Pick-Up: Motordom and Americana

Seems perfect for the Fourth of July. From the Smithsonian Magazine:

The same forces that embedded the pickup in rural life would eventually begin to erode the very foundations of that life. The dwindling prospects of any but the largest and most mechanized farming operations pushed much of the increasingly marginalized population off the land toward the beckoning bustle of the metropolis. Although Americans fleeing the farm took their memories of the family’s dilapidated old pickup with them, actually parking such a vehicle in your driveway guaranteed a cold shoulder on arrival in the studiously urbane and fervently aspirational ’burbs.

Soon enough, however, rising metropolitan incomes and the growing popularity of camping, boating, and other outdoor activities justified the acquisition of newer, better-kempt pickups, equipped with once unheard of comforts and conveniences like leather seats, air conditioning, extended cabs, automatic transmissions, and power steering. …

Today’s fancy models may be portrayed in ways that seem to celebrate a wide-open, “anything goes” social outlook, but the pickup’s political implications have most commonly skewed right, even far right. The stereotypical combination of a gun rack and Rebel flag decal once conjured images of night-riding, racist thugs. Even sans flag, the racked shotgun or rifle (or both) invited suspicions that the driver was not simply a dedicated hunter but someone just itching to be crossed. Ironically, the proliferation of extended cab vehicles in combination with the increased risk of theft amid the burgeoning illicit traffic in firearms, has largely reduced the gun rack to a garage sale item. …

More broadly, the story of the pickup truck affirms the historic capacity of Americans to adapt not only our social and political outlook, but also our cultural and consumer preferences to dramatic changes in the economic, technological, and demographic forces that have shaped our identity as a people.