rear-ended twice in 6 months. The second time crushed in the hatch so it wouldn't close/open properly. We bought a 1988 Jeep Cherokee Laredo with a automatic transmission to replace the Arrow. I'd been married about 6 months and the Ms. Snoqualmie didn't want to drive a stick and the cruise control worked only with an automatic.
The Jeep was a money pit. The dealer had to replace the wiring harness within the first month because the Jeep wouldn't idle a low RPM. One repair after another. We kept it about 19 years and then replaced it with a Toyota Prius for Ms. Snoqualmie. At the end of its life, the overhead felt had fallen and the replacement windshield wiper stick had broken again. The wipers could be turned on and off with the broken half until that stopped working and the wipers were always on. We donated the car to charity and the rear view mirror fell off during the week it took the charity to pickup the car. NEVER BUY A JEEEP!
A friend had a 1989 Cherokee. It had been boosted several times, but the thieves had to abandon it when it stalled due to an intermittent open in its wiring harness. My friend kept hoping it was gone forever, but the cops kept returning it!
Serious legal question. How can CA and WA ban the sale of gas and diesel cars? You can buy them in 48 other states.
Is climate change the justification? Is that supposed to be a threat to health in those two states?
"I learned to drive a stick shift when I was 17. I bought a Ford Falcon with 3 on the tree and I had to get it home. I taught myself to drive it on the way home."
Same; in my case a VW Rabbit. The salesman at the dealership could barely contain himself as I "drove" it off the lot.
Haven't had an automatic since. Was able to find a VW Alltrack manual 3 years ago, though they have since discontinued that model.
Seeing a D when you get into your car changes the entire driving experience. And it could make you late, no matter how fast you drive.
If you know what I mean.
It's no wonder that those commenters are defending Joker Joe and the Democrats. It's the NYT. Nobody on the right reads that anymore, except to point out the hypocrisy, the lies, and the overall crazy idiocy that lives there.
tim maguire said...
I visualize the sweep of history as a pendulum.
Well, that works for Carville. In the past couple of years he's gone from "We should stop being assholes" to "Fuck Trump and the MAGA crowd" then back to "We need to stop being assholes". I wonder if American Left is ever going to figure out that whole consistency thing.
What car is that? I've been looking for a good stick shift.
Never mind. I see the tag.
“If they don’t listen this time, we’re going to end up with fascism, dammit.”
We could use a little right-wing fascism in this country about now.
@AA Your Audi is equipped with what is known as a 'millennial anti-theft device' : )
"The last stick I drove was a 6-speed Porsche 911 GT3 RS with a Shark Werks clutch upgrade. Obviously not mine."
Well, of course, Howard- everyone alread knows it was your mom's car.
“If they don’t listen this time, we’re going to end up with fascism, dammit.”
Who can look at the current landscape and believe such a thing; that the right is the group wallowing in authoritarianism? I am truly astounded.
Proves, again, how fake the collective left are.
ACT LIKE YOU CARE!
LOL - The elite chi com whores and Fauci fascists care! Obama from his multi million dollar Hawaiian beach house or his home on Martha's vineyard.
It’d be easier to believe progressive BS about Forward! if they’d stop trying to sell me on more choo choo trains.
Loyalists on team D are something. They would support Hitler if Hitler had a D behind his name.
"Renting a car in England 20 years ago -- all rentals were sticks. I drove a stick in the US, a Dodge Colt, but the combination of driving a stick and being on the wrong side was pretty difficult. Over and over I would go to shift, and instead turn the wipers on."
I've driven a stick for over 40 years, but I won't do it when I drive in NZ. I have enough trouble with the turn signal. Almost caused an accident once when I went for the wipers and got the turn signal instead.
@Ceciliahere re term limits-
Agree with Supreme Court (and probably Circuits).
If you limit terms of congresscritters, it will just enhance the power of the administrative state (unless they are also limited).
