Don't go torching Cyber Trucks

 For every overreaction, there is an equal and opposite overreaction. 

That principle is being displayed as we speak in the streets and Tesla dealerships around the country. Your first thought might go to the aesthetics of Tesla Cyber Trucks, but no. The vehicles are ugly and do resemble dumpsters on wheels, but that is no reason to turn them into a dumpster fire. 

Screenshot of a Grok-generated image of burning Tesla Cyber Truck from the platform formerly known as Twitter

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The problem is actually Elon Musk’s increasing involvement in politics. The billionaire’s role in unconstitutionally taking a metaphorical chainsaw to government agencies has provoked a totally predictable backlash. That backlash is often taking the form of vandalism of Tesla electric vehicles. 

It isn’t just recently that Tesla EVs have started catching fire. There have been at least a few hundred reported instances of Teslas catching fire over the past decade or so. It is, however, a recent phenomenon that the fires are intentional. It seems that one of the newest forms of protest is to torch a Tesla. I haven’t seen a tally of attacks, but the problem is so severe that the FBI has issued a warning to Tesla owners. 

The attacks have occurred against both individual Teslas and dealerships. In one case, 80 Teslas were damaged in a single incident at a Tesla service center in [wait for it] Canada. Despite the widespread wave of vandalism, law enforcement officials say that the attacks seem to be the work of individuals rather than an organized conspiracy. 

I’m going to say this right now: Vandalizing and burning Teslas is wrong. It is also counterproductive. 

Let’s think about this. First, Tesla owners are not necessarily MAGA supporters. In the days before Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, a Tesla owner was probably more likely to be a Democrat than a Republican. It has only been recently that MAGA has adopted Tesla and that is largely because Donald Trump and officials in his Administration have issued calls to buy both Tesla cars and stock. 

A lot of Tesla owners aren’t political. They just wanted a neat, trendy EV. I have a friend who drives a Tesla. He’s definitely not a Trump supporter and I’m pretty sure he considers himself a Democrat. He bought his Tesla a few years ago because of the price incentives (including government subsidies) and his love of new technology. 

Prospective Tesla vandals should ask themselves how Tesla owners are likely to react to vandalism of their autos. Would having your car destroyed make you more likely to oppose Trump or to support him on the grounds that the left is out of control? It’s the pro-Hamas protests all over again. 

Political violence from the anti-Trump factions plays directly into Trump’s hands. Trump wants to be able to point to opposition extremism to claim that his opponents are radicals who must be stopped. The Administration is reportedly already considering whether to invoke the Insurrection Act, and I am certain that Trump would love to have an excuse to crack down on political opponents. Democrats should not give him that excuse. 

Ignoring the political implications, vandalism is just wrong as well as illegal. Torching or keying someone’s private auto is just as wrong as, say, scaling the walls of the Capitol building and attacking Congress. Respect laws and respect the property of others. 

The Golden Rule, treat others as you want to be treated, is operative here as well as the political reality that the scariest and most threatening political factions normally lose. (And yes, even though MAGA was scary, the Democrats were scarier to many voters on the last Election Day.)

Aside from the fact that political violence is wrong, Musk and Trump should be opposed but peacefully and lawfully. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is building a losing record in court for its haphazard and often unlawful cuts to government agencies. The cuts affect real people’s lives, both in terms of laid-off workers and interrupted government services. 

Trump-Musk rhetoric is often intended to offend. Celebrating layoffs by waving a chainsaw (something I’m certain Musk has only ever used as a prop) and threatening to annex Canada are calculated to fire up the base and provoke anger among the opposition. It’s no surprise when such statements and actions spark a backlash because, as I said before, it’s what they want. 

And the far left isn’t alone in its penchant for political violence. The protests at Tesla dealerships around the country have inspired at least one act of violence in response. 

