GET YOUR MOTOR RUNNIN', HEAD OUT ON THE HIGHWAY

Alex Jones, the Infowars nimrod, says that Democrats are going to start a new civil war on July 4.  I’d hoped to be issued a musket and bayonet so I could serve on the front lines, but Comandante Soros decided that I was needed in the Ministry of Propaganda.  Venceremos, y’all. 

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, I want to note that July 4th marks the 71st anniversary of the Hollister riot of 1947.  If you haven’t heard about it, here’s the scoop.  In California, after the end of World War II, some newly demobilized veterans who were lookin’ for adventure and whatever came their way fell in love with motorcycling.  Most of them rode either a Harley or an Indian, the two major American motorcycle manufacturers of the era.  Some rode solo, but lots of them joined one of the many motorcycle clubs that sprang up after the war.

This was long before the advent of the Hell’s Angels and other “outlaw” motorcycle clubs.  In the late ‘40s, some of the clubs were family-oriented Sunday picnic types of folks.  Others, including the 13 Rebels Motorcycle Club, led by Shell Thuet, were into serious racing.  And of course, there were some clubs that liked to get a little rowdy.  The Boozefighters Motorcycle Club from south central Los Angeles were hellraisers.  The Boozefighters were led by Wino Willie Forkner, who’d been kicked out of 13 Rebels. 

On July 4, 1947, the Boozefighters decided to ride to the small town of Hollister and party down.  Other clubs throughout the state had the same idea.  Four thousand bikers descended on the town of 4,500.  Predictably, things got out of hand, although as one witness noted, the bikers did more damage to each other than they did to the town. 

The Hollister riot was memorialized in a 1954 film called THE WILD ONE, starring Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin.  Brando’s character was based loosely on Shell Thuet.  Marvin’s character was modeled on Wino Willie.  THE WILD ONE was largely responsible for creating the iconic image of the biker rebel, with or without a cause.

Fast forward to 2018.  The Indian Motorcycle Manufacturing Company in Springfield MA had gone bankrupt in 1953, although the brand has been resurrected in the past decade.  Harley-Davidson, based in Wisconsin, just kept on keeping on.  They survived the influx of imports from Japan (Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki) and Europe (Triumph, BMW, Ducati) and became an iconic American company.

Enter Donald Trump, whose ignorance of economic policy is matched only by his desire to dominate.  He needs to dominate anybody and everybody – friends, foes, and people who just want to be left alone.  Everyone must kneel before the mighty Donald. 

And what better way to throw his considerable weight around than starting a series of trade wars?  Trump asserted that trade wars were good, and easy to win.  In fact, they were so good that he decided to start three of them at once – with China, with the European Union, and with our erstwhile NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada.  It didn’t take long for the poop to hit the propeller. 

China has decided to buy soybeans from Brazil until they can grow their own; they’ve cancelled all orders from America.  That’s a $12.4 billion per year hit to midwestern farmers.  But it was Trump’s decision to impose steel tariffs on European manufacturers that generated the most pushback.  The EU responded to those tariffs with tariffs of their own on American products – including motorcycles. 

Harley-Davidson sells a sixth of its motorcycles in Europe, and H-D’s management can do math.  It didn’t take them long to calculate that they were going to lose money on every American-made motorcycle they sold in Europe.  Instead of just saying, “oh well,” and accepting the loss of 17% of their market, they decided to move that segment of their manufacturing to Europe. 

Some people claim that H-D been had wanting to make that move anyway.  Maybe that’s true and maybe it’s not, but whatever.  Donald Trump handed them a perfectly reasonable excuse to do what they did. 

Trump responded to H-D’s announcement predictably, with a storm of rage-tweets.  First, he threatened to impose retaliatory taxes on them (“they will be taxed like never before”).  Then on July 3, he threated to help Harley’s foreign competitors.  Way to make America great again, big fella.

The cream of the jest is that so far, the worst casualties in Trump’s new trade wars have been in states (e.g. Iowa and Wisconsin) that helped make him president. 

I’m sure that Paul Ryan and the other members of the Republican congressional delegation from Wisconsin will set aside their deep philosophical opposition to tax increases in order to punish one of the major industries in their home state.  That’s certain to end well.

Trump has described his supporters as “the smartest, strongest, most hard working and most loyal that we have seen in our countries history.” 

I’ll grant that some of Trump supporters are hard working.  And possibly strong, whatever that means.  But come on.  No one who is genuinely smart would support Donald Trump.  That’s why his hard-core supporters won’t notice that he wrote “countries” when he should have used “country’s.”  Not that Deplorables would care if they did notice.  Only elitists like me care about grammar and usage.  As for loyalty, we’ll see what happens when members of Trump’s base lose their jobs as a result of his feckless trade wars. 

I just pray that Democratic congressional candidates in affected states are smart enough to make this a campaign issue and keep hammering away at it.  Republicans will try to make the congressional mid-terms about MS-13 and other bogus issues.  C’mon, Democrats.  Fire all of your guns at once and explode into space!