Better would be a firm policy that all legislation has to have an opening paragraph that refers to the specific section of the Constitution that allows that piece of legislation. It would be open for debate just like the rest of the legislation. Might restrain govt growth. Ideally, would lead to (gradually) doing away with unsustainable programs like Medicare and social security. Eventually would greatly decrease the scope of government and its ability to run our lives as it currently does.
A man can dream...
Jersey Fled,
"your sister can drive a 4 speed, why the hell can't you?"
Is that a euphemism?
"Why anyone today would choose to drive a manual transmission, especially living in an urban area, is beyond me. I guess it really is a form of snobbery, as some describe themselves. But then, I'm not a car guy."
It's just fun. You've heard of fun?
The left is scared shitless. They pushed so much and thought they had reached the end of history, like they always do when they win anything.
The gains the left made with middle class women is thinning as they denigrate all parents that want their kids to be educated not indoctrinated. They are losing Hispanics in places like TX and Arizona because they are pandering to groups antiethical to their prosperity.
It's going to be a bloodbath and all they have is become more likeable? It's the policies as much as "likeability". They took their masks off and now it's going to be hard to put them back on.
If they manage to separate mothers from non-mothers, then they are surely going to lose. Non mothers can be split into Never Mothers, Want To Be Mothers, and Can’t Be Mothers. Never Mothers are very often societal parasites, abrogating their responsibilities to society by refusing to do their evolutionary duty. Calls for sexual solidarity by those women are going to fall on mostly deaf ears, with Mothers of kids, who are doing their duty to society. Mama bears are ferocious, because daddy bears are cannibalistic, and baby bears make tasty morsels for them. Never Mothers have little stake in the game, as compared to Mothers of kids, who can easily turn into ferocious mama bears. Big tactical mistake there.
It was inevitable though. It isn’t really Mothers against Never Mothers, but mothers against unionized government paid teachers. Unionized teachers have long been a major Dem party constituency. A couple decades ago, it was calculated that roughly 1/4 of the attendees at the Dem National Convention were unionized teachers. They had the time, during their 3 month paid vacation every summer, to attend. They have more free time than most to work grass level politics, and their union dues make them a big financial contributor too. The Dems problem right now is that they don’t have a national leader to tell them to stand down, because they will alienate a lot of other Democrats if they don’t. Instead, they have Joe Biden, and his wife, who holds one of their participation doctorates.
As for a bloodbath - I think that at least some Dem strategists see that, and that is why, I think, they staged the 1/6 debacle. But they underestimated the tolerance of the right. They aren’t ready for that bloodbath -yet, so went out of their way to be peaceful. All of the real violence was by the left, through their lackeys: the Capital Police, FBI infiltrators, and probably some AntiFA thrown in to get the violence started. What is going to be very interesting is seeing what happens in December, when Republicans evict Pelosi from her Speakership. When the 14,000 hours of video recordings her people are hiding are released, as well as the details of the white washes of the killing of those two women (I.e. Ashlii Babbitt). Is she blatant enough to delete all those video recordings? Maybe. Should be interesting.
What I think that they are trying to do is to pit those ready to rumble from those not ready yet. I think that they are trying very hard to get the working class component on the right to react violently, while convincing the upper middle class component to join them in condemning the violence. But, so far, the working class component is listening to reason. We shall see.
"The time is coming when no one will drive a stick shift and no one will know how to get along in the world without a computer."
I must join the Chorus. As others have pointed out, Europeans do not drive Automatic Transmissions. In France, on a very selected sampling, none of the people I know drive automatics with the ONLY exception of a former neighbor with only a left arm. And he, with an obvious handicap, had to petition for the DROITE to purchase a car with an automatic.
I find it fascinating that a Democrat should use the Transmission for an analogy about government: AUTOMATIC--done for the driver--either HEY HO GO WITH THE FLOW or "The Other Way of Stopping," as Bob Newhart once quipped.
Just saying.
Reverse sounds pretty good right now.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I am not "exhausted, confused, isolated and depressed". I'm sick and tired.
