If Matt Posky had been a journalist at the dawn of the 20th Century, I could see him raging against the horseless carriage. He might list its deficiencies, particularly when powered by one of those new-fangled internal-combustion engines. And I can just hear him rattling off all of the societal changes required for widespread automobile usage.
“It will take years to build all of the paved roads and gas stations that would be needed,” Posky might warn (in a booming, godlike voice). “Years!”
At least that’s what I imagined when reading Posky’s (2020) broadside against electric vehicles in The Truth About Cars. Oh, the irony that an automotive journalist would dismiss the potential for rapid societal change. The car radically transformed the U.S. much more quickly than its horse-and-buggy naysayers thought possible.
But wait: Is Posky’s bigger fear the guv’mint?
I grant you that Posky’s biggest beef may not be with the decline of ICE-powered cars per se. In his editorial he lamented “governments the world over practically forcing electric vehicles down our collective throat via stringent emissions standards” (2020).
“The industry is supposed to cater to the customer,” says Posky, “not some new economy planned by government decree — that’s how you get turds like the Yugo 45 and Moskvitch 412” (2020, original italics).
Let’s not dwell on corporate-originated “turds” such as the Edsel, the 1958 Lincoln, the 1970 Plymouth Barracuda or the AMC Pacer. In general, private industry will often do a better job of adapting to changing consumer needs than a government bureaucracy.
However, Posky pushes his fearmongering too far. No one has proposed nationalizing automakers. Mainstream politicians have instead focused on policies that would speed the transition from an ICE- to an EV-based transportation system.
Posky doesn’t answer two crucial questions
Posky seems to think that market signals rather than tightening regulations should determine the future of EVs. For that logic to work he needs to clarify two points.
First, if he is against government interference in the economy, does that mean he supports removing all subsidies to the fossil-fuel industry? And does he agree that the gas tax should be increased so it finally covers the true costs of an auto-based transportation system, such deteriorating highways and bridges? Market acceptance of EVs might increase more quickly if fuel was accurately priced.
Also see ‘The Truth About Cars falsely stokes fears of private car ban’
Second, does Posky believe that government should be able to enact policies supported by its electorate? For example, 54 percent of Californians say that it is “very important” for the state to be a world leader in fighting climate change (PPIC, 2020). Meanwhile, two-thirds of Americans believe government should do more on this issue (Tyson and Kennedy, 2020). Does Posky think the will of the voters is somehow illegitimate if he happens to disagree with their views?
Whatever happened to America’s can-do attitude?
The thing I find most striking about Posky’s attitude is its negative fatalism. Perhaps this is partly a generational thing. When I was young the country still had a strong sense of hope and possibility. We would set our minds to seemingly impossible goals like putting a man on the moon. Getting there was not without costs and setbacks, but we did it.
Why can’t we embrace that same can-do attitude when it comes to transitioning to an EV-based automotive fleet?
Peter DeLorenzo (2020) is hardly a militant green, but he offers a spirited response to naysayers like Posky. DeLorenzo argues that “the prevailing winds across the globe are blowing in the direction of fundamental change, and to deny that is simply akin to plunging one’s head in the sand. This can’t be dismissed as a ‘trend’ or a ‘fad’ either; we are moving into a new global sensibility that is picking up speed by the day. Consumers will slowly but surely come around to the efficacy of BEVs, while the last vestiges of the ‘ICE Age’ play themselves out over the next couple of decades. Perhaps it will take more time in this country, but there’s no denying where this is going.”
I suspect that the EV revolution will transform the U.S. at least as quickly as the automobile did a century ago. If that happens, Posky’s recent editorial won’t look very prescient.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- DeLorenzo, Peter M. “Here’s to the shooting stars.” AutoExtremist. Posted October 27; accessed October 28.
- Posky, Matt; 2020. “J.D. Power: Totally Changing Society Hasn’t Made People Want Electric Vehicles.” The Truth About Cars. Posted October 28; accessed October 28.
- PPIC; 2020. “Californians’ Views on Climate Change.” Public Policy Institute of California. Posted July 2018; accessed October 28, 2020.
- Tyson, Alec and Brian Kennedy; 2020. “Two-Thirds of Americans Think Government Should Do More on Climate.” Pew Research Center. Posted June 23; accessed October 28.
