A sad reminder that the MAGA wing of the Republican party continues to be against most anything that can actually help turn around climate change.
[Image description: former President Trump]
He claims environmental regulations are going to decimate (he must have just learned the word because he used it about 10 times) Michigan’s auto industry, but Rivian manufactures in Michigan, among other places, and all the big US auto makers have electric vehicles.
He says Michigan doesn’t make electric vehicles, but China does. So instead of encouraging development of products that will keep our auto industry globally competitive, he wants to eliminate regulations so auto makers can lazily continue making ICE vehicles and stagnate technologically. Real big brain stuff.
Oakland County is where nearly all the Michigan auto executives live (and nearly all vote Republican). They are pushing the accelerated move to EVs based on market and regulatory conditions worldwide so their companies can stay in business into the future. Pretty amazing that TheDonald chose this particular venue - a fundraiser - to piss on their shoes…
With Michigan being a pretty competitive state, and the unions being largely Democrat, I assume this is his pitch to try to pry some of those union voters away by scaring them about their jobs.
And yeah, decimate. “I do not think this word means what you think it means.”
Blue collar workers in Michigan are not the Blue Wall they once were (just over half ~56% voted for Biden over Trump in 2020, better than what Hillary got at ~53% - but in the good old days, that would have been close to 100%) And they’re <15% of those who are employed in the state now compared to >25% as recently as 1989.
https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-increased-share-michigan-union-vote-1545097
https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/data/unionmembershiphistorical_michigan_table.htm
"Driven by his ridiculous regulations, electric cars will kill more than half of U.S. auto jobs and decimate the suppliers that they decimated already — decimate the suppliers and it’s going to decimate your jobs and it’s going to decimate more than anybody else, the state of Michigan. It’s is going to be decimation. It’s going to be at a level that that people can’t even imagine. The state of Michigan is going to be decimation. It’s going to be at a level that that people can’t even imagine.”
Time for bed, Grampa