"Millenial anti-theft device."
One suspects that gluing that 6-speed pattern on top of the automatic gear lever would fool many would-be millennial thieves.
rhhardin said...
"The day will come when nobody knows about spark advance and retard, first of all because the word is banned."
LOL. The first vehicle I learned to drive was an International H tractor. Spark advance and double clutch.
Democrats practice what I call vengeance politics. They don't want anyone to get ahead. They just want to punish success. Capitalism will always succeed.
“If they don’t listen this time, we’re going to end up with fascism, dammit.”
That's the plan, Stan. The leaders of the Democrat party are fascists, and they are forming a classic fascist alliance with the leaders of large business organizations to eliminate every vestige of civil liberty and small-d democracy, in Canada now, with Biden's approval, and in the US as soon as feasible.
rhhardin said...
"The day will come when nobody knows about spark advance and retard, first of all because the word is banned."
LOL. The first vehicle I learned to drive was an International H tractor. Spark advance and double clutch.
Democrats practice what I call vengeance politics. They don't want anyone to get ahead. They just want to punish success. Capitalism will always succeed.
The creeps supported by Soros' mega millions - they CARE!
"When I get in my car, I don't see a "D"..."
In the Progressives' car, all there is is a "D". No reverse, no brakes. No steering wheel. Full speed ahead! Never mind where we're headed.
There's an episode of the gearhead show, Roadkill, where they are racing a Prius against a Gremlin. Finnegan gets in the Prius and looks at the gear shift.One of the gears is labeled, "B." So he says, "I wonder what B stands for? Maybe it stands for badass!"
BTW, the Gremlin won the race because the Prius died before the finish line. So they welded a tow hitch to the Gremlin and used it to tow the Prius to Vegas where they flattened it with a tank. I actually did summer theater at Occidental College in 1984 with one of the hosts of that show. His name was David Freiburger and he went on to be the editor of Hot Rod magazine.
Time for a new shifter knob, Althouse - like this!
Was it not Carville who was the first of the Democrats bigwigs to openly mock ‘trailer trash,’ starting the trend?
Negotiating a hill stop is the most gratifying maneuver in a manual…until you learn to heel toe into a corner.
My first car was a 1957 MGA, with British quality synchros, followed by a TR-6 and some elderly 911s. Heel and toe double clutch downshifts, both necessity and art.
I have been married to She Who is Perfect in All Ways for 30 years. Until last year, all our cars have been manuals — her preference for them is just one of her many perfections.
Last year, she decided she needed a new car, and that it had to be a BMW M340. Much to our surprise, manuals have almost completely disappeared from the entire BMW range. So now we have our first auto. The ZF-8 box is telepathic, and shifts nearly instantaneously. Which goes a long way to explaining why her grocery getter sedan is a tick faster to 60 than my Porsche 718S.
Aside from a very purist sports cars, manuals are goners. An automatic provides capabilities that are impossible with manuals: emergency braking, fully adaptive cruise control, speed limit following, and route/turn signal awareness (eg, signal for an approaching turn, and the car will slow to the speed appropriate for the intersection).
Still, I'm perfectly happy rowing the gears myself.
Can Of Cheese for Hunter said...
The creeps supported by Soros' mega millions - they CARE!
So Can-o-Cheese and Georgia Republicans are opposing the construction of a $5 billion Rivian EV truck assembly plant in East Atlanta because George Soros is the majority stockholder. The huge plant will offer 7,500 new jobs - for God's Sake!
Amazon is buying Rivian delivery vans as fast as the EV maker can build them. Damn those creeps.
My earliest memory of the family car was a Rambler with a push button automatic transmission.
The five buttons on the left of the dash.
Save the stick! IMHO, manual transmission drivers are more engaged and attentive, less likely to be scrolling through their phones while tooling around. I need to get another car with a stick soon, before they disappear from the automotive landscape. There is a certain joy to flicking through the gears on an LA freeway onramp!
