Arlington, VA—Many would have given up by now at standing up to this regime and its chaos clout chasers parroting its narratives and supporting its take down of our democracy and our institutions. This regime is building an oligarchy beholden to the wealthy class—indeed many institutions already have quit or caved to pressure to obey it in advance. But these are inordinate times and rising to meet these times are extraordinary people, and new faces are joining them every day. Many of them are in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. They didn’t choose the times and challenges before them, but they didn’t shy away, either.
They are a tenacious lot with diverse experiences and most of them had nothing in common and would not have met except for the reelection and reemergence of a chaotic despot and his accompaniment of D-listers. Otherwise, they have nothing in common except for their commitment to rebuild their communities and a just society that serves everyone.
Improbably, they have outlasted even the most generous estimates of how long their grassroots campaign at Tesla showrooms could last. They keep returning to the street to draw joy and share a commitment to keep challenging this regime’s grip as long as it takes to see it fall.
They are joined by a swarm of much younger activists half their age who bring with them their zeal and energy but perhaps less awareness of the pain and disappointment life can toss in one’s way.
For one, many of the youth on the line handle the heat much better than the older members. They’ve also not experienced hip and knee replacements like the older crowd. The younger ones have not experienced going to the funerals of many friends gone before them. But comparisons between age and generation gaps is lost energy, as the divisions confronting this country are much more relevant. Divisions are not an issue on the Tesla boycott line.
What matters is that they’re all still here, they’re fighting together in the same battle. Because an authoritarian cannot take absolute control if the people continue to resist it. It’s going to be a long fight because we are not going quietly.
For many months since February, they’ve gone with their signs, bells, and enthusiasm on weekends to the busy road outside the Tesla showroom in Arlington. Suddenly, its week 25.
At first, they rose together in defiance against Elon Musk and his DOGE minion invasion of the U.S. government agencies, because DOGE was taking down the very government operations that maintained the order and functioning civil society built over 80 years. Then protestors championed the cause of federal workers themselves being forced out of their jobs.
They continued to rail against the trampling of rights and freedoms of civil servants as sensible rulings in the lower courts protected those rights. The Supreme Court textualists saw otherwise and often ruled against the mass firings anyway. What is the use of textualism when the rulings don’t come with context or even a written explanation? The “shadow docket” leaves out the necessary legal explanation of why they made the decision they published.
The boycott line continued rallying as the regime shuttered or radically diminished a handful of agencies like USAID, Department of Education, and Health and Human Services. They returned as more and more agencies were decimated, often with feeble justifications like saving money, while throwing billions of dollars on building a border wall already proven not to be effective.
The Tesla Takedown started in winter. Then came spring as the freezing weather turned warmer, and then came summer and blazing heat.
Meanwhile, the regime sent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to seize handfuls of brown-skinned immigrants and naturalized persons who had followed the laws to gain their citizenship. In its depravity, they even seized U.S. citizens. The Tesla boycott line became more of a resistance line because to them, it was a moral duty to stand for what was right.
The Tesla Takedown protestors have plenty of reasons to keep going back. Daily, this regime stoops to new lows in taking rights or liberties away, or striking out against institutions and perceived threats to its power.
Activists are keeping the Tesla Takedowns alive outside the electric vehicle car company showrooms and their zeal and energy cannot be stopped. For the 25th consecutive week, they displayed signs about authoritarianism, fascism and one activist made a large banner listing a batch of wrongs the regime has done to the citizens. It read:
“In the last 6 months Trump and Musk have: cut medicaid and snap, removed DEI, fired 30,000, disappeared innocent people, defied laws, normalized cruelty, militarized ICE, pardoned January 6th offenders, bullied universities media and lawyers, weakened science, raised prices, and alienated allies.”
Below is a video from the 25th consecutive week of the longest running grassroots campaign against a specific brand in modern history.
An Injured Beast Lashes Out
Tesla Takedowns are continuing across the country in resistance to the U.S. regime as it continues to dismantle democratic institutions and tries to create an absolute authoritarian state. The regime is not making the country great—in fact the opposite is true, as evidence mounts of the damage it is doing to government, the economy, U.S. world standing and influence, and global order. Tourism is down sharply in major tourist centers like NYC, Las Vegas, and Washington, DC. Many in the MAGA party are beginning to see the regime as dishonest, untrustworthy, and not keeping its campaign promises, so they are turning against it. But this turn is mostly based on Epstein case files dripping into the public sphere and not because of the regime’s decimation of the government and institutions.
The current U.S. government is beginning to act like a wounded beast. It is lashing out at whatever and whoever is nearby because it is failing. In this case, the Beast is Trump because he is the charismatic chosen one with the MAGA party, just like Hitler was one with the National Socialists—the NAZI party. As his party policies fail to get the traction he wants, he, as the leader, is behaving less and less rationally and more like a wounded Beast in its last throes. A weakened beast is dangerous and can inflict damage.
Some of what happened the last few weeks:
The Beast spoke from the Oval Office accusing President Barack Obama of “treason” for linking Russian influence to the 2016 presidential election. Obama responded that this was not something he would normally respond to, but it was an “outrageous claim.” This accusation was apparently designed to distract from Epsteingate, in which new evidence points to a more friendly connection between Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted child trafficker.
The Beast initiated an investigation of Jack Smith, the special prosecutor appointed by Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate the January 6, 2021 coup attempt. This is another example of a politically motivated distraction designed to take attention away from Epsteingate.
Next, the Beast said he would deploy nuclear submarines closer to Russia in response to Putin’s delay of a peace deal with Ukraine. This was triggered by a social media post by Dmitri Medvedev, a former leader with little influence in Moscow. This is an abuse of formidable power, which in ordinary times, had there not been so much unpredictability and chaos in the U.S. political sphere, would be a major international political event.
The Beast fired Erika McEntarfer, head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, after BLS released an economic key indicator jobs report. It reflected only 73,000 jobs were added in July, far below expectations. The Beast falsely claimed the data was “rigged” and politically motivated. The Beast ran on a campaign promise to create jobs and U.S. manufacturing, but his repeated tariff snafus have actually caused job loses, reduced trade, and brought on inflation due to destabilization of global markets. The BLS is an important agency in that it publishes trustworthy information in reporting economic trends which heavily influence world markets. Losing trust in this agency may increase volatility as economic data it publishes is doubted.
ICE efforts to remove legal immigrants are being exposed for what they are, and echo Auschwitz-type human rights abuses brought back to life from 80 years ago. Kidnapped witnesses from Venezuela have come forward to tell of the abuse ICE caused them by disappearing them to CECOT in El Salvador. Word of a hunger strike at the Florida Everglades tent camp, which is actually a concentration camp, has further soiled the image of the Beast’s regime. Over 65% of Americans disagree with ICE kidnappings and disappearances of legal immigrants arrested when they show up for their immigration hearings.
It is becoming clearer that the Beast is not able to follow through successfully on its objectives and when it does, it concocts grand schemes to distract or shift blame. It is left appearing wounded like a bleeding beast, striking out at whatever it perceives as a threat.
Eventually, the people themselves will decide when they’ve had enough of the chaos of this regime. And when that time comes, the Beast will be forced to retreat into hiding for good. Meanwhile, the Tesla Takedown protests will continue to shed light on the atrocities of the current regime.
See DCMediaGroup.us for more reporting on Federal government and Tesla Takedowns under keywords Federal, Agency, and Tesla.
