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Okay, I'll go.
The big news this weekend was that Trump had a rally and said that, should he not be elected, the U.S. auto industry would be overrun with cheap Chinese imports. He used the word "bloodbath".
The mainstream media, which we're assured rarely tells outright lies, decided to find the exact dividing line between an outright lie and "still technically the truth". You can be the judge of whether they succeeded. For just one of many examples, Joe Scarborough ran a segment where the words "Trump warns of a bloodbath for America if he loses" were emblazoned on the bottom of the screen.
Of course, if any of this surprises you in the slightest, you haven't been paying attention. It's slightly boring at this point and would be funny except so many boomers still watch that dross.
What I want to focus on is the actual substance of Trump's claim. I think that, this time, Trump is on to something. The Detroit auto industry is about to have a head-on collision with China and get absolutely wrecked.
Already, Detroit is not in good shape. The Big 3's share of U.S. auto sales has fallen from 90% in 1965 to just 44% by 2018. (I'm sure it's much lower now). It gets worse. The only reason that Detroit has done this well is a 25% tariff on foreign light trucks that was passed by LBJ in retaliation for European tariffs against U.S. chicken.
In terms of small cars, Japanese automakers have been beating Detroit for decades. For luxury vehicles, Germany has worldwide dominance. That leaves only light trucks and SUV's, where Detroit still performs well only due to tarriffs. We've sort of forgotten about Detroit since 2008. The perception is that things were bad for awhile, but then the automakers got bailed out and they're okay now, especially #girlboss CEO Mary Barra.
This isn't true. The stock prices of the Big 3 have limped along. GM, once the 2nd most valuable U.S. company, now has a market cap only 2% the size of NVIDIA. And, if the Big 3 haven't gone bankrupt again, it's only by jettisoning high-paid union labor. Michigan, once a well-off state, now ranks 39 out of 50 in household income, falling well behind former hick states like Texas and North Carolina.
Enter China.
China is already, by far, the world's largest producer of automobiles, producing about 3x as many as the U.S. Also, China can sell an EV for $10,000. While I'm sure there would need to be changes for the U.S. market, it would not be too expensive at scale. Get ready for hordes of these "shitty but good enough" cars to enter the market.
"No one will ever buy a Chinese car" you laugh, nearly dropping your monocle into your glass of cognac. I don't think this opinion can withstand serious scrutiny. Japanese cars once had a similar reputation. Nowadays, choosing to buy an American car over a Japanese one is seen as either extremely patriotic or moronic. Even if quality never improves, people still buy plenty of Kias and Hyundais. How many more would they buy if the price was reduced by 30-50%?
So let's say all of this is true. A wave of Chinese imports are coming which will cripple the U.S. auto industry. How will voting for Trump help? My gut feeling is that Trump can't save Detroit but that, unlike Biden, he'll at least try.
For most of the period of the 1980s-present, the world has been a huge beneficiary of free trade. The rich in the U.S. have grown much richer, obscenely so. But the biggest gains have been won by the working class in developing nations, especially China. Despite all that there have been losers. The biggest losers are the working class in rich nations, especially in areas that compete with China.
The traditional government solution to manufacturing being outsourced has been to offer job retraining and lots of government benefits to the affected class. But this just doesn't work. The places that have been affected by blue collar job loss are now hollowed-out shells of their former selves.
Trump will probably at least try to ban or tax Chinese cars. Is this the right thing to do? Maybe, maybe not. It will cost American consumers a lot of money, and it will depress wages in China. In aggregate, the tariffs will probably make the world a worse place. But they will help the group that has lost so much and which has been ignored and scorned for decades. The group Biden pretends to care about but which Trump actually does.
Edit: Just saw this retweeted by Crémieux:
America's most affluent metro areas in 1949: https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1769891112095740274/photo/1
You'll never guess who's #1.
I find it amusing that every time someone snarkily invokes Scott's post, they provide an example that perfectly makes his point. Trump did warn of a bloodbath, so Joe didn't make it up. The media is very, very, misleading but they indeed rarely lie.
I fully understand Scott's argument.
I think you might have missed my point, which is that (in this case) they are trying to find the exact point that a lack of context becomes so egregious that it is equivalent to an outright lie.
It seems to me that this is pretty squarely within the "technically the truth" category. It follows the same logic as the other examples of misleading headlines: If you had more context, you would interpret it completely differently.
Where is the line? Let's say you rephrase "I have never beaten my wife" to "I have ... beaten my wife".
There is clearly a spectrum between selective reporting and pants-on-fire lie. In this case, the media was closer to the outright lie end of the spectrum. I mean, yeah, Trump said the word "bloodbath". That's about the only honest thing in their headlines.
That would be a lie because he didn't say that he has beaten his wife. It would not be a lie if it was "I have beaten my wife (in a video game)". But yeah, I would agree that at this level of "obscuration of the truth" there is little difference in the consequences between simply lying and being grossly misleading. Though we should not completely disregard the possibility that Joe actually thinks that Trump meant a real bloodbath (cf. dog whistling).
Here is an excerpt of what he said:
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/joe-scarborough-spots-trump-line-115751035.html
This actually sounds like pretty genuine TDS. This is another thing I find amusing. The only people who seem to hear "dog whistles" are the ones who aren't supposed to her them.
The people who aren't supposed to hear dog whistles, according to the dog whistle theory, are the moderates who vote for the dog whistler. The opponents don't factor in, they weren't about to vote for you anyway.
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