I think of most people upvoting the drive metaphor are people who only use a car to drive to the Hamptons or similar summer places.
I reject the premise the democrat party has been hijacked by the fringe left. Some democrats are just uncomfortable being so obvious and direct. Canadians thought they lived in a free country until suddenly they didn't. Waking up one day to discover your leaders are ruthless dictators, the cops are not you friend, and the media lies is an awful pill to swallow. They are indeed swallowing it whole. Americans...well:
-This thing cannot happen in our country
*thing happens
-No worries. The courts will overturn this thing.
*Courts don't overturn the thing
-Well, this thing being bad was over exaggerated.
Tank: "The weirdest thing about driving in Ireland", not just shifting with the left hand, but doing so while going around a curve, doing 50 mph, 2 feet away from a rock wall on your left. I actually kind of enjoyed that, even though one youthful summer spent driving dump truck put me off manual transmissions for life.
Having a stick shift is a great defense against car jacking since the kids doing most of the car jacking these days can’t drive them.
Since we are running with car analogies it seems like the democrat's are more stuck with trying to sell a lemon that is notorious for falling apart or exploding on the highway if you exceed 60 mph. No amount of salesmanship can fix a crappy product.
Axelrod is warning the party not to blame the driver for driving on the highway and stop pretending there aren't issues with the car.
Carville is warning democrats to stop riding the clutch.
Greenberg is warning consumers are going to start buying japanese cars if they don't have a factory recall that installs "rack and peanut steering" for free.
I do kinda miss driving a manual. For the most part, it's been a about 20 yeas since I owned one. When I've been in Mexico and rented a car they were manual. Mostly manuals are nice - driving them in San Francisco was a pain in the ass though (hills & traffic / not people.
It's nice skill to have though, was going to give it to my kids but never got around to it.
I learned to drive while serving in the Army in Germany 72-75. Drove many military vehicles: jeeps, 3/4, 2 /12, 5 ton trucks, and the awesome gamma goat. Of course, all manual. My first car was a 1966 NSU 1200. These were never exported to US. Kind of a poor man's BMW 2002. Similar shape but smaller. Four speed stick. What an awesome car. Totally loved tooling around Hanau, Offenbach and Frankfurt.
https://oldtimerhurenfriesland.nl/image/data/10f46521-77c2-422a-8a8f-77fc28e1c06f.JPG
’ I thought a Porsche was a sports car. That means a stick shift.’
Ferrari stopped offering manual transmissions several years ago.
Manual transmissions becoming extinct here, and rightly so since now the vehicles are unferior. (And Wisonsin has 3rd lowest percentage of sales per carmax.) But in UK automatic transmission sales only passed manual in 2020. And driver tests still overwhelmingly in manual transmission cars since one tests in the instructor's car. In NJ I learned on manual and borrowed friend's automatic for the test.
I can drive a stick shift. I can even drive a manual transmission with 3 on the tree (my first car 1951 Plymouth) how many people can do that today? Used to have license to drive a 7 ton box truck and backed one onto a landing craft every Monday morning for a while.
My question is why would I want to? It used to be said that a manual gave better gas mileage. I don't think that's been true for a long time. I don't thing it was ever true unless you drive the stick correctly and most people don't.
My Hyundai Elantra normally gets over 40 mpg in mixed driving. Sometimes over 50 on a 300 mile trip with mixed driving. How much better would a manual version be?
If I want to select a specific gear, easy enough to do. But the car is smarter than me so why bother.
I've not owned a "clutch car" for more than 40 years and have no desire to do so.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Ann Althouse said...
"The time is coming when no one will drive a stick shift and no one will know how to get along in the world without a computer."
