Arlington, VA—The DC Maryland and Virginia community refuses to stop their weekly stands outside Elon Musk’s Tesla Electric Vehicle Company showrooms. Their efforts to cast the car company in an unfavorable light has succeeded far beyond their initial hopes in February when handfuls of them first stood in cold weather with their hand made signs and their will.
Their boycott lines have catapulted from social media and into the mainstream media talkshows. They have affected Tesla sales, damaged its stock value, by spreading their boycott message across the country. Their boycott message has also spread internationally to the European Union and to Australia.
They showed up again on Saturday and Sunday this weekend for the “sweet sixteenth” week. One man brought his dog, they affectionately named Chester, who is in his sixth week of coming to the Tesla Takedowns. He gets plenty of pets and has assumed his place as a mainstay. Another person who barely escaped an oppressive regime with their parents has brought their son, an early 20-something youth just out of college and exposed to resistance for the first time. Someone brought their child to the boycott line. Others bring food, water, snacks and sign-making materials. Another has brought protest buttons they made to distribute to passing motorists. Someone else brought flyers to encourage others to join the boycott line.
They are driven in part by escalating incidents of harassment from the regime and its acolytes against resisters. Judges, law firms, universities, Federal agencies and the leadership, and institutions that have stood up against Trump have become targets of retribution. This has destabilized democratic institutions hut has also fueled the resistance of the boycott lines to continue their repeated Tesla showroom protests.
They are also compelled by a sense of justice and compassion for others who are suffering from the abuse of power by this regime. The Trump regime wants to break institutions by force, demoralize the vulnerable by abusing them, and instill fear by creating chaos where the rule of law previously guided social order. The Tesla Takedowns are much more than anything else about ordinary citizens with no other connection other than their humanity, fighting for a just society. So they show up with zeal, find humor and express bonafide joy, and encourage others to keep going.
Three political scientists wrote in a New York Times op ed that the US had “Crossed the line into competitive authoritarianism.” But to the boycott lines the evidence of an inexorable march to full-blown fascist state was plainly visible months ago. It’s just that the mainstream media cannot acknowledge it or refuses to waken to this fact.
The odd collection of ordinary citizens come from most every walk of life—Boomers, Millennials, X-Gens, and Zoomers have all shown up—and here and there members of the late Silent generation have joined the boycott lines. Because they remember life in the world when Hitler lived and nearly brought the world destruction to Europe, The Middle East, and Asia.
Tesla Takedowns offer them a few hours to share their thoughts and vent about what is happening to their government and communities. They look forward to seeing each other and sharing ideas about what to do next. They network about other grassroots groups taking actions elsewhere. Some of these groups represent organic community resistance just like the Tesla Takedowns. Some of them have come to the afternoon Tesla Takedown at Arlington after first having gone to another action elsewhere earlier it the day. And it takes a toll on them physically and emotionally. They feel they have no choice but to keep fighting because there’s so much at stake. To quit now means to accept defeat.
All around the country there are similar actions taking place led by citizens just like them. They see the posts, photos, and videos on social media. It also fuels their fire to keep going. Locally there are other groups doing much of what they are doing, just in different ways. It drives them like a locomotive.
There’s a group linking up during rush hour to hang banners and signs from bridges with messages the passing drivers understand. “No Kings,” is hung from I-395, “Moms Say Save Medicaid And Snap,” hangs over Route 50, “Honk,” reads yet another. They are composed of giant interchangeable block lettered signs strung together like giant billboard signs and held in place by bungee cords. And they play their part in some way—even if the only act of resistance that the passing motorists do that week is to honk at a sign in approval. Seeing others taking a stand is something they’re going to remember later in the week and perhaps they’ll join in to hang signs from the bridges. The organizers say this is how their numbers have grown by hundreds since February.
Another group stands in for Drag Queen Story Hour to provide a citizen-led neighborhood watch against trouble from religious extremists and Proud Boy groups that have previously harassed the Drag Queens and families who were attending the readings. These groups also meet weekly.
Yet another group has been protesting outside the El Salvador Embassy in downtown Washington DC over that country’s illegal incarceration of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Abrego is a green card holder, married to an American citizen, and in the process of gaining his US citizenship. Yet he was still disappeared by ICE without due process, flown to El Salvador, and locked up in dungeon conditions at CECOT, a notorious concentration camp.
A group is gathering at the court house in Maryland protesting against the arrest of migrants without given due process, held indefinitely without habeas corpus, as constitutionally required. And these are not one off cases—there are many of these cases winding through the courts, perhaps 1000s, no one knows for sure because ICE is not releasing information about where they are or who they are.. There have also been several children born in the U.S. to migrants and by constitutional authority ought to and should be deemed American citizens, yet they have been arrested by ICE too.
So these issues compel the weekend Tesla Takedowns and the other weekly actions to continue because there are so many issues created by this regime. And the issues are getting more blatant as the regime gets more desperate with its diminishing support percentages based on polling.
The Tesla Takedowns serve as a way for the citizens to find stable ground and organize themselves to ready for worsening conditions likely to come as the regime continues its assault on what is left of individual rights and democratic institutions.
But much more importantly, the boycott lines are being acknowledged as having a devastating effect on the bromance between two of the world’s most famous narcissists, Trump and Musk.
According to Sherrilyn Iffyl, a civil rights attorney, writing in her substack blog, “the bromance” between Trump and Musk, “is over.” She further writes that their “rift was caused, it appears, by some combination of Elon’s arrogance…Trump’s recognition that Elon’s unpopularity was potentially dragging down his poll numbers…[and] the press questioning whether Elon was serving in fact as a shadow president – an affront to Trump’s massive ego.”
Iffyl notes in particular that the Tesla Takedowns have taken hold and fanned the flames of regret among jTrump and his cabinet that Musk was welcomed as an integral part.
“Most of all the #TeslaTakedown protests were particularly effective. Trump likes a winner and the death of Tesla as a marquee brand as a result of these wide-ranging protests made Elon toxic for Trump. Springing up organically in communities throughout the country, these overwhelmingly non-violent protests outside Tesla dealerships were populated by midwestern grandmas, middle-aged men and women on the coasts, college students, Gen Zs, and suburban Moms and Dads across the country. Even more powerfully, the protests took on an international dimension, with Tesla Takedown protests extending to Europe and Australia.
“The protests have been so far reaching and sustained that Musk’s ego would not allow him to believe that people can hate him that much. His insistence that protesters must have been paid to participate in demonstrations is a testament to the cluelessness of a man who would think it was hilarious to brandish a chainsaw while giggling manically in glee at how effectively he has slashed and burned the jobs that form the livelihood for of the American workforce. Yes, Elon, people who need their jobs to survive, who want medicine, believe in science, support equal rights and justice, and most of all want to believe that when they are too old or ill to work, their country will not consign them to destitution and homelessness with no health care, really do hate you that much,” she wrote.
Tesla protesters often joke among themselves about whether or not anyone has received their weekly Soros checks but so far no one has come forward with one. They joke that they still hold out hope for their compensation. The reality is that there will never be remuneration.
Someone has to pay for the gas and the supplies, the wear and tear on the cars getting them from point to point. It’s costs are out of pocket for everyone involved. There’s no funding and no funds to draw from. Nothing is free. And time on the line means other life priorities get pushed aside. Its the price they willingly pay for a chance to hasten this regime’s downfall to the dustbin of history.
