Just a few years ago, one heard how important it was to have a green automobile, a hybrid of some sort, and the Toyota Prius was the standard for many. ‘Many,’ as I write it here, would include many on the left, who while driving a Prius could claim they were ecology-minded (and so suitably fashionable in progressive social circles).
A few years later, and that’s no longer true: the Occupy Wall Street and broader trade-union movement now expect an American car, on the theory that it’s better to buy local. Out with Toyota or Honda, and in with American-made.
Those doubting the change in tastes should consider how progressive writer and newspaper editor John Nichols and John Sly Sylvester consider the buy-American preference. (Audio here. The discussion about cars takes place beginning at 15:52 in the audio clip to which I lave linked.)
It turns out Democratic Congressional candidate Helen Kelda Roys showed for an interview in her Prius, only to find that a hybrid foreign car was no longer the progressive’s choice. She was, it seems, behind the ever-changing times. She should have had arrived in a Chevy Volt, I’d guess.
As for me, I’d say one should buy and drive whatever car one wants, with only one exception. One should avoid driving an expensive car (of whatever provenance) to a gathering of the poor or disadvantaged. Just as one shouldn’t wear a mink to a clothing drive, one shouldn’t drive something fancy (or wear something fancy) when the occasion calls for simple and subtle.
Otherwise, I’d say, do what you want, drive what you want, from anywhere, to anywhere.
Politics have changed, though, and chronically difficult economic times have forced the substitution of one value with another.
Activists, and candidates, take note.