What to Know
The TikTok account for The White House is like that ex-girlfriend who makes cryptic Facebook posts in the middle of the night and waits for the reactions and attention to flood in. That’s what it seemed like when the White House put out an ad on TikTok with a video about getting rid of the auto stop button in cars.
According to the post, “auto start-stop is officially dead.” The idea behind the auto start and auto stop button in some cars is to preserve engine use when stopped at a stop sign or red light, thereby lessening the amount of pollution in the air. According to CBS News, though, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that the feature isn’t loved by drivers. So, despite its possible benefits to the environment, the Trump Administration is ready to leave it in its rearview mirror, no pun intended. Alright, then.
Apparently, The White House thinks cars with auto stop are for liberals.
@whitehouse Auto start-stop is officially dead.
♬ Quiet Music – Stacey Barelos
In the video, a Prius is stopped at a red light. Inside, two blue-haired individuals are sweating as, presumably, the air conditioning is off because of the auto stop feature on their car. Then, a stereotypically beautiful blonde woman pulls next to them in a sports car. When the light changes to green she zooms away. The message on the screen, straight from the White House, says, “Leaving auto stop in the dust.”
It’s pretty obvious what the Trump Administration is saying about those who drive low-emissions vehicles versus, supposed red-blooded Americans. Or, to be more accurate, ‘mericans. Why? Because … reasons. That’s all I’ve got, because it’s hard to figure out a logical reason behind Trump and the White House speaking against low emissions vehicles.
The White House will apparently do anything to feed the divide in the country.
When a user by the name of Dr. Rubin shared the video to his page, he added some commentary about what he sees as offensive in the way the left is portrayed in the White House video.
“Let’s pause for a moment to think about what we just saw,” he says in his video. “That came out of the White House using our tax dollars. A commercial trying to say that the auto start stop is officially dead. And they show a stark contrast between two cars, one using it and one not. And you can clearly see the types of stereotypes, body shaming, the misrepresentation of the reality that is there. That is encouraging, essentially, a culture clash, which is totally inappropriate for a federal executive branch of the government to put out something like that.”
He goes on to explain that the auto start and stop feature on cars was meant to help fuel economy in the U.S. But, per Dr. Rubin, “This is all part of a larger scheme for them to roll back regulations significantly in the name of improving the economy. But in the long run, when we are hurting our environment, it’s going to actually really hurt ourselves from a public health standpoint, because when we have more emissions coming out of our cars, more greenhouse gases, more pollutants.
Someone joked under Dr. Rubin’s video, “I had no idea that start/stop was woke.” No, because, same here.
Someone else agreed with Dr. Rubin. “This commercial was obviously not about auto start stop. This was clearly meant to divide and fuel the culture war,” they wrote.
After the White House shared the video, one user commented, “White House makin’ AI vids now.” I don’t think anyone would put it past Trump to use AI for his benefit, and the content of the video does have that AI sheen to it.
But really, most are in agreement that this sudden emphasis on getting rid of the start/stop button in cars that have it isn’t really all that important in the grand scheme of things. But sure, let’s focus on that.
