the destruction of the car dealership cartel would be more effective than almost anything else democrats could do at neutering the political power of their opponents the core of Trumpism in most towns is the area car dealer, ruling like a particularly smarmy baron over local politics
Kid Rock’s father was the big shot local dealership owner.
Death to Buddy Garrity
and yet
Car dealers, realtors and MLM companies are terrible for our country and provide almost no benefit
I'm in the UK and it took me ages to get my head around the realtor system. A surprisingly large number of US shows include realtors We just have one middleman: the estate agent. If you are selling, they take a commission
You can sell privately or through a website if you prefer, but the agent does the photos, sorts out listing on Rightmove etc (our Zillows), and shows people around for you. And their rep is that they are wide boys, not the big man in town
Given the current economic trends and the whole thing with tariffs coming up, it may be that this problem will solve itself in our lifetime. There’s videos on YouTube insisting it’ll get so bad dealerships will sell at Sticker and could be haggled to go even lower just to get them off the lot.
youtu.be/e1H_8XYT6MA?...
Maybe Trump destroys car dealers and realtors by scamming his own base over and over again until they go bankrupt.
See also: Stephen King's Under the Dome
Give the FDA regulatory control of dietary supplements and really knee cap 'em.
The car-tel, one might say
A. I totally agree with this. B. It's not as simple as Roberts makes it out to be.
Car dealers in our town dump money into news stations and sponsor so much shit around the area it's almost impossible to avoid seeing them.
I grew up in a town like that. It’s funny to move away and find out the car dealership people aren’t really that important
YouTube started feeding me Car Guy videos after I fixed my car myself and it's wild how many of them are hoping for dealerships to fold. Not even car guys like car dealerships
Car Guy videos rule. Those dudes may be a nightmare at gatherings (unless you too are a Car Guy)(although maybe not) but give them a chance to share their expertise with the willing and they’re a value add to modern society. Also, how to replace a busted belt in your dryer guys
As a mechanic I would love for them to all burn.
It's basically a meme that if a car company makes a cool car that enthusiasts like dealerships mark them up over msrp
Manufacturers sometimes revoke allocations for dealers that mark up msrp. Dealers get around this by buying back super low mile cars and marking up the "used" car by thousands. I've seen salesmen "buy" the car and trade it in on the new model year to continue this cycle.
I wanted to buy a GR Corolla and walked out when I couldn't get them below $7500 for magic sprays and wheel insurance.
lol I got told I could finance it if I didn't have all the cash. no sir, I do not want to pay even more money in interest over the next five years or so. I'll apply whatever special sprays or fancy trim I want on my own.
I'm strongly considering getting a Civic Si in the near future and just praying I don't have to do significant shopping around to avoid any bullshit.
If they just legalized bypassing dealers in just one state, the whole dealership model would start to collapse. California seems like good place to start.
Maybe, but I personally would rather it be Detroit, as impossible of a thought that is. Like, I can talk to the people that make the thing, I can work at the plant if I want... but I have to go to Mel Farr to actually obtain one?
Sorry, maybe I should have said "Michigan." Sometimes I forget they're the same place...
And realtors?
I am not endorsing this as it just folds more of our life under Amazon's thumb, but... www.amazon.com/stores/page/... Hyundai now sells the whole damn car through Amazon.
Gotta pick it up at the dealership but...
It physically pains me to say this, and I don’t know if it’s still true, but at one point the least painful car buying experience was offered by fucking Tesla.
I've never really thought about this but wow it's so true.
💯 their power and influence completely flies under the radar. Would love to see this system shattered and opened up to a free market. We would all benefit.
The owner of one of our local dealerships is the chair of the state MAGA party. First thing that pops into your head when you see him and his kid: "yup, looks like a NAZI".
Didn't they make up a large portion of J6 participants too?
That and real estate agents, and especially commercial real estate people.
🎯🎯🎯
I think it would be terrible if the ICE hotline kept getting flooded with calls about undocumented workers at car dealerships owned by MAGA chuds.
