Reporting on live auto news, one grows accustomed to noting how blurred lines can arise when a subject transcends the automotive industry to exist in other areas of interest.
In recent months, you’d have to have been living under a rock to not have heard about the caravan of several thousand Central American migrants who were making their way to the United States border by way of Mexico. The group, which is reported to consist of approximately four-thousand individuals seeking asylum challenged both policies and ideologies placing the two in radical conflict and delivering another divisive blow to American unification. Some claim no difference between the members of the caravan and the immigrant families of the 19th century who simply sought to make better lives for themselves and their families. But those opposed to accepting the applications for legal asylum cite limited resources and the surplus of refugee families welcomed in over the last fiscal year as simple logic.
But recently re-elected two-term Democratic Senator Jon Tester of Montana, feels that the real threat might be hiding in plain sight. “All we keep hearing is ‘caravan-THIS’ and ‘caravan-THAT’,” insists the Senator, stating that, “and the American people seem confused about how they should feel. If they open their arms to the caravan, they’re labeled as short-sighted bleeding hearts. If they feel guarded, or protective of resources they’re branded as hate-mongers. And it’s that two-way accusatory relationship that reveals that a large number of Americans are less concerned with the facts than they are with negating those with a differing opinion.”
And yet, societal rifts aren’t the threat Tester is concerned about, because Senator Jon Tester seems to be a little bit hazy on the facts himself. “What the American people need to be concerned about are the major ramifications that will be felt by our economy, especially the automotive industry, if we allow 4,000 Dodge Grand Caravans to cross the border and saturate our roadways!”
While one might have expected some more-enlightened fellow Dems to adjust his understanding of the topic at hand, it would appear that they were just too busy tweeting and glad-handing one another to take care of one of their own. As a result, the Democratic Senator found himself unintentionally aligned with one of his strongest opponents, President Trump, who would soon deploy 5600 active-duty troops to the Mexican border to protect it from the migrant Caravan.
Understandably, this sent Tester into a tailspin demanding that “the cost of sending 5600 troops was an unnecessary expense! Not every one of the 4,000+ minivans needs its own driver. In fact, we could enlist car carriers to minimize the number of total drivers needed, and reduce fuel consumption.”
According to a recent interview, it appears that Senator Tester didn’t understand that the word ‘caravan’ meant a large number of people traveling together towards a common destination. Apparently, his wife had a 1989 Dodge Caravan, and he simply wasn’t a big fan of it. And it was during a campaign season social event where the Montana Senator met (yet-to-be-elected) New York State Representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Eyewitnesses report that the two enjoyed a side-conversation where they discussed certain topics of political importance, albeit ones that they didn’t wholly understand, in a judgment-free zone of their own creation.
Unable to understand why so many people were opposed to Mexican minivans, Ocasio-Cortez offered to look up the Dodge Grand Caravan on her iPhone. According to fellow party-goers, 62-year old Tester (who has been married since 1978) then asked Ocasio-Cortez about her friend Siri, inquiring as to her ‘status’.
And just as the events related to the migrant Caravan remain to be seen, the future of the Dodge Caravan does as well. In fact, it’s highly rumored that it will be discontinued after the 2019 model year. Which, according to Tester, is “exactly what the Mexicans are probably banking on.”
