Amid Cancel Culture, Now Academics Have Their Next Target: Pickup Trucks

Townhall.com ^ | August 1, 2020 | Brad Slager

[Kaslin]

We have watched our society slide into a disturbing trend of permissiveness when it comes to assaulting and removing aspects of our culture. Between evictions of historical monuments, the eradicating of entertainment properties and the condemning of commonplace practices, we have almost become conditioned to accepting these efforts. Now we may be seeing the effects of this movement metastasizing.

The Wall Street Journal delivered a lengthy treatise that looks at a normal aspect of American life, one that almost nobody looks at as being a nefarious component in our existence, with contempt: driving pickup trucks. Using "almost" is the qualifier here, as we have come to learn that the learned elites are capable of looking at the most mundane characteristics of society and sneering. In a display of abject elitism, writer Dan Neil has managed to take an isolated personal experience and elevate his near-trauma to a need for bans on the venal vehicles.

It turns out Dan was in a Costco parking lot and had a close call with a GMC Denali. To suggest he was affected by an event that a large swath of America has probably experienced is an understatement:

"As that chrome grille closed on me like a man-eating Norelco shaver, time slowed. It seemed I was watching myself from afar, being nimble for a man my age, darting from the path of a towering, limousine-black pickup with temporary plates, whose driver barely checked his pace."

Yeah, we can say he was affected:

"It was huge! The domed hood was at forehead level. The paramedics would have had to extract me from the grille with a spray hose, like Randall Jarrell’s ball-turret gunner."

Mr. Neil then goes on to list a number of safety features that these trucks could be outfitted with to ensure the safety of others, and he tips his elitist hand by employing the tired argument involving the supposedly more-evolved souls on the continent: "such systems are not mandatory, as they would be in Europe." Yes, we need to follow the guidance of those who are outlawing butter knives and look askance at pedophilia scandals for fear of being labeled as intolerant.

What we have here is the familiar practice of leftist elites who encounter an inconvenience in their personal life and immediately conjure up a way for the government to remedy their discomfort. This was the mentality of a San Francisco Board of Supervisors member who tired of his young child pestering him for Happy Meals to get the toys. Rather than be a parent he decided to pass a law forbidding the restaurant chain from giving away free toys. Now we have a grown man who saw a scary truck and thus wants to impose European neutering standards in order for him to feel protected.

Dan Neil of course found an ally in academia. Well ... sort of. He cited as a fellow pickup truck opponent an associate professor of design at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena. You have to wonder just how many phone calls had to be placed before getting someone this far-flung to latch onto his paranoia. But hey, now he can back up his impotent argument by stating that anyone who opposes his efforts are not among the educated set, and they probably hate science too. 

Then, sensing a true movement among the elitist minds, Ryan Cooper over at The Week decided to take up the pitchfork and torch and join in on the flatbed fussilade, and of course, he had to take things a step further. Not content to merely lobby for EU truck standards, he went so far as to "expose" what pickup trucks are designed for in reality: running people over.

sales of mega-pickups, which have basically been deliberately designed to intimidate and kill pedestrians, are booming https://t.co/RpCLHH3PCE— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) August 3, 2020

[TomGuy]

They went after SUVs several years ago and there are more SUVs on the highways and streets today then ever before.

Pickups became luxury vehicles several decades ago.

[GnuThere]

Dan sounds like an urban weenie who should stay out of the deplorable Costco parking lot and stick to the nasty subway full of smelly homeless people.

[joegoeny]

Well I lost my Black Ram 2500 Laramie Longhorn in a freak boating accident...

[Bonemaker]

"...In the passenger seat, I mean, not the truck bed, unless she’s into that sort of thing...."

I've got an Ares cap and a bedrug in mine!😎

[.44 Special]

F350 crew cab long bed, 429 Thunderjet - 390hp, Fordamatic, 10 mpg around town or on the highway, it don’t care. Two saddle tanks at 82 gallons and the cab tank at 23, fuel petcock is just under the dash.
I’ve had the bedfull to the gnnels with broken block, dirt, an logs. It didn’t even squat down.
You can have my beer, an my wife. But, ya touch my rifle or my truck an I’ll kill ya, dead.

