Don’t Go Torching Cyber Trucks

Screengrab from Fox13 Seattle

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.

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.”