The Daily Beast reports a “Trump-supporting Florida man” drove his gasoline-powered SUV into a crowd of about 150 people peacefully protesting at a Tesla dealership in Palm Beach. No one was injured but the driver was charged with aggravated assault. Do we have to once again remind the “pro-life” party that assault and attempted murder are even more wrong than property crimes?

And that’s probably the worst problem with the Tesla vandalism. It ratchets up tensions and will in turn provoke more political violence. Between the extremists on both sides and neither side admitting that the radicals in their midst are part of the problem, violence is likely to become more widespread and dangerous. At some point, it could easily spiral out of control. 

As I’ve said in the past, Trump, Musk, and MAGA are not conservative. They represent a radical fringe of the right wing (although a large fringe that dominates the GOP at this point). Trump’s policies are doomed to fail because they don’t really make sense and won’t work in real life. 

A case in point is putting novices in charge of national security who then promptly include a journalist as they plan military attacks via a group chat… a group chat that did not include the president btw. Honestly, that sentence just got worse and more unbelievable as it went on. That’s going to be a microcosm of the Trump-47 Administration. 

The best argument against Trump and MAGA in 2026 and 2028 is going to be their extremely poor record on the economy, foreign policy, and basic governance. In the meantime, there is going to be a lot of pain and angst, but the voters sent MAGA to Washington with control of the White House and both houses of Congress. That is what it is, and we’re going to have to deal with it until the next elections. 

The next elections should be what the Democrats focus on. And focusing on the next elections means becoming the sane, safe alternative, something they didn’t manage in 2024 for a variety of reasons (but I’m mostly looking a Joe Biden, the aggressive pro-Palestine protesters, and a viral political ad about prison sex changes). It’s tough to be sane and non-threatening when your partisans are burning random private autos all over the country. 

In closing, I’d just like to encourage everyone to reread the title of this piece to the tune of TLC’s “Waterfalls.”

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TESLA TARIFFS: The stock market has largely been dependent on tariff news lately. As I write this on Monday, the market is surging amid news of a scaled-back tariff plan for Liberation Day (as a side note, it’s positively Orwellian to equate a tax increase with liberation). One reason for the change may be that Musk’s Tesla has warned that it may be exposed to retaliatory tariffs from Trump’s trade war. 

Despite the current respite, Trump has said that he plans to add auto and pharmaceutical tariffs to the list of trade tax increases in the near future. 

TESLA REVIEW: I don’t own an EV, but a few years ago, I rented a Tesla for a week. Here is my experience: 

How to rent a car and not pay for gas

DAVID THORNTON

·

NOVEMBER 4, 2023

I’m a truck guy, but I admit to being electric-vehicle curious. So it was that when I had to go to Dallas for a week of training recently that I decided to rent a Tesla and see how the other half lived. After all, I reasoned, the price of a Tesla rental was almost the same as an equivalent gas burner, and I’d probably save my company money in the long r…

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From the Racket News

A dark age

 Let’s look back at world history for a moment. If you reach back to your high school or college history class, you may remember the term, “The Dark Ages.”

Reaching back further, you may recall that the Dark Ages were a period of time lasting about a thousand years (from roughly the 5th to the 15th centuries) when life was especially bleak. They were characterized by an economic downturn in which trade declined and barbarian tribes invaded the “civilized” parts of Europe. There was also a prevalence of disease, such as the infamous Black Death, often caused or exacerbated by poor sanitation and nutrition, and a decline in intellectual thought.

Dystopian cityscape created by ChatGPT

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The Dark Ages crossed my mind recently (although I’m apparently supposed to be thinking about ancient Rome) as I watched the second Trump Administration swing into high gear. You may wonder what the connection is, and it’s tenuous at this point, but what if we are witnessing the beginning of another dark age?

We have come to take peace and prosperity for granted. Sure, we’ve had the War on Terror and other low-intensity conflicts in recent decades, but it has been about 75 years since America and the world experienced a major war. World War II was a singularly unique conflict in world history, but it wasn’t the first time (or even the second) that much of the world had been embroiled in a large and lengthy fight. To cite just a couple of examples, we usually think of the American Revolution as a war between the colonies and the British with France in a supporting role, but the truth is that the Revolution was a global war that involved most of Europe’s major powers. The Napoleonic wars a few decades later, didn’t involve the United States but included almost everyone else.

