Charles Fain Lehman Burn a Tesla, Break Democracy Why domestic terrorism is a threat to the American way of life
https://www.city-journal.org/article/burn-vandalize-teslas-domestic-terrorism
Over the past month, anti-Trump agitators have found a new favorite target: Teslas. In response to Elon Musk’s war on bureaucracy, vandals in cities across the country have broken windows, punctured tires, and keyed doors of the popular electric vehicle. Some have even lit the cars on fire.
Various administration officials have labeled the acts “domestic terror.” Musk critics have brushed off these actions as the price of political participation or implied that they are a predictable backlash to his alleged extremism. Indeed, the most ardent defenders see the burning of cars as a proportional response—as one protester’s sign put it, “Burn a Tesla: Save Democracy.”
These efforts to blur the line between protest and terrorism, however, are profoundly undemocratic. The idea that property destruction and violence are legitimate forms of protest has deep roots on the left, but it is inimical to the freedom of expression that makes democratic life possible.
The Tesla bombers are reading from an old playbook. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, American and European anarchists conducted bombing campaigns and other acts of political violence. They were inspired by theorist Peter Kropotkin’s “propaganda of the deed”—the idea that the expressive character of violence could help instigate revolution.
The revolutionary Soviets not only engaged in brutal violence but also actively justified it as a necessary precondition of their revolution. In Terrorism and Communism, for example, Leon Trotsky responds to a liberal critic by insisting that the revolutionary class has an obligation to use violent means to attain its ends.
These early twentieth-century examples plainly inspired successive left-wing “protest” movements. The Weather Underground, a group of students-turned-radicals, terrorized the nation in the early and mid-1970s with a bombing campaign that hit targets including the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol. Their manifesto, Prairie Fire, explicitly endorsed this activity as an essential revolutionary act against American imperialism. The Weathermen were not alone. The 1970s were the worst period on record for domestic terror in both the United States and Western Europe.
Violence remains a feature of radical leftist protest today. Beyond the “Tesla takedown,” consider the recent $660 million judgement against Greenpeace for its role in the violent protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Or, worst of all, there’s the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, an event celebrated, or at least justified, all too widely.
What joins these historical examples is the idea that violence can be political. Whether it’s lighting a Tesla on fire, shooting a CEO, bombing the Capitol, or blowing up Wall Street, the goal is to spark political change. Moreover, if that political change is deemed good, then the violence is justified—in much the same way the Soviets regarded mass murder as warranted if it aimed to create a Communist utopia.
There is, of course, another term for expressive violence meant to create political change: terrorism. Al-Qaida’s purpose in destroying the Twin Towers, for example, was to send a message to the West. The goal was not simply the murder of more than 3,000 Americans but also the destruction of icons of American capitalism and national might. Terrorism is a strategy by which the weak challenge the strong in the symbolic domain, precisely because they lack the strength to fight on a more conventional battlefield.
Such political expression is categorically incompatible with democracy. It does not belong in a system that resolves political disputes through public discourse and debate. The absence of violence is a necessary precondition of that kind of debate—where violence is, free speech cannot be.
Much the same is true of property damage. One cannot speak freely if it will reliably result in someone lighting his car on fire. That’s why domestic terrorism is a crime: because violent “expression” must be out of bounds for peaceful expression to flourish.
The love of violence has always existed on the left. What is necessary, from the standpoint of those who care about democracy, is not to excuse or permit it, regardless of what political justification is offered.
Those who burn Teslas, smash windows, or otherwise engage in political violence should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Those who defend them should be ashamed of themselves. They violate the basic principles of our nation.
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