Nolte: Now They Want to Cancel Our Pickup Trucks

They seek to take our guns, tear down our monuments, destroy our suburbs, and have shut down our churches. Now, they’re coming for our pickup trucks.

And when I say “they,” I’m, of course, talking about “Railroad men, bounty hunters, Deke Thornton.”

The excuse? Some ninny at the Wall Street Journal almost got hit by a pickup. So, you know — now, they all have to go: The article begins, “A FEW MONTHS ago, on an ordinary day in an unremarkable Costco parking lot, I was nearly squashed by an unusually large pickup,” then continues:

As that chrome grille closed on me like a man-eating Norelco shaver, time slowed. It seemed I was watching myself from afar, being nimble for a man my age, darting from the path of a towering, limousine-black pickup with temporary plates, whose driver barely checked his pace. Jerk.

What the hell was that thing? A 2020 GMC Sierra HD Denali? It was huge! The domed hood was at forehead level.

“He didn’t even see me,” the ninny adds in italics, because inattentive drivers only drive pickup trucks, or something…

And then, for another 1,700-plus words. NinnyMan rails against the growth of the size of the pickup. He seems especially intimidated by the front grille.

I mean, NinnyMan is so freaked out by that front grille, he brings it up 13 times. Here are just a few examples:

• As that chrome grille closed on me like a man-eating Norelco shaver
• The paramedics would have had to extract me from the grille with a spray hose, like Randall Jarrell’s ball-turret gunner.
• [T]he 2500 HD sports an elaborate chromified grille that gleams like a tea service.
• Could the extra tall hoods and bluff grilles, the sightlines, the scale, the very form language of the traditional American pickup ever be made pedestrian safe?
• GAUDY GRILLE: The vast chrome rictus of Chevy’s Silverado has been coolly received by some critics and customers. But…
• Silverado sales are up, and there’s a booming business in aftermarket grilles.

And then he goes on to compare pickup grilles over the decades.

Is the widdle NinnyMan gunna cry now?

Naturally, as Townhall’s Brad Slager first noticed, this stupid narrative is gaining traction elsewhere on the left. The Week’s Ryan Cooper described it this way: “[S]ales of mega-pickups, which have basically been deliberately designed to intimidate and kill pedestrians, are booming.”

NinnyMan’s entire thesis is based on the concept that larger pickups are unsafe because the driver can’t see over the hood — the hood, which, as you know, helps to support that gonzo grille that puts your own poop in your pants.

“Could the extra tall hoods and bluff grilles, the sightlines, the scale, the very form language of the traditional American pickup ever be made pedestrian safe?” he asks. “Of course not,” Kimberly Marte, associate professor of design at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, assures him. “No way,” she adds for good measure.

What are these ninnies talking about?

The only way you are not in the sightline of a pickup truck driver is if you’re standing right in front of the thing. If you take a step back, you’re in his sightline. It’s the same with semi trucks.

We have a whole bunch of small kids in my neighborhood, a couple of whom are small enough you can say the same about them — you can’t see them if they are standing right in front of you — no matter what vehicle you’re driving.

What about the babies, NinnyMan!

Who will save the babies from the hoods and grilles of the malevolent Mini Coopers!

Gee, I hope NinnyMan doesn’t drive one of those evil, pedestrian-killing SUVs — cuz science.

Kidding aside, I don’t purchase vehicles with the safety of others in mind. If there’s an accident, I intend for my wife and me to survive. If the other asshole’s driving some 4-cylinder, environmentally safe gerbil-mobile made from recycled plastic and good vibes, that’s on him.

This attack on the pickup has zero to do with logic, zero to do with safety, and everything to do with culture.

Like the firearm and church and masculinity and rural life, the pickup represents rugged individualism — a guy who hauls and tows his own stuff… That’s what they hate.

I can’t imagine life without my mid-size pickup. But unlike our elites, I haul my own garbage to the dump. (I also don’t recycle because recycling is stupid.) I also haul a lot of lumber and tools for my various projects, and most of all, I haul my camper.

My pickup makes me a whole lot less reliant on government (garbage) and big business (delivery services and hotels). That’s what these ninnies can’t stand… Besides, what am I supposed to do, hang my rifle rack in the back window of a Prius? Haul dead animals on the hood of a Lexus? Have the horn on my Mercedes blare Dixie? 

Well, from my cold, dead hands, NinnyMan…

You’ll take my grille from my cold, dead hands.

Oh, and Boo!

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.