The haters are missing the unintended negative consequences to their own cause.
Ever since billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk aligned himself with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, the left has waged war on Musk’s various business interests, reviving the cancel culture mentality that has had questionable success in the past. First, they moved away from the X social media platform, which, ironically, was a way of inadvertently cancelling themselves. Now, they have turned their attention to Tesla – and that has revealed not just more irony, but fundamental flaws in their logic, hurting their own side to virtue-signal against Musk and, by extension, President Trump.
In deep-blue cities like New York and Chicago, police are having to protect Tesla dealerships against left-wing activists now engaged in a campaign of vandalism targeting these dealerships and even privately owned Tesla vehicles.
On social media, these activist, and sometimes bystanders, are posting videos of spray-painted or otherwise damaged Teslas. A few are even issuing threats against Tesla owners, warning them to sell their vehicles. The effects are certainly being felt. Tesla stock is down more than 41% just since the beginning of the year.
A Price to Pay for Killing Tesla
What of the consequences, though? It’s turning out to be a classic case of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. The political left appears to have at least temporarily abandoned one of its favorite causes. It is fair to say that, on the left – few reject the belief in anthropomorphic climate change. Progressives have insisted for years that human activity is killing the planet by wreaking havoc on Earth’s climate. They assert that the panacea for this is to end our reliance on fossil fuels – largely, by abandoning the combustion engine and switching to all-electric vehicles.
Curious, then, that these same people are now determined to destroy the world’s most successful all-EV manufacturer.
Tesla owners are in a bind. Since the whole concept of man-caused climate destruction is overwhelmingly adhered to on the left – with fewer on the political right being sold on the concept– a large number of Tesla owners almost certainly vote Democrat. They now find themselves attacked, vilified, and even threatened by their own side.
What are these folks supposed to do? If this war on Tesla intensifies, auto dealerships are not going to want to take pre-owned Teslas as trade-ins. They may be fearful that they could be targeted if they have Teslas on the lot. Or perhaps they’ll worry they will not be able to resell them.
So, when Mr. or Mrs. Tesla driver pulls in, looking to trade out of their “swasticar,” as leftists are now calling Teslas, the dealership is going to offer them rock-bottom dollar.
Electric vehicles are expensive to buy and maintain. Given that reality, and perhaps finding themselves hopelessly “under water” – still owing a considerable amount on a vehicle the dealership wants to give them very little for – it may well be that, to get rid of their Teslas, these folks will trade back into gas-powered vehicles.
Then there’s the Tesla share price issue. Again, it is reasonable to assume that climate voters have probably been the most likely to invest in “green energy” enterprises – such as EV manufacturers. How many Democrat investors are currently holding large amounts of Tesla stock? How many are agonizing over their 401ks? The plummeting stock price indicates they are selling, but they have been forced to abandon a very sound and lucrative investment. In the early months of 2020, Tesla was trading at less than $50 a share. In November of 2024, the share price reached a high of $431.66. As of this writing, Tesla shares a worth a little over $222.
That’s a lot of wealth destroyed – and not just Elon Musk’s wealth, but probably the investments and retirement funds of a lot of Democrat voters.
Bringing down Tesla may provide a great deal of self-righteous satisfaction to the elites of the progressive movement, but it would amount to a pyrrhic victory, of sorts. It would be little more than a campaign of pure spite. But it deals a huge setback to the universal switch to electric cars and financially batters the leftist who eagerly threw their savings into Tesla back when the left adored Elon Musk. Meanwhile, Musk will still be fabulously wealthy, and he’ll still be exposing the staggering waste, fraud and abuse the people orchestrating the war on Tesla sem so reluctant to expose.
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