The Republicans Sold Us a Clunker
Re “The GOP’s a Toyota, Dems Are All GM,” Commentary, June 27: An analogy is flawed if it fails to take in major components of the objects being compared, in this case the very substance of what it means to be Republican (conservative) or Democrat (progressive). Being conservative, by definition, means being resistant to change, like GM has been with its devotion to SUVs, with not much adaptation in the face of inevitable fuel-cost increases. For a time, that worked for GM, but reality caught up with it. Meanwhile, Toyota did look toward the future.
Many people profess to be caring patriots, but they don’t care what’s going on until it affects them.
Politics affects everything, from your pay to the quality of drinking water to whether the country is at war. Sooner or later, reality catches up. The policies of the GOP, with regard to global warming and starting illegitimate wars, has made it so the majority of our friends in other countries would rather do business with China than us. The deficit and the arrogance will cause problems, and reality will catch up. Just as it did for GM.
John Mathieu
San Pedro
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John Micklethwait and Adrian Woolridge are clever in pointing out that, like Toyota, the Republicans have been coming up with new products the last 30 years.
However, unlike Toyota, the products the Republicans have sold the American electorate -- a war initiated under a cloud of deceit, the bankrupting of the federal government with tax cuts to the wealthy, the gutting of consumer and environmental protections and the attempt to phase out Social Security -- would easily fail the J.D. Power test for defects within the first 90 days.
When it comes to cars, the GOP is a peddler of slickly marketed Yugos.
Paul Joseph Gulino
Santa Monica
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Add another to the “The GOP’s a Toyota, Dems Are All GM” metaphor: The GOP’s failed domestic policies have allowed wages, high-paying jobs and profits to leave the U.S. at ever “accelerating” rates.
Michael N. Antonoplis
Van Nuys
