Nothing has gone to plan for the Democratic Party since the 2024 election votes were counted — except one thing. 

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Lacking a governing vision and desperate for a new villain — the old one had proven unbeatable — Democrats found one in Elon Musk, and they’ve managed to bring him down a notch. 

Musk’s dual role as the world’s richest man and head of the Department of Government Efficiency made him a natural target. Who is easier to demonize than a job-slashing billionaire?

For his part, Musk helped reinforce the villain vibe. He swapped statement suits for an all-black trench coat, a Dark MAGA cap, and futuristic shades. Musk now wields chain saws, occasionally appears under the influence of something stronger than a cocktail, and seems to see part of his mission as repopulating the planet with as many different women as possible.

Since November, Musk’s public approval has crashed into the mid-30s, down 15-20 points. Tesla’s stock has dropped by nearly half, and his net worth is said to have fallen by $132 billion in 2025 alone. President Donald Trump has publicly reined him in, saying that government should be reduced with a scalpel instead of a hatchet. This necessary rebuke dented Musk’s authority. 

It is a problem for the opposition that this has not, however, translated to Democratic success elsewhere. The agency Musk runs and the president he works for have barreled forward unchecked. DOGE has reduced the federal workforce by more than 100,000, slashed tens of billions of dollars in spending, and begun modernizing federal technology, to list only a few of the agency’s achievements. Meanwhile, Trump appears to have suffered no meaningful damage from his association with Musk — and the Democratic Party’s approval numbers keep sinking to record lows. 

The Left’s frustration with its failure to turn Musk’s decline into a political advantage has prompted Democrats and radicals to intensify and darken their anti-Musk rhetoric. 

At a February rally, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), who always manages to be both incendiary and stolid, called Musk a “Nazi nepo baby … a godless, lawless billionaire,” and promised he would face opposition “in the court, in Congress, in the streets.”

At the same rally, Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) said of DOGE’s efforts, “Goddamn it shut down the Senate! We are at war!”

In early March, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) referred to Musk as an “autocratic puppetmaster,” while Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called him an “oligarchic menace.” During a nationwide call with Democrats, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) said that all she wants for her birthday this year “is for Elon to be taken down.”

For the Democratic rank and file, the message from Democratic leadership has been crystal clear: Humiliating Musk is not enough — he needs to be “taken down.”  

***

So, it is no surprise that leftist firebombers are now in action.

In mid-March, a 24-year-old activist named Daniel Clarke-Pounder was arrested in South Carolina for setting Tesla chargers on fire with Molotov cocktails, accidentally but fittingly (given the Left’s current combination of extremism and incompetence) self-immolating in the process. He also scrawled “F*** Trump” and “Long live the Ukraine” on the pavement.

His X account, since suspended, showed a retweet of Pressley’s February rant hours before the attack.

Weeks earlier, in Loveland, Colorado, 42-year-old Justin Thomas Nelson, a man who also goes by the name Lucy and lives with his mother, threw Molotov cocktails at cars in a Tesla dealership. Nelson graffitied the dealership in a similar manner, spray-painting “NAZI” and “F*** MU.” The arresting officers were alarmed by the destructive power of the explosive devices he used. 

In 2025 alone, there have been at least 20 attacks on Tesla property. In addition to the incidents in South Carolina and Colorado, arsonists attacked charging stations in at least five states, including Massachusetts, Oregon, and Nevada. In other states, Tesla cars have been shot at, vandalized, and set ablaze. 

The similarity in the attacks has led several authorities to conclude that the attackers are intentionally replicating what they have seen elsewhere. With widespread media coverage, the high-profile target, and the charged political atmosphere, it is easy to imagine attacks spiraling further out of control, and to imagine retaliatory violence.

On March 24, a bomb squad was called into a Tesla dealership in Austin, Texas, to identify suspicious objects that had been found in the showroom. The devices were determined to be “incendiary,” and the FBI is currently investigating.

But instead of denouncing the wave of attacks, Democrats, other than Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), and many in the news media have doubled down, going so far as to encourage violence outright.

Rick Wilson, a prominent political strategist, agitator, and co-founder of the anti-Trump super PAC the Lincoln Project, published an article in mid-March on his personal Substack titled “Kill Tesla, Save the Country.” He included a picture of a burning Tesla. Wilson was banned permanently from X for inciting violence, which he described cynically to Mediaite as “snowflake bulls*** moral panic.” 