We might stop to ponder why we’ve had such a long era of peace in the wake of World War II. The answer is in the name of the period: “the Pax Americana.”

The world owes its current golden age to both hard and soft American power. America became the world’s policeman, and like many policemen, we were both resented and appreciated depending on which side of each individual international mugging you happen to be on. Policemen aren’t always liked and you don’t always want them around, but when you’re in trouble, you’re glad to see them. And like the presence of other policemen, without America at the forefront of world affairs, life over the last half-century would have been, as Thomas Hobbs famously put it, “nasty, brutish, and short.”

Enter Donald Trump and MAGA. The former and current president’s rhetoric has tapped into American fatigue with the War on Terror and concern about government spending and “foreign entanglements.” Trump has taken action to back up his rhetoric.

It may or may not be intentional, but in Donald Trump’s policies, I see frightening parallels to many of the worst aspects of the Dark Ages. First, let’s look back at why the Dark Ages occurred in the first place.

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Generally, the Dark Ages are considered to have begun following the fall of the Roman Empire. (I guess maybe I was thinking of Rome after all.) Like America, Rome was a stabilizing influence on the world. Rome’s control, while often brutal and self-serving, did prevent large-scale conflicts for several hundred years. Also like America, Rome is the namesake of the period of peace known as the Pax Romana.

Rome fell after a period of decline and the rise of authoritarian caesars. There is much speculation and discussion about whether Donald Trump intends to cross the Rubicon and become an American caesar, but regardless of his plans along those lines, his policy is to effectively remove America from world leadership. Trump is the most isolationist major political figure since before World War II and if America, the only viable democratic superpower, is not the leader of the free world, the Pax Americana will end, not only in name, but in the absence of peace.

There are wars going on right now, the Russo-Ukraine War is the foremost example, but aggressive nations have been contained both by Western support for the defenders and the very real possibility that America and NATO could intervene directly. Mutual Assured Destruction has helped maintain a fragile peace. Donald Trump threatens that status quo on two fronts.

First, Trump wants to cut off American aid to Ukraine. Second, Trump is threatening the integrity of NATO, the world’s most successful military alliance, first by considering a direct withdrawal and second, by fomenting infighting among its members. The Trump Administration has done this both by threatening to annex the territory of fellow NATO members Denmark and Canada as well as by attacking the internal affairs of NATO countries and implying that it will not honor the mutual defense clause.

Fracturing NATO may not only enable Vladimir Putin to successfully complete his conquest of a democratic neighbor, it will also embolden China to move on Taiwan. If the US is unwilling to fulfill its commitment to NATO and Ukraine, why should China believe that Trump would defend a lonely island in the western Pacific?

It isn’t just the rise of barbarian states like Putin’s Russia that makes me concerned about a looming dark age. Another obvious parallel is Trump’s disruption of international trade through tariffs. International trade has raised standards of living around the world by increasing access to goods and services that would otherwise be unavailable or unaffordable. Trade also frees up time by allowing specialized producers to provide these goods and services more efficiently. As trade falters, economies will shrink and standards of living will decline.

Trump’s anti-trade policies have already begun impacting markets. Prices are rising for some products. Ironically, this includes MAGA gear and clothing, much of which is manufactured in China. Appliances and lumber are two other areas where prices have already started to rise.

The upcoming economic decline is also reflected in the stock market, which while not in a total freefall, is experiencing a sharp decline. Major indexes like the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 have fully erased their post-election “Trump bumps” and are continuing the slide on an almost daily basis. The upcoming recession will be unique in American history as a downturn that is attributable to one man’s hubris and misguided ideas.

