{"id":130344,"date":"2025-03-13T08:53:38","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T08:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/legal\/protest-tesla-all-you-want-but-stay-outside\/"},"modified":"2025-03-13T08:53:38","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T08:53:38","slug":"protest-tesla-all-you-want-but-stay-outside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=130344","title":{"rendered":"Protest Tesla All You Want (But Stay Outside)"},"content":{"rendered":"


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I\u2019ve never had any desire to buy a Tesla save for the time I went to a dealership in California more than a decade ago and saw the original Tesla roadster. It was a very cool car, unlike the current crop that gives K-cars a run for their money on sexy appearance. But that made me an outlier on Long Island, where the streets are littered with Teslas owned by liberal Democrats who thought they were helping the environment by driving an EV. I bet they feel conflicted now.<\/p>\n

Then there are the new owners of the Tesla monster truck, enough of which have been purchased that it\u2019s no longer an oddity to see one on the road. My first impression was that they were peculiar, yet unattractive. Unlike the sedans, they were purchased by a different cohort that found them peculiarity attractive. Then again, there were people who bought the Pontiac Aztek, although not too many of them.<\/p>\n

Given Elon Musk\u2019s involvement in the Trump administration\u2019s mindless evisceration of the federal bureaucracy, it\u2019s entirely understandable that people are angry with Musk and want to take it out on his pocketbook by protesting at Tesla dealerships. Indeed, tainting Teslas with Musk\u2019s indiscriminate damage seems too obvious for words. Contrary to Lara Trump\u2019s admonition, there are a great many people disinclined to \u201ckiss Musk\u2019s feet.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

But protesting against Musk at Tesla dealerships is one thing. Breaking into dealerships or vandalizing Tesla vehicles and charging stations is quite another.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Tesla<\/a>\u00a0vehicles, dealerships and charging stations have been vandalized, suffered arson attacks and faced protests since the company\u2019s CEO Elon Musk began his work with the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, leading to mass layoffs of federal workers, authorities said.<\/p>\n

The latest suspicious incident occurred overnight in Dedham, Massachusetts, where three Teslas were vandalized, according to the Dedham Police Department. Officials said \u201cwords had been spray-painted\u201d on two Tesla Cyber-trucks, with all four tires of the trucks and a Tesla Model S being \u201creportedly damaged.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There are few ways in which activists could generate sympathy, either for Musk or for the poor schmucks who bought Tesla vehicle. This is one of them. If the point of the protests is to hit Musk in the pocketbook, then getting people to choose not to buy Teslas would prove an effective method of making a point. But vandalizing Teslas already purchased merely harms the people who bought them, most of whom did so having no intention of showing support for Musk\u2019s oxymoronic DOGE. If anything, these people were likely the opposite, the sort of decent folks with a real concern for climate change and the environment. Why hurt them?<\/p>\n

And now that they already spent a great deal of money to buy their Teslas, they have to charge them or they\u2019re bricks. Damaging charging stations only makes their lives more difficult and miserable. They\u2019re not your enemies, unless you make them your enemies.<\/p>\n

Of course, with another $100 million cash infusion<\/a> into the Trump war chest, the president thought it a swell idea to pretend he was buying a Tesla (as if that would help) using the White House as a backdrop for his television commercial. And it presented Trump with an opportunity to go hyperbolic about the activists.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey\u2019re harming a great American company,\u201d Trump said at the White House, referring to the demonstrators, alongside Musk who was wearing a black \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d baseball cap. Nearby, a number of Tesla vehicles were lined up on the driveway between the mansion and the south lawn.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me tell you, you do it to Tesla, and you do it to any company, we\u2019re going to catch you, and \u2026 you\u2019re going to go through hell.\u201d<\/p>\n

White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said \u201congoing and heinous acts of violence against Tesla by radical Leftist activists are nothing short of domestic terror.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s unclear what is accomplished by characterizing the vandals as domestic terrorists, other than to have an excuse to take extreme actions to protect Musk and impose extreme punishment on any vandal caught. But what it does accomplish is evoke sympathy for Musk for conduct that few will find justifiable and most will find condemnable. Sure, hate Musk for what he\u2019s doing and let potential Tesla buyers know, assuming they don\u2019t already know, that they are supporting the guy who financed Trump\u2019s re-election and has been given free rein to wreak havoc with the federal government. But don\u2019t make him a victim of criminal conduct. Don\u2019t turn the villain into the victim because you have no more self control than Musk or Trump.<\/p>\n

Protests, from marching and chanting to putting flyers on Teslas calling them \u201cSwasticars\u201d is fully protected First Amendment speech, and the Trump\/Musk dog and pony show at the White House isn\u2019t going to change that. But vandalizing cars and charging stations, and damage dealerships, will accomplish the one thing neither Musk nor Trump could pull off on their own: Make Musk a sympathetic figure. Don\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n