October 11, 2007, here on slacktivist: Break down
My point here isn’t whether this reflexive opposition to safety and environmental standards is right or wrong. I think it’s wrong, but set that aside. My point here is that the automakers’ lobbying strategy has been foolish. Their approach, for decades, has been to portray themselves as technologically incompetent, as incapable of meeting new challenges. Somehow they never considered how this would affect their reputation with the car-buying public.
The automakers’ lobbying strategy has, in a way, been a resounding success. The American public, or at least 42 percent of us, perceives them exactly as they have portrayed themselves — as people who aren’t very good at making cars and who don’t really know what they’re doing.
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