The new Ford F-250 Super Duty has ‘real Greg Bovino energy,’ smirks Wall Street Journal auto critic Dan Neil
Journalists are the worst. Even the ones who don’t cover politics are often incapable of writing normal sentences without flaunting their sneering disdain for normal Americans. For instance, you might not believe us if we told you the Wall Street Journal‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning auto critic recently compared Americans who enjoy large trucks with gas-powered engines to Hermann Göring, the Nazi commander who founded the Gestapo and whose “martial flamboyance” fueled persistent rumors about his sexuality. But that’s exactly what he did.
The opening paragraphs of Dan Neil’s review of Ford’s gas-powered F-250 Super Duty must be seen to be believed. Even then, it’s absurd enough to make you wonder if an editor messed up by uploading the wrong text. Just a totally normal way to start a truck review:
Indeed, there are many examples of “behavior intended to signal elite social status.” In the modern context, few are more obvious than sneering at pickup trucks and the people who drive them. If your job is to write about cars, it’s certainly the most relevant option. Comparing people you don’t like to Nazis is another classic case. Most people would regard it as obnoxious preening, but such is the cost of asserting one’s moral righteousness.
Neil’s readers weren’t impressed. Commenters slammed the Nazi-themed intro as “snide,” “bizarre,” and “offputting.” They argued it “didn’t contribute anything to the article” beyond demonstrating the author’s “judgmental superiority complex.” Well, yeah, what did you expect? A truck review? These comments, and dozens of others like them, suggest there are still plenty of Americans who don’t know anything about mainstream journalism and the people who practice it.
The rest of the review is at least somewhat related to the truck itself, but it primarily focused on further denigrating the Nazi peacocks who would ever consider driving one. In Neil’s view, the typical F-250 owner is an insecure roofing contractor or some other pampered redneck who wants to make his rivals “jelly” and tow his “pleasure boat” on the weekends. Context: The Ford F-Series is the best-selling vehicle lineup in the United States and has been for nearly half a century.
Alas, driving the F-250 doesn’t make Neil feel “any more superior.” Probably because he is already operating at such a high level of smugness. “The sight of me hopping down from the driver’s seat has real Greg Bovino energy,” he sneers, referencing (for no reason whatsoever) the Border Patrol commander who led the immigration crackdown in Minnesota.
Neil, a graduate of the esteemed creative writing program at East Carolina University, claims to detect a “hint of lavender” in the cabin, which proves that truck owners are secretly gay. If they weren’t, he implies, they would have to compensate with a “gas-guzzling anachronism nicknamed Godzilla.” That’s how he describes the F-250’s old-school V8 engine, which is far more reliable than the “EcoBoost” models designed to meet the rising federal efficiency standards. It’s great for people who care about reliability, but the 14 miles-per-gallon fuel economy is a bummer for anyone who has ever “longed for a powertrain that reflects their values,” as Neil wrote in his recent review of the new Subaru Crosstrek Sport Hybrid.
The fact the F-250 runs on gas is bad enough. In the comments, Journal readers noted Neil’s apparent obsession with electric vehicles and foreign-made luxury cars. “He reviews every vehicle from the mindset of a liberal Connecticut soccer mom,” one wrote. Neil was a huge fan of the F-150 Lightning, Ford’s full-sized electric pickup that debuted in 2022. He said the company’s presentation nearly brought him to tears, and predicted it would soon become the “everyman’s EV.” It did not. Ford recently ceased production of the Lightning in December due to lack of consumer demand—not to mention the fact that the company lost money on every unit sold.
Neil’s worldview isn’t entirely compatible with the liberal wine mom set. His commitment to solving climate change runs even deeper than politics. Whereas the average #Resistance white woman would happily bail their child (or sister) out of jail for vandalizing a Tesla dealership, Neil is not ashamed to own one. In an essay explaining his decision to buy a Tesla Model 3 just before Donald Trump took office in 2025, the journalist said he would do it all again despite the backlash.
“I clearly misjudged the depth of feelings involved—probably because I don’t follow Musk on social media and so remained blissfully unaware of the daily trolling and slagging,” Neil wrote. “My job is to review cars, not assay carmakers’ characters.”
No, of course not. That would be absurd. It’s the drivers who need denouncing.
Read the full article here