Probably so. But even in this day & age, just the other day I bought an actual book(!) because it was locally authored and not likely to be available in digital form. It's the history of a dance hall next to the Kennedy farm where John Brown planned the Harpers Ferry raid. In the years after WWII it was a venue for blues and R&B artists, one of the few in Maryland that could reliably claim to be integrated. Little Richard, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and James Brown played there. I've been to the Kennedy farm a couple of times but had no idea that the barn up the hill behind it had such a history. The book is "From John Brown to James Brown" by Ed Maliskas, if you can find it.
Apologies for veering off the topic but I like to share cool stuff when I find it, especially through serendipity.
Dowd and her interviewees managed to avoid mentioning that the clutch is slipping, the tires are bald, the battery needs a boost most mornings, and when he does get up and running there's smoke blowing out the back end.
But the people have noticed.
I miss being able to work on a car. I was going to chang the plus on my previus elantra. And had to watch a you tube video to find out how.
I took it to pep boys instead.
On the other hand, I had 120m miles on it and this was my first engine maintenance other than oil. The plugs didn't really need changing, they still looked OK.
I'm happy to sacrifice not being able work on my car go not having to work on my car.
But we do, as a society, lose a lot from not having millions of teenage boys and girls, learning mechanical skills by keeping old clunkers running.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
I learned about spark advance on outboard motors in the 50s.
I REALLY learned about spark advance one night in 1973 when trying to Kickstart my HD sportster. No electric start.
Spark advance was controlled by the throttle. If you gave it a bit too much, the engine would backfire, driving the kick pedal up causing a sore ankle.
The motorcycle gods were angry that night, my friends. (there was some alcohol involved too) it launched me in the air, off the scoot and cracked a leg bone.
The navy doc put me in a full leg cast, hip to toe. Not, he said, because the injury required it but to "keep me off that goddam motorcycle."
John LGBTQBNY Henry
I learned about spark advance on outboard motors in the 50s.
I REALLY learned about spark advance one night in 1973 when trying to Kickstart my HD sportster. No electric start.
Spark advance was controlled by the throttle. If you gave it a bit too much, the engine would backfire, driving the kick pedal up causing a sore ankle.
The motorcycle gods were angry that night, my friends. (there was some alcohol involved too) it launched me in the air, off the scoot and cracked a leg bone.
The navy doc put me in a full leg cast, hip to toe. Not, he said, because the injury required it but to "keep me off that goddam motorcycle."
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Biden doubles down on emergency declaration: Letter to the Speaker of the House...
Never get into a car without an R.
All cars with a D were designed for pussies.
Serious legal question. How can CA and WA ban the sale of gas and diesel cars? You can buy them in 48 other states.
Is climate change the justification? Is that supposed to be a threat to health in those two states?
The law says you won't be able to register 2030 cars from out of state. So, you won't be able to pay the license taxes and fees. That sounds like a feature, not a bug. Maybe there'll be a black market in Wa St. license plates?
Banning 2030 cars will do nothing to fix the nonproblem of global warming/climate change since it isn't a problem in the first place, just an excuse to peonize us.
Nails it...
https://elizabethnickson.substack.com/p/the-reason-for-the-police-violence?utm_source=url
My first construction job was for an nationally ranked owner/driver A/FX Mopar. His transmission shifter was a 1956 push button Imperial Pod located just under his steering wheel. Stories at lunchtime were epic.
His first Limelight... https://vintage-nitro.com/limelight-dodge-funny-car/
A better pic. He had a unique take on things.
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.SpHSvCvTBS1eFGhraIDPRwHaEm%26pid%3DApi&f=1
Axelrod, Greenberg, and Carville -- a pair of pusillanimous socialists and a hardcore thug are worried now that Toto has revealed the mountebank operating the wizard. Do they really believe Chauncey Gardiner is listening? Is able to listen?
I just paid $17 per lb for corned beef. Not long ago prime steak was $9 per lb. Whoever is in charge of inflation stats is a liar.
The plan behind the phony Ukraine panic is coming out.
the White House is shifting blame for the collapsing economy, surging oil prices, massive gas price increases and overall U.S. inflation.
