So general thoughts:
The first is that our public discourse is media-driven.
The second is that we do not value empiricism as a public good.
Yesterday was supposed to be the “Tesla Takedown” with mass protests at hundreds of Tesla locations across the country. Were there protests? Sure. Were the size of the protests commensurate with the hype and months of build-up that Elon was some sort of crypto-Nazi helping Trump end democracy? Please. The Tesla Takedown is the “Snow White” of political action.
Now in fairness this may be the start of something bigger in the future, but they have been building this for weeks now. You have to ask, this is all they got?
We have been here before. Leading up to the 2024 election, the Left was quite vocal in stating that Trump was a modern-day Hitler (or at least Caesar) who would end democracy. Given the displays of power the Left showed in 2020, I expected something along the lines of a post-Election color revolution with massive civil unrest; swarms of green-haired librarians and school teachers with a dash of AOC and Anttifa. Nothing happened.
So that leads to the second thought from above, why did nothing happen? Why didn’t the dog bark?
The ability to reflect is a key civic virtue. The use of reason in the form of empiricism, to use experience in order to modify our mental models and understanding of the world us is not just a life tool but a necessity for any functioning society.
The problem is that our primary conduit for consuming information, the media, sells stories. This include both Right and Left, both traditional and new media, sells stories. It is forward-thinking, only using the past to mine it for what it wants to promote for today. This constrains how we discuss events.
The traditional media hyped the Tesla Takedown, the results not so much. We shouldn’t expect them, either by ideology or by function, to talk about why it happened the way it did and what that means going forward. It’s not just ideology, but it’s also function. Not everybody can (or wants to) do a multi-hour long podcast like Joe Rogan does to touch on these issues
Yet the issue is vitally important because by analyzing the past, it improves our understanding of the present so that we can better predict the future.
You know who is paying the attention to what yesterday signifies? The Trump White House and various Democrats, all trying to plan their next moves.
My guess is that the Trump team sees the lackluster results yesterday, after weeks of the Left trying to pump its base, compares it to the nothingburger after the 2024 election and has come to the conclusion that the Left is a paper tiger and is on the run. That the 2020 riots were the exception, perhaps sparked by the COVID psychosis, and the system has returned to an equilibrium. Yes the radicals are still there entrenched in the bureaucracy, media, and education but they have been isolated because they have shown to be (for now) losers.
My guess is, with this new evidence in hand, Trump is going to keep pushing harder. The Left will take to the streets for some issues, like abortion, but not for USAID, Elon Musk, and the “Orange Hitler”. That’s what this experience has taught us, both on the Left and Right.
We know more in the next few weeks and then Pride Month which provides a ready-made crowd.
As a side note, its one thing to protest but there is a thin line between a public assembly and an organized conspiracy to punish Elon by trying to drive away potential Tesla buyers through intimidation. I know the leftist groups can usually tap into a lot of pro bono work but to go against the world’s richest man in a civil suit?
I expect that this is only the first of many attempts to fabricate an escalating series of “mostly peaceful” demonstrations now that Democrats are out of the catbird seat. I also expect that there will also be escalating revelations and likely prosecutions of the of the foreign and domestic instigators and financiers now that the DOJ isn’t deliberately looking the other way. Or so I imagine.
It doesn’t seem to have taken, a story from Austin said that demonstrations attracted about a dozen to two Tesla dealerships. We’ll probably have to see what they try next. I won’t be surprised if the next thing will be to try to gin up something over some of the “student activists” being deported. And if this doesn’t take hold, there will be another cause, and another until the cash pipeline is shut.
A lesson to be learned from the run-up to the 2024 presidential election is widespread use of electronic astroturfing by the left. Twitter/X was polluted with unknown people mimicking the anguished wails of the washed up celebrities. The attempt was classic astroturfing – “I hate him, we all hate him, why don’t you join us and hate him too?” The morning after the election, these specters all vanished, like the stink from the outhouse when the wind shifts.
I am certain that those financing this round of astroturfing are hoping to bringing the dimwits of the Left to such a frenzied state that they choose violence. The harder you shake a coffee can of hex nuts, the more noise you’ll create. The can is being shaken very hard with the hope that some of the nuts fly out. Travel armed and avoid crowds.