"Greater Idaho" and the Electric Ford F-150

21st Century American "sectionalism" is urban vs. rural.

The new all-electric Ford F-150 is just what America needs. A crossover

Oregon is in the national news yet again. 

Some eastern Oregon counties are proposing leaving Oregon to become part of Idaho. It won't happen. It is a gesture to express unhappiness with Oregon's Democratic governor.

Weather in Oregon comes from wind blowing from the west off the Pacific Ocean. It hits the Cascade range which runs north-south down the western U.S. marked by the elevation change from green to brown. The elevation brings rain on the valleys to the west. That geography allowed early settlement on very productive farm land. Cities grew. 

Ninety percent of Oregon's population lives west of that north-south Cascade chain. East of that mountain chain is "high desert" land of low rainfall and wide open spaces. It is where the deer and the antelope play.

The discouraging words heard there reflect the fact that the eastern 70% of the state's land is geographically, culturally, and politically more similar to Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and the Dakotas than it is to the wetter, more populated area west of the Cascades. Mike McCarter, the president of the group advocating for "Greater Idaho" said:

Seventy-eight percent of the people are in the urban area, more or less in the Willamette Valley in Portland. They control the Legislature completely. They have a supermajority. That's why they don't care to listen to those representatives from central or eastern Oregon. They're dealing with issues around urban folks, and their social agenda is to be a sanctuary state to allow the homeless people to come in, to reduce the laws on drugs, to remove or lessen than the budget for police officers.We're not saying that that is wrong. We don't agree with it, but they're dealing with those issues, and those aren't the issues that we have. Rural Oregon is traditional, has traditional values. We're more into our communities, more into our schools, more into supporting law enforcement.

  

Rural "mountain state" Oregon frustration and grievance is not built around their being exploited. They get more than their "fair share" of state resources. Urban Portland's economic activity generally transfers wealth to them, not away from them. Portland's taxes subsidize the expanded Medicaid programs. Liberal Oregon took full advantage of the ACA and Medicaid expansion, which saved the rural hospitals in those counties and provides health care for a high percentage of their residents. Yet people in those counties voted heavily for Trump and for a congressman who led the fight to repeal the ACA. 

The problem is cultural. They liked Democratic health care in practice, but not if they thought it came from "Obamacare." This is Trump country. McCarter displayed it in the above quotation. 

People in these counties have different sensibilities from urban Oregon, which is why I celebrate the proposed all-electric Ford pickup truck. Rural Oregon is pickup truck country. The new Ford electric pickup truck looks like the existing gasoline one. The electric one is a hefty 6,000 pounds. It can haul stuff. It costs about what the gasoline one costs, just under $40,000 and about $33,000 after the rebate. It is a normal vehicle, not a luxury one. The important thing is that it is a truck.

Tesla, too, has a truck, and it offers a comparison. The Tesla looks like a truck for archetypal Democrats. The Ford F-150 is a truck for people who voted for Trump but could be Democrats if Democrats smartened up with their messaging and policies.

Tesla

Ford electric F-150--shown working in rural area

Ford electric F-150--shown in a city

The Tesla pickup truck is a coastal elite city-person's idea of a pickup truck. It looks like something a wealthy person who works in high-tech or finance would buy. The Tesla pickup truck is a science fiction vehicle and a statement of "all hat and no cattle" pretension, combined with elitist tastes and money to burn. It is everything rural people dislike about coastal elites. 

The Ford truck looks like a truck. The traditional front hood is missing in the Tesla. It is there in the Ford truck, an enormously useful closed, locked trunk where a person can keep tools, work boots, a chain, emergency flares, a spare trailer hitch, and small, light stuff you don't want to blow around in the back of a truck. It is sensible. It isn't show-off.

Until now, electric vehicles have had an urban, Democratic sensibility. The archetype breakthrough vehicles were either a statement of environmental sensitivity--a Prius-- or of technology and wealth--Tesla. In either case it shouted "Democrat." It wasn't a meat-and-potatoes vehicle. Both frugal Prius and extravagant Tesla emitted a sushi and pinot noir vibe. 

The electric Ford F-150 is a crossover. Biden was smart to have been associated with it in his trip to Dearborn, Michigan. It suggests the potential that Democrats can figure out how to broaden their appeal to include more country-western and religious broadcasting listeners on the car radio. Democrats say that good environment is good jobs, but they don't show it. The shutdown of the Keystone Pipeline took place in real life, immediately. The building of wind turbines in Pittsburgh has not happened yet. The clock is ticking for those wind turbine factories.

Cars are symbols of taste and identity. An electric F-150 demonstrates there is a middle ground in America. Good job, Ford.

Biden at the Ford factory in Dearborn

Democrats will either figure out a crossover sensibility, or they will keep losing elections.

Biden:  "This sucker's quick.

Reporter: "Mr. President, would you buy one of these?"

Biden: "I would."

Good job, Joe Biden.