The manufactured crisis in Ukraine then takes on a geopolitical angle and a domestic angle. The prior rate of inflation is now being blamed on Russia-Ukraine.
It is not coincidental that ABC (think George Stephanopolous) takes the lead in helping to push this narrative as a cover story for the problems in the economy that are specifically driven by U.S. energy policy (chasing Green New Deal objectives), environmental policy, regulatory policy and massive spending. The politics are to blame for the inflation, so it is the deployment of politics used to create the cover.
The weirdest thing about driving in Ireland, yes even weirder than driving on the wrong side of the road, was trying to shift with my left hand. That took some getting used to.
Daughter paid the mucho bucks to make sure she ended up with an automatic. She knew there was no way she could concentrate on driving on the left AND shifting with her left hand.
Is there anyone left that learned to use a stick shift driving a tractor at age 12?
I was eight years old. And I'm a girl. :-) It was the Ford 9N and I had to drive the tractor and LOADED hay wagon from the field to almost to the barn. (I wasn't allowed to take it up the hill all the way to the barn.) Yes, I had to stand up to engage the clutch and the brakes. Back then it was learning responsibility. Now it is probably child abuse.
Dear Democrat leadership,
It is rather hard for me to believe your Pollyanna rhetoric as I look at the empty spaces on my local store shelves, the disparity between the treatment of "mostly peaceful protestors" and "terrorist MAGA insurrectionists," the prices at the gas pumps, and on and on and on.
Give me a break. But if you did that, you'd manage to take it back in some other way.
Can the Dems Dodge Doomsday?
Here’s my answer:
“And it’s too late, baby,
Now it’s too late,
Though we really did try to make it.
Something inside has died
And I can’t hide it,
I just can’t fake it.
It’s too late, baby,
It’s too late, darling,
It’s too late.”
My husband drove a shift car all over Ireland many years ago. I sat in the back seat and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. He saw almost no scenery. Our 14 year old daughter sat in the passenger seat and did the shifting for him when he told her. Everyone was happy.
These two paragraphs from Dowd...
Carville is also flummoxed that Republicans could defend the Jan. 6 madness as “legitimate political discourse.”
“Ninety-eight percent of people on the Mall on Jan. 6 were white,” he said. “We need better white people in the United States.”
I assume there's some context where this is less disgusting than it sounds by itself. I have searched for a source beyond Dowd's article and haven't found one. What decent person is that comment intended for? An experienced political operative who wants Democrats to win speaks that way? I'm sure that a large majority of Democrats find "we need better white people" a disgusting thing to say.
Gadfly - You sure do eat the koolaid packets.
These two paragraphs from Dowd...
Carville is also flummoxed that Republicans could defend the Jan. 6 madness as “legitimate political discourse.”
“Ninety-eight percent of people on the Mall on Jan. 6 were white,” he said. “We need better white people in the United States.”
I assume there's some context where this is less disgusting than it sounds by itself. I have searched for a source beyond Dowd's article and haven't found one. What decent person is that comment intended for? An experienced political operative who wants Democrats to win speaks that way? I'm sure that a large majority of Democrats find "we need better white people" a disgusting thing to say.
My 24yo tells me that Right to Repair is under threat everywhere - that there is talk of new car models' being designed to brick themselves if you dare to put in a non-manufacturer part. Not just ("just"!) void your warranty - be left with a block of unusable metal and plastic.
rhhardin writes "The day will come when nobody knows about spark advance and retard, first of all, because the word is banned."
Leftists are energetic coiners of euphemisms. Retard was banned by S.2781, aka Rose's Law, and replaced by intellectually disabled. One wonders if little Rosa Marcellino got better after the ruckus she allegedly engendered. These days nothing's keeping her out of the Ivy League except the cash, which puts Miss Rosa on par with nearly every preppie in Topsiders and madras I've known -- six years of country day school and Muffin still can't employ the ablative, but boy-howdy can she pick a hoof and braid a mane.
