"... and that he was not talking about political violence generally. But if discussing a type of automotive technology in bloody terms seems odd to some, it fits in the increasingly brutal language Mr. Trump has been applying to electric vehicles, one of his favorite foils. He has long claimed electric cars will 'kill' America’s auto industry. He has called them an 'assassination' of jobs. He has declared that the Biden administration 'ordered a hit job on Michigan manufacturing' by encouraging the sales of electric cars.... Jennifer Mercieca, author of 'Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump,' noted that... 'his speech was so disjointed it makes it difficult to know if he was threatening the U.A.W. workers, the U.S. auto manufacturers, or the nation as a whole.... In a sense, it doesn’t matter because Trump was threatening all at once.... Trump paints a dire picture of the nation, threatening economic ruin if he isn’t put in charge.... Using threats of force to gain power over a nation is authoritarian... not democratic.'"
Writes Lisa Friedman, in "
Trump’s Violent Language Toward EVs/The former president has deployed increasingly aggressive talk about electric vehicles and their effect on the American economy" (NYT).
I should note that Trump's antagonists paint a dire picture of the nation ruined if Trump is put in charge. There's a lot of metaphorically violent rhetoric going around, but it's only denounced when it comes from the Trump side.
Much has been made of Trump's use of "bloodbath," but if Biden had used that word in his State of the Union,
it would have been praised as feisty and fiery.
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I feel lucky that this is the extent of my exposure to the bloodbath kerfuffle this election cycle. How often can the media pull this same trick - recall Palin's "targeting" opponents?
Been there, seen that, to hell with it all.
"But if discussing a type of automotive technology in bloody terms seems odd to some..."
Only idiots would characterize the discussion in that manner. Thanks for self-identifying.
These idiots can't make up their mind. They think Elon Musk is coordinating with Trump (hopefully he is), but Trump also HATES electric vehicles.
The crux of the matter is Musk/Tesla makes and electric vehicle people want to buy. Detroit will do a half assed job and nobody will buy the cars.
Detroit should stick to fossil fuel Mid-Size SUVs, Pick-up trucks, and sedans. I drive a Ford Escape. It's a great car for Wisconsin, and not very expensive.
Ya gotta explain the joke for the slow people.
What is wrong with these reporters? Don't they realize that they're coming across as actively writing press releases for the Biden campaign?
Plus, this just another case of "it's OK when our side does it, but if the other side does it, it's a sign of EVIL!" Politics is filled with comparisons to violence. And both sides do it.
What an ad agency the NYT has become.
Just got off the phone with my auto insurance agent no more than 10 minutes ago. I asked about EV premiums. He said EV repair costs are double ICE vehicles and premiums are adjusted accordingly.
Worse than threatening bloodshed, he's attacking electric cars,
Don't these people realize that this is just how people talk? The notion that it constitutes extreme, violent rhetoric to say that such-and-such policy will "kill" a certain industry is just bizarre. If they want to say that it's not true, that it's an exaggeration, that's one thing. But people use "kill" in a figurative sense, not referring to physical violence, ALL THE TIME.
I doubt these people actually believe that this kind of word choice from Trump signifies an intent to bring about physical violence. If that's the case, all I can say is that they are exceptionally stupid people.
More likely, they know it's nonsense but they say it anyway because their readers crave a more-or-less daily fix of anti-Trump propaganda and it's hard to come up with new material every day.
Look for Biden's EPA to regulate ICE vehicles out of existence. "Hey we didn't ban them, they just can't meet the new and approved (read: draconian) emission standards". No joke!
The thing I don't get: Don't these propagandists know that people actually lived through 4 years of the Trump Administration? And that none of what they predicted happened?
Remind me again; which side has shock troops ready and willing to loot, burn, and murder on demand?
Which side is the party of Antifa, BLM, Occupy Wall Street, the KKK?
Imagine that! The NY Times writes a horribly slanted article making Trump out to be something he’s not. Shocking.
It's hard to tell if the writer of that piece is playing dumb or if she really is that dumb.
Donald suckers them into multiple news cycles with Bloody Bathgate. A nice distraction from his being Brokedick Mountain. I love his lawsuit defending himself as a sexual abuser against the slander of rapist. More titillation for his impotent obesity army whom constantly wetdream of their Bastille that's always coming around the corner.
“Detroit should stick to fossil fuel Mid-Size SUVs”
Mid-sized? There are a bunch of SUVs around the place we live in Las Vegas, and they are the big ones. Hotel even has a fleet of custom colored Escalades. Mostly GM, but some Fords. Also, some big trucks. Our Tahoe fits right in. Ditto around where we live in MT, but ore trucks than full sized trucks.
What a weird graphic. Biden's head is too small for the torso and the facial expression is of someone out-of-breath. This visual is supposed to subliminally reassure his voters that a frail octogenarian is secretly Rocky Balboa? It isn't even in a a "Trump with a six-pack riding an eagle" campy style.
Biden's role in history is a low-intellect (despite lying about his academic performance), low-testosterone (despite challenging strangers to push-up contests) useful idiot who served a purpose - stopping Bernie Sanders and beating Trump. And then refused to just go away.
Just wait until there's a landslide election. Or a political earthquake. Political Metaphors using disasters have been around for a long time.
