The fight over the ‘Obama switch' shows how Trump weaponizes minor irritations

The water pressure in your shower feels weaker than it used to. Your favorite restaurant hands you a flimsy paper straw. Your car's engine shuts off when you stop at a red light. They're small frustrations, the little changes in how things work that upset your daily routine. But the Trump administration has turned them into rhetorical gold, recasting minor irritations as part of a broader campaign by faceless bureaucrats, virtue-signaling environmentalists and power-hungry Democrats to dictate how Americans live. The latest example came this week, when Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy celebrated the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to end a program that gave automakers credits for installing fuel-saving technologies, including automatic start-stop systems. Duffy called the feature his 'pet peeve.' 'You know the on-off, the stop-start button on your car? I hate that thing,' he told an audience, sounding a little like a stand-up comic setting up a bit about the absurdities of modern cars. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin then gave the complaint a more partisan tinge, calling start-stop technology — first developed in response to the 1970s oil crisis — the 'Obama switch.' He said it makes vehicles 'die' at red lights and stop signs, and claimed it kills car batteries 'without any significant benefit to the environment.' To be clear, stop-start systems use batteries designed to handle repeated restarting. In testing, they improved fuel economy by roughly 7% to 26%, depending on driving conditions, reducing fuel use, emissions and the cost to drivers. The Obama-era program didn't require them, and ending the credit program won't stop automakers from putting them in cars. And Zeldin appears to be the one who decided the technology should be named after former President Barack Obama. But none of that matters. The point of these little fights isn't to win. Low-flow showers, paper straws and stop-start engines are still widely sold. For that matter, so are LED light bulbs, electric cars, induction stoves, heat pumps, low-flow toilets and front-loading washing machines — all of which Trump singled out for criticism at one point. The policy is irrelevant. It's a fight about vibes. In Trump's telling, the older products worked just fine before environmentalists invented problems that do not exist. Democrats prodded bureaucrats to write new rules that would force everyone to buy an inferior replacement to address those nonexistent problems. And now Americans are left to suffer through the consequences every day, until Trump restores the country to the way it used to be. Even in broad strokes, the story does not hold up. Even in broad strokes, the story does not hold up. Much of the technology Trump idealizes was not as good as people remember. Older cars were less safe, less efficient and slower than today's models. Many affordable electric cars offer far better acceleration than conventional gas-powered vehicles, cost less to fuel and maintain, and come with safety features that were once reserved only for luxury cars, if they existed at all.The incandescent bulbs that Trump pined for on the campaign trail might have been cheaper when you bought them, but they wasted most of their energy as heat and tended to burn out quickly. Modern LEDs use dramatically less electricity, last years longer and offer the same warm light that Trump said is more flattering. Energy-efficient appliances are also better in many ways than the ones they replaced. Modern dishwashers use sensors and more efficient jets to clean dishes better. More efficient washing machines use less water and spin out more moisture, cutting the time and energy needed to dry clothes. Newer refrigerators often keep food at a more consistent temperature and run more quietly. There are trade-offs, but they are often not the ones Trump emphasizes. More efficient appliances can cost more upfront or be harder to repair. A lack of charging stations still makes long-distance travel less convenient in an electric car. And paper straws really are flimsy and irritating. But those limits do not turn every newer product into an inferior one — or every efficiency standard into an attack on everyday life. Trump also tends to overstate the government's role. Automakers adopted stop-start systems as a way to meet federal goals to make cars more efficient and reduce emissions. The Obama administration offered a credit for including them, but it didn't require manufacturers to install them or consumers to buy cars with them. The Biden administration directed federal agencies to reduce single-use plastics such as straws, but it didn't order your favorite restaurant to stop using them. But those distinctions are lost on the average voter. Politicians who try to counter his inaccurate claims just end up talking about straws — which makes it look like Trump was right to complain — or ignoring the topic. Sen. Elizabeth Warren famously demonstrated the latter response in 2019 when she flatly dismissed the plastic straws arguments as a 'distraction' from the more important subject of climate change. That may be true, but the real argument was never about engine switches or gas stoves or LED lights. Those were all just ways that Trump and other conservatives signal to voters who don't like how the world is changing that they understand those voters and that they'll fight to turn things back. To counter it, Democrats need to offer an equally compelling argument about how they'll make things better. They can take a cue from Trump and find the small annoyances that their voters dislike. Joe Biden tried this, pointing to the smaller size of Snickers bars and fees tacked onto concert tickets. But he focused too much on the annoyance, failing to connect it to a bigger picture. Your bank is hitting you with excessive overdraft fees? That's what can happen when financial institutions face too little competition and when consumer protections are too weak to stop them. Your lettuce is making you sick? That's what can happen when Republicans weaken inspections meant to catch problems in the food supply. Your phone's cracked screen is too expensive to fix? That's what happens when tech companies unfairly restrict independent repair shops that could fix it affordably. Minor annoyances aren't the reason the country is falling apart. But sometimes they can be a sign of the major problems that are. Ryan Teague Beckwith Ryan Teague Beckwith is a newsletter editor for MS NOW. 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