Liberalism by gesture
The era of Gesture Liberalism is at hand. It may be more amusing than consequential.
Americans who exercise consumer sovereignty wherever Barack Obama still tolerates it are constantly disappointing him. For generations they persisted in buying what he calls“substandard” policies from what he calls “bad apple” health insurers. They stopped only when he forced them to stop — when he rescued them from their ignorance by banning their benighted preferences.
Have consumers thanked him for trying to wean them from their desire to drive large, useful, comfortable, safe vehicles that he thinks threaten their habitat, Earth? The 2013 numbers tell the tale of their ingratitude. In 2013, for the 32nd consecutive year, the best-selling vehiclewas Ford’s F-Series pickups. This supremacy began, fittingly, in the first year of Ronald Reagan’s deregulatory presidency.
Today’s consumers, who cannot get it through their thick heads that they are supposed to want wee vehicles such as Chevrolet’s Volt, bought 763,402 F-Series trucks. That is 740,308 more than the number of Volts General Motors sold.
In 2010, a GM official carefully said “more than 120,000 potential Volt customers have already signaled interest in the car.”Signaled? How? Not by buying. At the 2013 rate of sales, by 2046 GM will have sold as many Volts as Ford sold F-Series trucks this year. Obama, our Nostradamus, prophesied a million electric cars on U.S. roads by 2015. If so, they will have to outsell F-Series trucks this year.
The sort-of-electric Volt — it is a hybrid — probably is one of those great ideas Joe Biden celebrated in 2010: “Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive.” Government’s incentive for Volt buyers is a tax credit up to $7,500. A 2011 study showed that taxpayer-subsidized Volt or Nissan Leaf buyers had average annual incomes of $150,000, and more than half of them owned at least two other vehicles.
In 2009, the Obama administrationdisapprovingly said: “GM earns a large share of its profits from high-margin trucks and SUVs, which are vulnerable to a continuing shift in consumer preferences to smaller vehicles.” Continuing? A 2011 Wall Street Journal headline: “Americans Embrace SUVs Again.” A Wall Street Journal subhead last week: “U.S. Sales Cruise Back to 2007 Levels, Driven by Fondness for Pickups, SUVs.”
Building the Volt was bankrupt-and-bailed-out GM’s gesture of obeisance to its Washington masters. And causing the Volt to be built was a gesture by those masters to demonstrate how much they worry about the climate. The climate may not understand the importance of gestures.
Today, Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Sebelius may be the second-most serendipitously named court case in U.S. history, second to Loving v. Virginia (wherein Richard Loving, who was white, and his wife Mildred, who was black, in 1967 overturned Virginia’s law against interracial marriages). The Little Sisters are challenging the Obamacare mandate that makes them complicit in providing, through their health insurance, contraception, something that offends their faith.
This mandate illustrates Gesture Liberalism: It is unimportant to the structure of Obamacare. It has nothing to do with real insurance, which protects against unexpected developments — car insurance does not pay for oil changes. The mandate covers a minor expense: Target sells a month of birth control pills for $9 . The mandate is, however, a gesture affirming liberalism’s belief that any institution of civil society can be properly broken to the saddle of the state.
The next item on Gesture Liberalism’s agenda is to raise the minimum wage for the 23rd time. Less than 3 percent of the workforce earns the minimum; more than 60 percent of those who do earn it get a raise within a year; more than half of minimum-wage earners are students or other part-time workers from households with average incomes of $53,000. Never mind. Raising the minimum is a gesture of devotion to “equality.”
As is Obama’s support for universal preschool, the centerpiece of the agenda of New York City’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio. When, in Obama’s first inaugural address, he vowed to “restore science to its rightful place,” he evidently meant to exclude social science: There is much discouraging data about the efficacy of universal preschool.
It will, however, mean billions for hiring more members of teachers unions, whose dues will help elect the likes of Obama and de Blasio. So this component of Gesture Liberalism is more than just a gesture.
3 comments:
I guess for Mr. Will you can compare two individual vehicle models and somehow draw a conclusion about the entire market. That's not something a thoughtful person would do. Sales of individual large pickup models are always going to be very high because you basically only have 4 models to choose from - Ford F-series, Chevy Silverado/GMC Sierra, Dodge Ram, Toyota Tundra. In the small and midsize vehicle market there literally hundreds of models competing for market share.
So here are some actual useful unit sales totals for 2013:
6.3 million small cars, suvs, and EVs.
5.9 million midsize cars, suvs, pickups and minivans
3 million large cars, suvs and pickups.
Dear Anonymous - thanks for joining the discussion. I think you bring up a good point about the relative market sizes of pickups vs. small and midsize vehicles; that's a valid criticism of Will's argument. I think he mitigates this somewhat when he says, "Obama, [...], prophesied a million electric cars on U.S. roads by 2015. If so, they will have to outsell F-Series trucks this year." Here, he is comparing the entire category of electric cars rather than cherry picking a particular model. To me, this seems to validate his point that it is challenging (as well as expensive and inefficient) for the government to attempt to stimulate demand for preferred products. Do you agree?
I guess I could agree in the context of a general discussion of a topic area like energy. But in Mr. Will's case this is not an ideological argument, its a political argument, so there is only one poorly constructed side. Mr. Will has never expressed any objection to the vast military expenditures our government makes to ensure reasonably stable international oil price and supply. We have 11 carrier groups that cost many $billions to build and $10's of billions to operate each year. We are now beginning to take delivery of 10 new carriers at a cost of $9 billion each. Their primary reason for being is oil. Without this huge military expenditure ensuring a stable oil market, imagine what the personal transportation market might look like. (If I had to guess I would say a lot more reliance on public transportation.) For it to be a valid ideological argument Mr. Will would have to show how government expenditures in the EV area will never have significant impact on government expenditures in related areas like our carrier task forces. As I said however this is a political argument designed for his political audience.
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