[fortes fortuna juvat]

Even the tires are polished black and shiny.
.................................................
I have five tagged and insured vehicles, four pickups and a Ford Escape. All have over 100,000 miles on ‘em. They’re beat up, no AC, but they all run just fine. And here’s the good news I tell all my friends with high-dollar pickups: I never have to worry about scratches, dents, dirt, thieves, high insurance, big car payments, OR being broke down with no vehicle to drive!

[1FreeAmerican]

Didn’t I see a pic here on FR of a truck painted with blood red splatter all over the front looking like it had just ran over some antifa types?

[caseinpoint]

Reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw on a pickup: Yes, it is my truck. No, I will not move you.

[SteveH]

F250 superduty 4x4. crew cab, diesel v8, looking like a 4" lift, mudders, ...

finally, a real truck porn photo.

[Old Yeller]

Where I live, people buying new expensive pickup trucks with all the lights and accessories, and then they never use them as trucks because they have so much money tied up in them and they don’t want to get that first scratch or dent. It’s really rather funny. They are so shiny clean that you need shades to look at them. Even the tires are polished black and shiny.

I need to add, many times these same losers are the ones that spend all day at the gym, and they have to be the first ones at the gym so that they can park their trucks in the far corners of the parking lot, so that the doors have no chance of getting dinged (which no one likes, but most people don't obsess over it). I don't see how they can get dinged anyway because they sit up so high.

[JCL3]

Writer of his encounter with the “ASSAULT PICKUP” was funny.

The rusty-but-reliable 1985 Chevy C-10 out here brought 660 pounds of junk to the dump last Saturday. They can keep new pickups, I can see the ground under my truck when I open the hood and work on just about anything on it for cheap....including the infamous Quadrajet carb.

[ridesthemiles]

These elite fools will be waiting a very long time for a plumber that doesn’t have a pick up truck!!!

Meanwhile, the sewage will flow.

Or a painter...

OR a landscaper...

Or an electrician......

[ridesthemiles]

MY 1 ton 1976 Chevy dually is white.

It is my workhorse, with over 348,000 miles on the chassis & I put over 250,000 of those miles on it myself, mostly towing horse trailers.

I am female & over 80.

[FreedomNotSafety]

I have read the WSJ article. Three times. This writer is a hyper ventilating piece of sh*ite to misrepresent the article this way and disparage the WSJ writer, Dan Neil, this way.

“In a display of abject elitism, writer Dan Neil has managed to take an isolated personal experience and elevate his near-trauma to a need for bans on the venal vehicles.”

Dan Neil does no such thing. If anything he points out the elitism of HD:Super Duty Trucks. And he is 100% correct. Not everyone buying $80k HD and Super Duties are pseudo cowboys but many are. I have a newer GMC Sierra and Dan is right, I cannot see over the hood. I cannot see our the rear. I am dang careful in the parking lots for this reason. My employer insist we also park face forward to avoid backing out of parking spots.

It so bad I at times have my wife spot for me as I back up.

Dan’s article was well written and funny. If you drove trucks from the 60s through the early 90s and you drove them for their practicality then you understand Dan is right.

[FreedomNotSafety]

Dan was writing about you. I bet you have never once blindly pulled out of parking lot. If that thing even fits in a parking spot :).

[FreedomNotSafety]

If you can read the article. Dan is a great writer and loves cars and trucks. He is no weenie.

[FreedomNotSafety]

Dan was NOT writing about you.

Gotta get a bigger phone.

[ridesthemiles]

And real trucks should have 2 doors and an 8 foot bed. “””

MY 1976 1 ton Chevy dually does...and I can haul 4 X 8 sheets of anything without a problem. 2 doors-—& ALL STEEL.

I can also haul 4 X 8 sheets of anything in my 1979 Buick Station wagon......

The ONLY other truck I would even look at is the Sport Chassis that looks like a semi. Would consider a used one of those...

[Sergio]

I pine for the days when “men” like Dan Neil would be laughed off of the public stage.

[Mariner]

Pick-ups will be the logistics backbone of the right after the collapse.

Combined with machine tools, welders, knowledge and materials, the pick-up is a genuine threat to the left.