Trump didn't make EVs his personal foil. Neither did the right. Reality did.
Weird that the push, and even future mandates for EV use are pushing the auto industry to uneasiness. With the exception of Tesla, most (all?) other auto makers playing in the EV marketplace are seeing losses.
We've never been ready for this, let alone mandating it. Everyone knows this except journalists and John Kerry. We don't have the infrastructure yet. Rare earth minerals needed for the batteries are hard to come by and are mined, often by hand, by kids, in the poorest of nations (DRC), in Chinese owned mines, then shipped to Chinese refineries. And still it won't be enough. And, when the batteries die, we don't really know how or where to dump them.
And- EVs don't work well in the deep cold as the batteries drain rapidly. When they catch fire- and they do catch fire- they are very difficult to put out. And as for simply taking one on a long trip. Sure. It could be done. But you'd better map it out all the way, and hope those charging stations you saw on Google Maps are still there, or still operating, or have an open charger when you get there.
We're not ready. It's killing the industry. All manufacturers have cut production of them. Ford went from 'All In' to 'Hold Please'. Other battery and EV manufacturers have simply gone belly up.
>BritishVolt- bankrupt
>Proterra (remember electric busses?)Bankruptcy and purchased out by Volvo.
>Volta Trucks (Sweden) depended on Proterra batteries. Oops.
>Blackstone Technology was going to 3D print batteries. You can imagine how that turned out.
>Lordstown Motors- gone
>IndieEV- looked to use the Lordstown factory, but..-gone
>WM Motors- gone.
>Rivian: Still operating and still delivering vehicles. But, they lose money on each vehicle. Not sure how long this can go on. The company reported a net loss of $1.52 billion for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, 2023 compared with a loss of $1.72 billion a year earlier.
>Fisker: Fisker announced that they may not make it through 2024.
I'm not against EVs. I would look at a Tesla for my next car. But...to make corporate decisions that are ahead of the actual logistics of the product use, or...decisions made despite market demand, hoping that political mandates can force it to happen, is neither smart business or fair to the actual product development.
It'll take more time to fine tune this. And hopefully, by the time we have batteries that are cheap to produce and can store a ton of energy, we'll have figured out how to power everything with hydrogen.
Your tag would be more accurate here if you omitted the "civility."
Oh great--now Joy Reid and the rest of the bigtime thinkers on the View will claim Trump wants to send the country to the electric chair.
Angry old flyweight, wannabe fuhrer.
They're gonna put you back in chains, y'all.
"The thing I don't get: Don't these propagandists know that people actually lived through 4 years of the Trump Administration? And that none of what they predicted happened?"
In their minds, it did.
They're delusional.
Trump is not threatening auto workers or manufacturers. The plain language of his words - the literal as well as the common sense interpretation - is that he believes the oush for EV's is killing the auto industry. In other words, the NYT, the Biden administration, the deep state bureaucrats at EPA, etc.
Idiot.
Nothing says "bad metephor" like depicting a guy with documented problems getting up stairs as a boxer.
is bloodbath synonym for decimate synonym for genocide
“He has declared that the Biden administration 'ordered a hit job on Michigan manufacturing' by encouraging the sales of electric cars.... Jennifer Mercieca, author of 'Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump,' noted that... 'his speech was so disjointed it makes it difficult to know if he was threatening the U.A.W. workers, the U.S. auto manufacturers, or the nation as a whole.... In a sense, it doesn’t matter because Trump was threatening all at once.... Trump paints a dire picture of the nation, threatening economic ruin if he isn’t put in charge.... Using threats of force to gain power over a nation is authoritarian... not democratic.'"
What absolute and ignorant bullshit. How is a statement that a policy will result in economic destruction a threat of force? Trump is not the one that is going to enact an ev mandate that he claims will damage the populace. He is observing that another politician will. So how stupid are you when you claim that here Trump is threatening to use force to gain power. Blithering incomprehensible nonsense. Beiden said the’re goin put y’all back in chains, was he threatening violence?
Some captions for that picture:
Imma sniff your hair HARD.
You bettah bring 10% for the Big Guy.
Do I punch the half naked guy, or the guy in zebra stripes?
My son Beau was killed in a boxing accident.
*squints* Is that Zelenskyy over there? Or Bibi?
If you don’t hit me you ain’t Black!
Poor kids can hit just as hard as White kids.
If you have to lie, you don't have a good point.
That is an ever green phrase in modern lefty politics.
It'll give the industry four more years to sort out that exploding battery house fire thing.
Win win.
Linda Merceica is the Robin DiAngelo of the Trump hater movement.
I meant Jennifer Merceica. Whatever.
One of the multitude of sad things about the EV push is all the lost time and money when:
- A better technology is developed, or
- We wise up about the real (slim) chances of global climate change beyond our ability to adapt over the next CENTURY.
I shudder to recall the "war on inflation", which called for whipping inflation.
"I can see Russia from my house."
Doesn't have to be true. Ask Harry Reid.
Wait, you cant. He's in Hall.
I do wish the press could actually read what he said; it was not anti EV: It was about the Chinese building a factory in Mexico where wages are low, to send EV to sell in the US, something that would bankrupt the auto industry and result in a lot of US highly paid union workers lose their jobs.
So what the discussion was about Chinese economic warfare against the USA.
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