In a parallel to Dark Age diseases, the Trump Administration has launched attacks on healthcare and science as well. The probably-unconstitutional DOGE cuts have resulted in the dismissal of scientists across the federal government. These include researchers at NASA, NOAA, the National Institutes of Health, and a myriad of other prominent agencies that include defense researchers.

Part of the United States’ preeminence in the world has been based on our scientific leadership. That status is threatened by the massive layoffs and cuts that affect our ability to do everything from maintaining our edge in advanced weaponry to predicting the weather to seeking cures for disease. As a survivor of prostate cancer, I want the government to help find a cure for that disease and others. If you or a loved one has suffered from diseases such as cancer or Alzheimer’s, cures and treatments are tantalizingly close, but firing mass numbers of researchers will waste time and cost lives. Medical research is costly but cures for deadly diseases would be money well spent.

And then there is RFKJR, our regnant Secretary of Health and Human Services who is working to undermine proven medical technology like vaccines. Kennedy is a fount of medical misinformation that includes skepticism of the measles vaccine, a tried and true vaccine that has been available since 1963. It is no accident that measles, once eradicated in the US, is seeing a resurgence after the recent spike in anti-vax sentiment.

Many of us don’t realize just how much the world depends on America. Our foreign aid budget, often in partnership with religious organizations, was about one percent of federal spending yet the world got a lot of bang for our bucks. Food aid provided both markets for American farm products and sustenance for impoverished people in what Trump might call “shithole” countries. American medical support helped to prevent and treat diseases in poor nations and saved countless lives. One of the most underrated and successful aid programs is George W. Bush’s PEPFAR program to combat AIDS, which has been doing more with less for more than a decade.

A Muskian accountant might argue that pennies can be saved because if more people die from lack of medical care then less food aid is required, but the truth is that America benefits from world health and stability. Healthy and prosperous countries make good trading partners for American producers (at least they did before Trump’s tariff wars), and less disease elsewhere means fewer diseases to infect Americans, a particularly important point with an anti-medical science Administration in power.

In the Dark Ages, there was no dominant world power to impose order. That won’t be true in a new dark age. The vacuum that MAGA policies leave will be filled by someone else, probably China, although there may be a series of wars to determine who becomes the new top dog.

The one thing that I can say for sure is that whoever fills the America-shaped hole in world affairs won’t be as benevolent as we were. China may fill some of the gaps in food and medical aid to poor countries, but it will be at a cost. And the cost won’t be liberalization and the advancement of personal freedoms. China is an expansionist power rather than a capitalistic one. A Chinese hegemony would more closely resemble the Roman Empire than the American trade network.

Hopefully, we won’t enter a new dark age. The MAGA policies may not take root and voters and Congress may be able to reverse Trump’s wrongheaded actions before too much damage is done. There is no counterargument to Trump and MAGA like watching the destruction of the federal government with your own eyes and experiencing the destruction of the economy with your own wallet (to say nothing of watching your wife get deported). Nevertheless, the parallels between Trump policies and the Dark Ages are more than a little unsettling.

The great Ronald Reagan once told Americans, “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

But when Reagan referenced a new dark age, he had no idea that it would be his own party that would abandon its tried-and-true principles for isolationism and economic decline.

As an aside, I also want to note that readers of the Bible may recognize the trio of war, economic collapse, and death from famine and disease from Revelation chapter 6. Do with that information what you will. I’m not making any claims, just noting another parallel.

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TRUMP AXES UKRAINE CHILD KIDNAPPING PROBE: There are numerous reports that the Trump Administration has quietly killed a program investigating and tracking mass abductions of Ukrainian children by Russia. Reportedly the database of information on 30,000 missing children was permanently deleted. All I can say is that I can find no good reason to kill this program, but doing so seems to be pure evil.

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“BANANA REPUBLICANS”: It recently came to my attention that The Dispatch titled a post “Banana Republicans.” I just want to point out that I’ve been using the term for a while although I can’t be certain that I coined it. Here is one such example in a tweet from January 6, 2021.

From the Racket News