Ask Harley-Davidson how Trump’s trade policies have worked out for American exporters. Does Donald Trump tell it like it is? What he tells people in private is that veterans are losers and suckers, and that his blue collar supporters disgust him. Would a businessman know how to grow the economy? We’ve seen his taxes now. “Drain the swamp?” His appointees have enriched themselves. All that’s left – the only reason anyone could have to vote for this buffoon – is racism. That’s the one thing he’s been honest about.
I began writing about motorcycles for a living in 2000. So we’re coming up on my sixth American Presidential election as a motojournalist. Until now, I’ve never even considered writing a post on whether you should vote, or who for. This time, it’s different.
Last week, I highlighted another great New York Times story by Vanessa Friedman, the Times’ fashion editor, who has been killing it with an occasional series on political fashion in which she barely conceals her contempt for Donald Trump.
When I tweeted out a link to Vanessa’s story, I wrote admiringly of her acknowledgement that in this moment journalism needs all hands on deck. Fashion editor? Find the fashion angle, but make people think about the dire situation we’re now in.
A few days later I wondered, “What about motorcycle journalists?”
I’ve never written so obviously about politics. After all, motorcycling and motorcycle racing exist largely independent of politics.
American motorcycling and motorcycle racing skew conservative. People who ride American V-twins or who attend AFT races even more so; a large number of my friends who ride love their guns, too. So I probably won’t make myself any more popular by urging you to vote for Joe Biden next month, and support Democratic candidates for Senate, in order to save the fucking republic.
American motorcyclists skew conservative. If you’re a MotoGP fan or a hipster on a caféd-out CB550, please vote to counter these people. If you’re from Kansas (where this photo was taken) your vote for President won’t matter, but your vote for Barbara Bollier, who is making a surprisingly strong run for a Kansas Senate seat, may be even more important..
It’s been a hell of a four years, eh?
I don’t doubt that in 2016, a majority of American motorcyclists who voted cast their votes for Donald Trump. I didn’t but if you did, I get it. Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate. And millions of Americans were tired of “business as usual” in Washington, admired an outsider who “told it like it was”, and thought a self-made billionaire entrepreneur might remake the federal bureaucracy in the mythically efficient free-market mode.
But four years later, we know better. Hundreds of prominent, lifelong conservatives have banded to together to support a Democrat, just this once. Hundreds of senior military officers and intelligence community operatives—people who are inclined to keep their politics almost obsessively private—have openly described Donald Trump as this moment’s greatest threat to American democracy.
The lie’s been put to any idea of Trump as an effective executive, and hindsight’s 2020: The idea of Trump draining the swamp is beyond laughable. He may be lazy and only semi-literate, but his one knack has been using his position to enrich himself. All that’s left, as an argument to vote for him is, he’ll keep the brown people in their place. So if you’ve read this far and are still thinking, “I’m going to vote for him,” then yes, you’re racist.
Then there’s the pandemic
Both the New England Journal of Medicine and Scientific American recently endorsed a candidate – Joe Biden – for the first time in their histories. The United States has twice Canada’s per capita death rate. Developing nations like Vietnam are kicking our asses when it comes to protecting their populations, and economies, from Covid-19.
[I]f almost everyone in the U.S. wore masks in public, it could save about 66,000 lives by the beginning of December, according to projections from the University of Washington School of Medicine. Such a strategy would hurt no one. It would close no business. It would cost next to nothing. But Trump and his vice president flouted local mask rules, making it a point not to wear masks themselves in public appearances.—Scientific American
Even before the pandemic, the American motorcycle industry and American motorcycle racing were having a tough go of it. We never really recovered from the Great Recession of 2008-’09. Like most other businesses, most American motorcycle dealerships, distributors, and manufacturers have unnecessarily suffered because of Trump’s grossly inept and often willfully ignorant “leadership”. Motorcycle racing was severely hurt. Not only was Austin’s MotoGP race canceled last spring, I can promise you that it will not happen next spring either, because after 10 months of gross incompetence by the Trump administration, there’s so much Covid-19 here now that it is impossible to make the U.S. safe for foreign visitors any time soon.
Back in the spring, some dealerships far from east coast hotspots did well with dirt bike sales as people looked for ways to have fun while social distancing. Stimulus checks helped. But as we enter a winter in which countless people’s savings will run out and countless small businesses will close, the Trump administration’s mishandling of the pandemic will come back to haunt all of us. Motorcycles are a great escape, but the motorcycle industry is still a part of a sick economy, and motorcycle racing is part of a sick culture.
So it’s come to this: In more than a century, American motorcycling and motorcycle racing has never faced an existential threat from an American political actor. But this time, it’s incumbent on all of us – regardless of our normal political habits – to ensure that Trump and the people who enabled him are voted out in November and thrown out in January. If the GOP learns anything from what I hope will be a historic repudiation, those of you who lean conservative can go back to your party in 2024.
I won’t flatter myself by calling this an endorsement, so I’ll let New England Journal of Medicine’s editors speak for me.
[T]ruth is neither liberal nor conservative. When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.—New England Journal of Medicine
For fuck’s sake, vote.