The problem with euphemisms is they don't affect reality, just some people's perception of reality. Now there is a certain cabal of sophists who via torturous circumlocutions have convinced many that reality and the perception of reality are interchangeable, mostly by gently massaging the equations of Schrödinger, Born, et al. with industrial triphammers. Reality disproves them by relentlessly asserting itself. Mental retardation is itself a euphemism meant to soothe the feelings of idiots (IQ 20 and under), imbeciles (IQ 21-50), and morons (51-70). However, people quickly caught on as they should, and retarded became the functional equivalent of moron or worse. (When you're 13 years old and not called "retard" or "tard", that's when you should worry.)
So, thanks to Little Rosa or her handlers retarded is verboten. (I find the old term more hopeful, retarded means literally to be slowed down, restrained, or hinder by something external -- the subject is acted upon, as in "John is retarded." If Johm can evade or nullify whatever holds him back, perhaps he'll catch up. However, "John is intellectually disabled" is pretty damned final.) How long before the new euphemism is obsolete? Judging from conditions now it will be shortly replaced by "Chief Executive of the United States".
Ann Althouse said...
The time is coming when no one will drive a stick shift and no one will know how to get along in the world without a computer.
2/20/22, 6:25 AM
+++++
That's an interesting viewpoint. I think differently on the matter. I believe there will come a point that no one is driving or riding in any type of motorized or computer operated vehicle. I think humans and society is devolving and in the future we will be back to using horses and wagons for transportation.
I was recently in an autoshop, waiting for new tires to be installed. I heard a shop guy tell another customer that he had trouble finding what kind of oil to put in his vehicle because it wasn't in the computer, plus they had to push it out of the stall because they couldn't get it in reverse. I looked to see what kind of exotic vehicle this might be. It was an old fashioned VW minivan. You have to Push down to get it in reverse.
Don't you use 90 weight oil in a vw so it won't leak out?
H-D used to make their own 100 weight oil for their scooters. Anything thinner would run out almost as fast as it went in. Or burn.
I bought oil a Case at a time and used a quart a week.
H-D sold logo Drip pans.
Still, not as bad as the brit bikes.
And in the 70s nobody could figure out why the Japanese scooped up 90% of th market
I've owned a long, long line of manual transmission cars and trucks. I love driving stick shifts, though they've always sucked in stop and go traffic. Three speed, four speed, five speed, six speed manuals. None of them are hard to learn. If you want a challenge, learn to drive a big rig with a 13 speed non-synchromesh transmission. Then drive it long enough to get really good at it. Should only take a few months, less than a year at any rate. Today's automatics outperform manuals, even in Porsche 911s. However, if you take your Jeep on trails that only something like a Jeep has any business on, there's still a lot to be said for a manual, and that's from a pure performance perspective.
I write about cars (https://www.hagerty.com/media/author/rschreiber/) and have had the chance to review a number of cars from Kias to McLarens. While my personal automobile is a Honda Fit with a 6 speed manual, when I drive cars with paddle shifters, including McLarens, Audis, and Jaguars, I find that I just let the transmission shift itself. I'm sure that if I practiced, in time I'd get the hang of it but the paddles seem awkward to me. Of course, I'm old and never have played much in the way of video games.
As for my car with the stick shift, driving a manual requires synchronizing three tasks, with your hand and both feet each doing something different. Besides selecting the correct gear for the situation, every shift is an opportunity to do something well, like playing a familiar tune on an instrument.
It is amusing to me that the commentariat are mocking the Democrats for 'not dealing with their relentless slide', meanwhile, the commentariat, instead of discussing the problem of a relentlessly fascistic Left, discuss gear shifting like a cat chasing a laser pointer.
"Exhausted, confused, isolated and depressed Americans are not buying the Democratic line that things are better than they look."
Writes Maureen Dowd
Holy shit! Maureen Dowd wrote something intelligent? Good for her!