Yes, car dealerships should be destroyed but also, come on, this is not the root of Trumpism. There is so much more Trumpy shit people latch on to
It's a common occupation of the upper class. There's a lot of money in it.
- bust car dealerships - regulate supplements - eliminate MLMs
- regulate crypto and gambling
These are all great targets. I'll add a couple - those paycheck loan scams. Also, before it gets more or of control, school vouchers.
The bonus being that these are all pro-consumer reforms in addition to eroding the power of the maga base
I was thinking about getting a new car this summer and the guy at the dealership gave me such bad vibes I left and never went back. No thanks.
The plot of Road House.
I don’t know a single person who enjoys the car buying experience
Truth. Car dealership owners get university centers named after them via big donations. (See UT Austin’s McCombs School of Business, which has a sketchy situation with donor funding, so says a whisper network). Parents pay extra to ensure their kids get As.
car dealership dipshits also brought us lightlark, they really contribute nothing of value to society all the way down
?
Car, boat, RV Plus the realtors, who drive the cost of housing up so they can get rich off commissions
Liquor distributors get overlooked on the list, but John McCain was funded by his wife's beer baron daddy, who, iirc, was the only one who could sell Budweiser in Arizona
Wow. That’s some Saddest Music in the World Guy Madden stuff, right there.
💯
And many of the steps one could take to disrupt the dealership cartel are things Elon would be in favor of, which might help get them done
The cold feet at the TikTok ban does not give me confidence that Democrats anywhere have the fortitude to break the dealership cartel, but I can dream.
In the UK, that is exactly how my son got his new BMW/Mini. He put his exact requirements into the Mini website and a dealer 400miles away had that spec on order. They negotiated a price, then the car was delivered to London. He *could* have placed his own order, but there's a 3-4 month wait.
Throw in the supplements business as well and we’d be doing FDR numbers
…I’m not disagreeing, but how are car dealerships the political power in towns?
As least in my town, they are the largest private business owners and have been for a couple of generations at least. That buys them & theirs access and influence for important roles in local politics. And they're ALL Republicans.
The most politically deforming occupations to the local and state politics of anywhere in America are dealership owners, beer distributor owners, and realtors. They really are the local gentry everywhere in America and the core of US fascism
And just like in say the 18th century UK the local gentry are often more far right than the nobility (which nowadays would be actual billionaires). The latter are so powerful as to be in their own world, the former are trying to defund your local school district and get a queer teacher fired.
That would require Democrats to attack the political power of their opponents which would require them viewing Republicans as opponents rather than inexplicably hostile friends who must be wiped back with concessions.
One of the most American movies ever made is Roger Zemeckis’ USED CARS in which heroes & villains are all equally stupid shitty & corrupt and no one ever learns a lesson or redeems themselves. 100% cynical & accurate.
ROBERT Zemeckis. Fucking Autocorrect got me looking stupid!!!!!!!!
Good podcast on how you can really hurt the far right by marginalized car dealerships with direct sales, cracking down on MLMs, and regulating the supplement business properally.
Car dealers certainly do benefit from suburbanite fear of cities don't they
My car salesman had a Trump/Desantis cup on his desk and I almost walked but I REALLY WANTED THAT CAR
And construction conglomerates.
Seconded. I’d say all the way down to individual contractors as well. You run the risk of deleting entire towns’ worth of political footprints but
There was a great article about this very thing. How the car dealers and hot tub and billiards salesmen of the world were Trump's true base. I cannot remember where I read it.
slate.com/news-and-pol... This?
📌
No, but it certainly touches on similar themes!
Probably this? www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
Can we look at the out of control health insurance cartel while we’re at it? Zero upside with that paradigm.
Car dealerships have a helluva lot of political influence, especially at the state and local level. There is so much in our world that is grossly overpriced due to politics
Anyone who does regular full page ad buys in a struggling local newspaper is going to have lots of influence.
Literally the largest lobby group in Indiana. More than guns, God, or Gays. We aren't even legally allowed to build light rail or raise taxes to construct mass transit without local supermajorities.
In my hometown it was the furniture guys, too