ABC’s late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel, an outspoken Democrat who wept on air after Trump’s reelection, used his opening monologue to encourage more Tesla attacks. Following a summary of recent news items related to attacks, he sarcastically added, “People have been vandalizing Tesla vehicles, new Tesla vehicles. Please, don’t vandalize, don’t ever vandalize Tesla vehicles,” which he then followed with a pregnant pause and wry grin. 

Just as Kimmel’s audience lapped up the joke, Comedy Central’s The Daily Show won big cheers for the arson spree. Without any encouragement from host Jordan Klepper, the audience cheered loudly in response to a segment that showed footage of burning Teslas.

Klepper was taken aback and said, “Wow, you guys like petty acts of domestic terrorism, huh?” to which the audience cheered more.

Meanwhile, leftist operatives worked behind the scenes to channel the chaos for political purposes. The grassroots network Indivisible, founded in 2016 by Democratic Party insiders Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg to oppose Trump’s first-term agenda, staged rallies in March dubbed “Tesla Takedown.” The group, which also sent tool kits to activists to protest Republicans during the February recess at town hall meetings, has worked closely with Democratic leaders in recent years, especially during the 2018 midterm election campaign and to help former President Joe Biden pass his $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. Indivisible is bankrolled by big contributions from radical billionaires George Soros and Reid Hoffman, among others.

A website called Dogequest that doxxes Tesla owners, dealerships, and DOGE employees on an interactive map using a Molotov cocktail cursor also popped up in March. The FBI is probing the data leak’s source, but there is no conclusive link to a group or person.

***

The Tesla attacks are only the latest example of the Left’s willingness to abandon the “democratic norms” it touts and to take up violence when it suits it. Examples of the Left justifying and promoting violent, criminal behavior for political purposes in recent years abound. For the Left, the ends always justify the means.

Take the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, a galvanizing event for the fraudulent Black Lives Matter movement. The shooting of Brown, who had just robbed a convenience store, by officer Darren Wilson sparked riots that included violence, destruction of property, and arson. 

Despite the riots being based upon a lie — the incident had been wildly misreported at the time by casting Brown as submissively holding up his hands — Democrats and the Left cheered Ferguson’s flames as a righteous extension of politics by other means. The demagogues included former President Barack Obama, who called police force “excessive” and the anger “legitimate.” Time magazine ran an opinion article titled “Ferguson: In Defense of Rioting” that argued that “riots are a necessary part of the evolution of society.” From the mainstream to the fringes, the Left framed violence as a necessary if unfortunate stepping stone to victory for the “right side of history.”

The 2020 riots following the death at the hands of the police of George Floyd, a black man, were similarly egged on and celebrated. During their peak in Minneapolis, which caused over $550 million in property damage, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) said that if officer Derek Chauvin wasn’t convicted, “We’ve got to stay in the street. … We’ve got to get more confrontational.” 

Weeks later, future Vice President Kamala Harris assured late-night TV host Stephen Colbert that Waters’s call was right.

“They’re not gonna stop,” she said. “This is a movement. … They’re not gonna stop before Election Day in November, and they’re not gonna stop after Election Day. … They should not, and we should not.”

Gwen Walz, wife of the man who would be Harris’s pick for vice president, offered a glimpse into the Democratic soul during the Floyd riots that summer when she told a local news reporter she kept the windows open during the fires so she could savor the moment, presumably savoring the perfume of fear and burning property.

“I could smell the burning tires, and that was a very real thing,” she said. “I kept the windows open as long as I could because I felt like that was such a touchstone of what was happening.”

The Left’s rejection of “democratic norms” to intimidate and attack law enforcement doesn’t stop at burning down police precincts. In May 2020, as the Supreme Court considered arguments in a case involving abortion, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) launched into a tirade that even Vox agreed could only be interpreted as a threat.

PAM BONDI DEMANDS JASMINE CROCKETT APOLOGIZE FOR PROMOTING TESLA VIOLENCE

“I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions,” he said.

Recent examples, as well as historical examples, of the Left justifying violence are too numerous to catalog — it’s in the radicals’ DNA. It suffices to say that the wave of attacks against Tesla, encouraged by Democratic leaders at every step, is not an aberration but a continuation of a modus operandi honed over the years: When all else fails, burn it down and act as though the ashes are a moral victory.

Peter Laffin is deputy commentary editor of the Washington Examiner.