Biden’s advisers are urging him just to sell harder and people will get it. Axelrod disagrees: “You cannot persuade people if their lived experience is telling them something different. We’ve been through hell in America and around the world.”...
Shorter Axelrod: don't pee on people and then tell them it's raining
Carville [says Democrats] should work not to seem like an “urban, coastal, arrogant party”... “People don’t like you.”...
Problem with that is that the urban, coastal people who make up the Party "leadership" are arrogant, and hate the rest of the country.
They don't want to be liked, they want to be feared and obeyed.
What they appear to be fundamentally unable to grasp is that our Federal System, plus the 2nd Amendment, means we don't fear them, and won't obey them.
The reason why they're pushing their vote fraud bill so hard is because they understand that they can't win an honest election, and just don't care
... Greenberg warned Democrats not to use Obama.... “Obama did not give voice to the hurt and anger that working class voters were feeling,” Greenberg wrote.... Fretting about the threat of Trumpism, given that the Democrats are bleeding working-class voters, including Black and Hispanic ones, he told me, “If they don’t listen this time, we’re going to end up with fascism, dammit.”
Well, Greenberg's a lying sack of shit, because his side is the actual fascists. But he's intelligent enough to agree with Carville that the current methods aren't going to work.
The problem is that he's not allowed to be honest enough to tell the Dems what they're doing wrong.
So he tells them what they need to accomplish ( get more working class votes), but not how to accomplish it.
Because the Democrat Party leadership is not willing to stop screwing over the working class.
Note: mask mandates are the perfect encapsulation of this
The Democrats demand mask mandates so that the lower orders are forced to wear masks as a sign of submission, while their betters walk around flaunting their massless faces.
See, the Superbowl for the latest example.
It's going to be interesting to see if Canada's Parliament votes today to confirm Trudeau's "Emergency" declaration. If they don't confirm it today, he, legally at least, loses the powers.
Canadians are far more government whipped than we are. So if Trudeau doesn't get his way, it will be a huge shot across the bow for our little fascists.
Not that they'll care
CEO gathers all his execs and says, "We've got the best ingredients, the best advertising, the packaging. Why aren't we selling more dog food?" Long silence. Finally the most junior exec speaks up, "Dogs don't like it."
good or sacre-bleu : was this automatic in the showroom?
It's really simple. We are seeing the spiraling death of the modern Progressive movement and with it the Democrat Party. Since 2008 there has been more and more evidence of voters/the people not liking either choice, hence the switch between D and R presidents... but it's clear that people REALLY don't like Democrats. Say what you will about Trump, yes, he was not what we often think of as a Republican, but he ripped the cover off of the rotten mess that is partisan politics in this country and the bipartisan Establishment tried to destroy him but failed. Say what you will about the 2020 election, but it's obvious that Biden won ONLY because of the massive GOTV (and make some up if necessary) effort funded by Zuckerberg... there wasn't enough organic/self-driven support for Biden. Ballot harvesting (and a little fudging) was key... because if it's close enough the Democrats can and will cheat to pull off a win.
The midterms will be interesting. Given all the polls it won't be close. What will happen if the Dems lose the House and the Senate? Will they go quietly, or will they try to obfuscate and hinder in order to hold on to power? A lame duck Biden helps no one, not the country and certainly not himself.
I think we are on the edge of a sea change in American politics. Trumpism will prevail on the right, even if it doesn't bring back Trump. Too many people want libertarian social policies and conservative fiscal policies... and adult foreign policy. The Dems will survive in urban areas, but just as Jimmy Carter consigned the Dems to the wilderness for effectively a generation, so will Biden. You won't see another Dem president until 2036 at the earliest... when people forget how bad Biden was. Because of the demographic changes, there won't be a group of young urban/suburban liberal kids growing up believing their parents' stories about how great JFK was and to vote for Clinton. Of course, a crisis has danger along with opportunity. I'm not sure how the credentialed bureaucrat class that has infested the federal government will deal with this, and they are the real danger to our liberty.
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