“The thing I find most striking about Posky’s attitude is its negative fatalism. Perhaps this is partly a generational thing. When I was young the country still had a strong sense of hope and possibility.” I’m inferring from this that you were born prior to 1965? It’s hard to be hopeful when swimming in the turd bowl of a country that Government for Boomers has created. (Please note I said “for”, not “by”, though the crappier subset of Boomers are indeed more to blame than their accomplices in other generations.)
That said, Posky is a dumbass ideologue. TTAC’s bread and butter is generating mouse-clicks from a handful of (right) wingnut commenters and responses from a few well-meaning respondents who haven’t figured out that you can’t cure stupid. The key to reading TTAC in its current form is to check the byline and then apply the following logic: IF(author=Corey Lewis, “read”, “hard pass”).
I was born in the 1950s and grew up in a stolidly middle, middle-class family. Yet the general attitude among my peers was that my generation would do “better” (particularly financially) than our parents. That didn’t always turn out to be the case, either by choice (e.g., through the various “voluntary simplicity” movements) or the hard knocks of life. And, of course, even at the peak of postwar prosperity a goodly number of people were born into poverty and saw their prospects limited by prejudice.
What often gets minimized or erased altogether by those who attack Boomers is that the Vietnam era generated a great deal of social activism. A goodly portion of those movements crashed against the rocks of resistance from older generations still entrenched in positions of power. This is why I find broad-brush attacks against Boomers to be lacking in analytical usefulness.
Your alias is unkind but I agree that Posky is an ideologue. I am particularly amused by his misuse of the term “eco-communism.” I imagine him someday getting a gig at Newsmax. And as for TTAC, if the editor isn’t going to rein in Posky then there are other websites more worth my time.
“What often gets minimized or erased altogether by those who attack Boomers is that the Vietnam era generated a great deal of social activism.” Actually, it’s far more the case that people are calling out the Boomers for exaggerating their generation’s social activism. To wit:
– Freedom Summer was 1964, when the oldest Boomers were 18. I.e., Boomers made virtually no contribution to the Civil Rights Bill of 1964. Subsequent to that but prior to the sea change precipitated by the murder of George Floyd, things were getting worse for Black people, and that was largely on the Boomers’ watch, so to speak. Not exclusively of course, as every generation from the Founding Fathers to the Millennials have been a party to this. Boomers, however, have the numbers to effect good in a way that the much smaller Silent Gen and Gen X can’t; more often than not, they haven’t.
– Vietnam protests largely were motivated out of self-interest since we still had a draft, albeit one that was unfair to minorities and poor whites. But grain of salt to me: Being self-interested and being right aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. A lot of people *were* against the war for the right reasons, and the self-interest/draft angle doesn’t apply to women. I will point out that the person whom history now sees as the most prominent antiwar figure, Muhammad Ali, was a member of the Silent Generation (an ironic label for the Louisville Lip). And that many Boomers became less dove-ish when it was Xers and Millennials taking bullets in Afghanistan and Iraq.
– Gay rights, OTOH, advanced markedly on the Boomers’ watch, so fair play there. Though I’ll give a nod to the Silent Gen as the first generation of parents who largely were accepting of their gay children.
Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not saying all Boomers are bad; no demographic is all good or all bad. E.g., my mentor in my career is a Boomer, and she’s a great person. I will make the fairly cautious, narrow claim that Boomers, on aggregate, seem to be worse human beings, if only to degrees, than the generations bracketing them. I emphasize “on aggregate” and “if only to degrees.”
– A case in point: My former company eliminated retiree medical coverage for most employees. Those spared? Boomers with 10 or more years of seniority. Mind you, this was at a time when there were Gen Xers with 15 or even 20 years of seniority. They got hosed. “Not a Boomer? Get bent.”
– Another second case in point: The increasingly common and galling “Vietnam Era Veteran” hat. You served in the US or Germany, people. Stop trying to trick us into thinking you were in the ‘Nam. (I’ll note that I have a relative who served in Germany at that time. He–and a lot of other decent vets–don’t claim to be Vietnam or Vietnam Era vets, but a lot of Boomers do.)
