On the campaign trail this election cycle, former President Donald Trump has indulged in a singular rant about electric boats and sharks.
The story goes that a boat manufacturer complained to him about electric boats, and Trump wondered what would happen if the boat sank under the weight of the electric battery — Would passengers be electrocuted? What if there was a shark nearby, and they had to choose how to die? “I will take electrocution every single time,” he’s said, hinting at a long-held fear of sharks.
As nonsensical as it is, the rant hits on a common talking point among Republicans: ridiculing the rise of electric vehicles.
The Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s landmark economic and climate change legislation, offered a range of incentives for the production of electric vehicles and related infrastructure, and offered tax incentives to individuals who buy them, while administration rules earlier this year increased fuel efficiency requirements for car manufacturers. Both moves spurred sharp Republican opposition. “[T]he Biden administration is deciding for Americans which kinds of cars they are allowed to buy, rent, and drive,” Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, said in a statement in March.
This ongoing rift over electric vehicles hints at longer-standing differences between how the parties and their voters view climate change and the potential policy solutions for curbing greenhouse emissions. While many voters care about climate change and support some level of government action to address it, Democrats’ clean energy policies have come under harsh fire by Republicans.
Their battles over the push toward electric vehicles also highlight the challenges in trying to shift attitudes around American cars, a fight that dovetails into the larger cultural divides that shape American politics.