Arlington, VA—-On World Pride Day the Tesla Takedown boycott line spun resistance twirling rainbow parasols, wearing rainbow lei necklaces, and dancing to a resistance line-up of music over two synchronized speakers. If not for the commitment of the core team of rotating organizers and the continued zeal of the line, it’s likely the most successful corporate brand takedown in terms of diminished Tesla stock value and brand damage, would have fizzled out months ago. But it lives because the organizers and citizens persist.
The Pride theme was promised and delivered in lively color—as members of DC’s own grassroots collective Rainbow Defense Coalition joined forces with grassroots organizers of Third Act to bring the boycott back to Tesla on South Glebe Road for its 18th consecutive weekend. And the boycott line is not close to getting monotonous as evidenced in the weekly video report below.
A member of Rainbow Defense Coalition dressed up as ‘Rainbow Spartacus’ with a giant “Honk” sign over their head to draw in the passing motorists. And honk they did. The noise was at times deafening. For those who opened car windows, several passed out some of Bob’s coveted hand-made protest buttons and urged them to join the fight against an elected party gone rogue-fascist all over democracy. Some drivers promised to join the Tesla Takedown next week.
The Tesla Takedown in Arlington has the strategic advantage of a nearby traffic light periodically stopping motorists and giving the line an opportunity to do community outreach about why they are there. Many drivers already understand and pass by with a thumbs up blowing their horns. Their 10-second horn blows may be the only act of resistance they commit to in this country’s period of peril. But there are still drivers who have yet to understand what is at stake. So the brief reaching out provides an opportunity to inform them with short message flyers and resistance buttons.
The Tesla Takedown boycott line danced in the heat decked out in rainbow radiance under a billowing white-cloud sky in a party-like atmosphere but it was no time to celebrate. The heat was almost overwhelming and the tensions across the country are leading to a moment of truth about when and where citizens will confront the State directly. Also the George Soros checks didn’t come in the mail; at least that’s what everyone there reported.
Tesla Takedowns Fueled by Continued National Events which Energize Resistance
All over the country realization set in that the country crossed the Rubicon into fascism as the ICE round ups went into high gear, disappearing thousands without due process, and taking them to undisclosed locations. Citizens in LA, NYC and Minneapolis, began confronting ICE and local police. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the California Army National Guard to active duty. But such orders usually take days to carry out. Hegseth also threatened to deploy the Marines stationed at Camp Pendleton to LA streets, to which California Governor Gavin Newsome responded, “This is deranged behavior.”
Federalizing Army National Guard Troops without coordination with the States’ Governors, the highest ranking person authorized in the State to carry out such an act, is one thing, but placing active duty Marines on the streets to confront citizens exercising First Amendment rights is in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act,an 1897 law limiting the Federal Government’s authority to use Federal troops to enforce domestic laws and statutes.
ICE Roundups Across Country Trigger Protests And Cascade To Tesla Takedowns
If there remained any doubt that a functioning democracy had already died here then anyone still doubting it had missed their 10th grade high school history class covering this part of history and the historic context of the ICE raids now ongoing in their communities.
Anne Frank wrote in her diary on January 13, 1943, as she observed from her window from the attic above the street, issuing a warning to the future, “Terrible things are happening. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men. women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.” The date may as well have been June 7, 2025.
The ICE arrests and disappearances of 1000s every week are a trigger to escalating street confrontations and are building towards something more likely than not that will spark more serious unrest. The current confrontations are driving the Tesla Takedowns to continue as well.
The public meltdown of the bromance between Trump and Musk early in the week seems like ancient history compared to the ICE mass arrests. But it has also kept Musk in a negative news light with an edge of hilarity. It also tanked Tesla stock value by 14% in one day.
The Trump Regime Won’t Stop Once The Migrants Are All Disappeared
The Tesla Takedowns have every reason to continue for those who want to resist Trump and Musk but aren’t so much into police lines, concussion grenades, rubber bullets, and tear gas. But one could also argue that those seeing terrible things happen to their family members, as Anne Frank wrote, watching the men, women, and children disappear at the hands of ICE, without due process or a day in court, didn’t just pick up decide to confront ICE. ICE sought them out. The regime called ICE under the supposition that brown people were criminals but also, in defiance of the Constitution, it didn’t allow them Habeas Corpus, or the opportunity to defend themselves to prove otherwise in court, because if they were in fact criminals the regime would have published the offenses in a court of law.
This fledgling regime could find any reason it wanted to go after other groups of people like citizen protesters defying it. It could easily go after those in the Tesla Takedowns or the bridge banner drops or journalists or the minorities so far spared. It just needs to find an excuse to do it. Eventually an authoritarian regime goes after anyone or anything that doesn’t conform or attacks anything it perceives is in its way.
