The Last Local Car Dealer

There used to be at least one in every major town, and still are in many places, though they usually moved out of the real down-towns years ago and the big chains are rapidly buying them up as the industry consolidates. They usually sat on the main drag, surrounded by a lot filled with shiny new and not-so-shiny used cars. I am talking about the local automobile dealership, of course.

Although the owners of course ran the gamut in terms of personality, morals, and business ethics, many were colorful characters who provided the town gossips with endless stories about which office girl they were sleeping with at present, who got a good deal on their car, who got cheated, etc. Whether or not the owner was actually a decent person, their business ethics were almost always considered shady and their personal morality questionable. They always believed they were a part of the community's elite business community, many others in such community felt differently. They were always belonging, but never quite fitting in.

Nevertheless, when the time rolled around to replace the old vehicle, almost everyone would head down to the local dealership to see what was available and what they could get for a trade in. There were good reasons for that. Sure, they could head to the big city and chance a dealer they didn’t know and who didn’t know them, but their local dealer was THEIR dealer. He operated under constraints the sharp big city suit did not and could not even understand. If he cheated John Doe too badly, not only would John never return and buy another car, but John’s immediate family, John’s friends, John’s first cousins, second cousins, third cousins, his wife’s friends, cousins, etc, etc would also be lost customers. In small town settings, where most people know one another and many are related for generations back, even to first settlement, knowing people and who they are related to is vital.

I actually worked for a city fellow who opened his first dealership in a rural community. He lied about everything, bragged about the sharp deals he had made, and prospered for a time. He was going to build the largest Ford dealership in the area. He never comprehended that his customer base wasn’t unlimited, and in fact was steadily shrinking. People whose relatives he bad mouthed (he probably never knew they were related) certainly didn’t promote his business. A few years later he had lost his wife, house, building, and was reportedly living alone over the garage in his remote new location. Then he was gone.

The local dealer was also always available if your scouts needed to raise funds, to sponsor school sports teams, and was happy to participate in community betterment projects. If your kid had a flat riding his bike, he might even have one of his mechanics fix it for free!

So where is this all going?

Donald Trump is the last Local Car Dealer of dying rural America, where farms are being replaced by corporations and farm labor (even illegals) is being replaced by robots and AI – and at an astounding rate, by the way. Rural communities have become bedroom communities for folks whose work and real lives and interests are in the cities, but who don’t want to live there because of the toxic urban environment. These folks are strongly resented by the old timers, not necessarily personally, but due to the radical difference in beliefs and values they carry, and the expensive services, rules, and regulations they demand.

Rural and small town America is aging rapidly. More and more are retiring on fixed incomes. The services city people have come to accept as normal and even as “rights” are carried out by volunteers. Property taxes have already been driven sky high by Medicaid, much more will break the bank. Yet the volunteers are drying up. It is hard to volunteer for much if you are 90, but even the dwindling numbers of young people have to work two or three jobs to get by. When are they available to volunteer?

Continual new expensive new regulations are another source of stress and resentment. Automobiles are absolutely essential for rural and small town life. The cost of transportation keeps going up. New laws like Vermont’s new Motor Vehicle Inspection Law are going to either force locals to drive un-inspected vehicles and risk the fines or to lose their jobs and homes and join the booming ranks of the homeless in the coastal cities. It will, ironically, also cut the desirability of the area as bedroom community by raising costs for commuters, thus cutting property values and tax revenues.

The war between urban and rural areas will be fought on for the next decade or two, but demographics has already decided the end result. That won’t matter in 2020, though. Regardless of his well-known faults and peculiarities, I expect to see the aging remnants of what once was America will be returning to their own Local Car Dealer for one last purchase before the curtain comes down.