A humorous analysis of the recent presidential election:
September 6, 2017 Trump's Truckin' Base By Brian Joondeph
Electoral prognosticators failed miserably last November. The smart set in the media establishment predicted a landslide win for Hillary Clinton. For an amusing review, here is a video montage of their smug certainty. On what did they base their certainty? Bogus polls oversampling Democrat voters? Or projection of their wishes and fantasies that Donald Trump would be smacked down in big league fashion? We all know how that turned out.
Just as the old quote predicted, “Wish in one hand, crap in the other, and see which fills up first.” Obviously political pundits needed more than their wishes to avoid looking like fools holding a handful of electoral poop after their predictions were turned upside down on November 8.
Here’s an idea that might help future electoral soothsaying. A recent USA Today article discussed the most popular cars and trucks in each of the 50 states. The map looked surprisingly like the 2016 electoral map. The top vehicles sold in each state in 2016, based on new car registrations, was compiled.
There was a mix of sedans, small SUVs and pickup trucks. The trucks included the Ford F-150, Toyota Tacoma, GMC Sierra 1500 and Chevrolet Silverado 1500. Looking at the electoral map and vehicle map it’s clear that red states, won by Donald Trump, were predominantly pickup truck states whereas the blue states, won by Hillary Clinton, were mostly sedans or small SUVs.
The four western blue states of Washington, Oregon, California and Nevada were not truck states, instead favoring Honda Civic, Subaru Outback or Toyota RAV4. Most of New England, also electorally blue, has drivers choosing the Nissan Rogue, Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V.
Colorado, despite its rugged mountains and frontier chic is a blue state and its drivers chose the Subaru Outback, while surrounded by red-voting, Ford F-150 driving states, like on the electoral map. Illinois, electorally deep blue, chose the Honda CR-V.
Of course, there are a few exceptions. Minnesota, a blue state, likes pickup trucks. Michigan and Florida, both barely red electorally went with cars or small SUVs.
The correlation, however, is clearly there. At least by the electoral map. Here’s how the truck versus non-truck electoral map would look, red being pickup trucks, blue being non-trucks, meaning sedans and small SUVs. It looks remarkably like the actual electoral map above.
Want to brighten your day? Go to the source of this piece and click on the "video montage" mentioned in the first paragraph. I assure you it will give you a smile, though I seriously question why some of the bubbleheads in the video are still allowed to pontificate (Hi, Joe and Mika).