– A third: TTAC’s Ronnie Schreiber, who’s a classic “pull the ladder up behind him” Boomer. On TTAC, I’ve heard him both crow about the quality of public education he received but also slam present-day public school teachers for (gasp) wanting to get paid decently. Cognitive dissonance much, Ronnie? I don’t have a link for his latter comment, but he also had his facts wrong.
I want to emphasize that I would guess you and I would agree on the vast majority of political and socioeconomic issues. We don’t live in a binary world, and I don’t think all Boomers are bad. I despise McConnell, Trump, and Ted Cruz, e.g. And you know what they are? A Silent Gen, a Boomer, and a Gen Xer.
But back to TTAC, I just don’t get their political posturing. I like automobiles and I like driving in the right time and place, but for whatever reason they want to cater to readers who like automobiles *and* hate electric cars *and* hate public transportation. Maybe it generates more mouse-clicks, I guess? Who knows. I pretty much only read the Corey Lewis posts now.
You’ve taken the time to offer a detailed analysis that you clearly feel passionate about. Thank you for doing so.
Back in the day we Boomers were pretty hard on older generations, so I suppose it’s poetic justice that we’re now in the hot seat. I don’t have any particular need to defend my cohort. Indeed, I could offer stories about my own decidedly mixed experiences in the civic realm. And my own failings.
As I was reading your comment I kept on hearing in the back of my head a question from political scientist Dwight Waldo: Compared to what? In other words, yes, you have pointed to weaknesses and contradictions of various Vietnam era movements. How are these similar or different from movements in other times? Or even other cultures? And what lessons can we draw from them?
I don’t think that is just an “academic” question. Among the civic groups I have worked with over the years there has all too often been an attitude of, “Quick — let’s do something!” rather than taking the time to first get clear about one’s “theory of change.” In other words, how do we know that if we do X, we will achieve Y (with a minimum of unintended consequences)?
One value of analyzing the past is that we can hopefully learn how to avoid repeating mistakes . . . with the understanding that we’ll make new ones . . . which the next generation will throw back in our faces.
Of course, learning from the past doesn’t necessarily make the intergenerational indignities we experience any easier. Anger can be an understandable response. So can glib condescension, e.g., recall the Vietnam era lyrics, “I hope I die before I get old.”
Schreiber strikes me as reflecting a fairly prominent perspective among those who populate TTAC. I’ve been reading that website on and off since around 2007. My recollection is that the staff has often had a fairly hard-edged libertarian streak. In the olden days the commentariat seemed to be more diverse, perhaps because the quality of the auto industry analysis overshadowed the ideological axe grinding.
I don’t mind reading writers who I strongly disagree with if they make a well-researched and logical argument. If nothing else, that can help me up my game in debating them. What’s sad about the current crop is how often unhinged conspiricizing substitutes for a fact-grounded debate.
Then again, perhaps this is a good sign. A senior legislative lobbyist once said that when you don’t have either the people or the facts on your side, then pound the table. Posky and Schreiber do a lot of table pounding.
Thanks for taking my rant in the spirit in which was intended. As to whether or not the Silent Gen and Gen X are morally superior, hey, maybe that’s just self-interest too. They’re both numerically small, which makes them (well, some of them) think, “The only way we’re going to benefit from public policy is either accidentally or through measures that are aimed at benefiting all people.” The Silent Gen also may be a little more idealistic than people born after ’45 because they experienced more years of a pre-Southern-Strategy world, one in which the arrow was pointed up for a greater percentage of society. (Even though things might have been worse for certain segments of society in, say, 1965 than they were in, say, 1985, but the socioeconomic trajectory was better in ’65.)
Good call about the libertarian streak at TTAC and about pounding the table. I hadn’t really taken the time to think about it. And this may correlate to their contributor profile skewing “trust fund kid with enough time and money to give it a go as an auto scribe in a world where that doesn’t necessarily pay.” I’ll add that I actually know several trust officers and several trust fund kids, all of whom are more than decent human beings. “And some, I assume, are good people.”
One of the more interesting editorial slants at TTAC seemed to stem from their Canadian contributors. It could be characterized as “Canadian five percenter who’s bitter because Canada is a less stratified society, so he’s not doing as well as US five percenters are.”