The summer of joy is long over. After the Democrat Party’s attritional winter of defeats, we are seeing the Left spring into action in the worst possible way.
In just the last few weeks there’s been an explosion of vandalism carried out on Tesla cars. Axios reported on Thursday that the Justice Department and FBI are investigating widespread attacks on Tesla vehicles and dealerships as well as related “swatting incidents.”
“There’s been a spate of such incidents that President [Donald] Trump and other administration officials have denounced as acts of ‘domestic terrorism’ amid #TeslaTakedown protests at the role of Tesla CEO Elon Musk in the DOGE-driven cuts to the federal workforce and agencies,” Axios reported.
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This is a real and growing problem.
A Tesla dealership just outside Portland, Oregon, was targeted with gunfire, Fox News reported. In Salem, Oregon, a man was arrested after throwing Molotov cocktails at another dealership. In Massachusetts, Tesla charging stations were set on fire. The list of incidents goes on and on in states and cities around the country.
This sort of behavior from the Left is nothing new. If you regularly park your car in a city like San Francisco or Portland with a pro-Trump sticker on your bumper—or back in the day a George W. Bush sticker—you are very likely to have your car keyed at some point.
The more serious violence is a part of how the Left operates, too. Remember the Black Lives Matter “mostly peaceful” protests?
They really believe that people who think like themselves are simply the “good guys” and people who oppose them the evil “bad guys.” Any action they take to hurt the bad guys is OK in their book, even if it’s illegal and immoral.
What’s happening to Tesla cars is a manifistation of the “it’s fine to punch Nazis” attitude that now extends to many of their fellow liberals who simply happen to own a Tesla and probably bought one because they wanted to be eco-friendly.
Buying electric cars to save the world from global warming is out, burning electric cars and buying gas-guzzling SUVs to own Musk and Trump is in.
The Left clearly isn’t concerned about consistency.
Beyond the primal scream-type petty vandalisms taking place, there is something more sinister and coordinated happening. Democrat politicians and opinion-makers have been entirely open about the fact that they want Musk and Tesla to fail.
I don’t necessarily begrudge them that. I certainly won’t root for the success of woke corporations that try to push obnoxious and repugnant values on the American people. So, if they want Tesla to fail, that’s their business.
But they’ve taken their dislike of Musk even further. In some cases, they appear to be actively celebrating the violent attacks. What they want, it seems, is for Americans to be afraid to buy a Tesla, to be afraid that their property will be defaced and burned, or that they may be physically attacked. Terrorism, basically.
Here is late-night “comedian” Jimmy Kimmel giving the wink, wink to the idea that Tesla vehicles should be vandalized.
Scott Jennings at CNN had an excellent remark about Kimmel’s “joke.”
Vice President JD Vance had a good response, too.
I guess we can’t all coexist, after all.
What’s happening right now is the Luigi Mangione-fication of politics. Now that the Left is being removed from power in a very real way, they’ve responded to their impotence by reveling in thoughts and acts of violence.
In vanishingly few cases have Democrats said a word to denounce what’s happening. So much for pretending to be the party of “adults in the room.”
It seems unlikely that attacks on Tesla or on Musk’s companies are going to win them much sympathy in the long run. What grand social justice value are they really promoting here? This is supposed to be good because mean old Musk and Trump are removing some federal bureaucrats from power and making the government more efficient?
It’s hard to see that as a winning message.
Democrat Party favorability is astoundingly low and dropping. As the Left turns toward keying and burning cars, Musk’s SpaceX company is sending rockets into space, saving astronauts, and saving taxpayer money.
I’m just going to guess that Americans want to see us blast off into space rather than watch vandals blast car dealerships.
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