Would you believe that a Santa Monica tree hugger who was originally peer-pressured into buying a Tesla by his liberal friends is now concerned that his virtue-signaling car has become a vice due to the way Elon Musk is running Twitter?
Of course you would. That’s probably one of the most believable scenarios you’ll hear all year.
Regardless, The Los Angeles Times thought the scenario noteworthy enough to publish a nearly 700-word screed by a former magazine editor named John Blumenthal about the latest leftist lamentations regarding free speech.
A few years ago, Blumenthal had driven a car powered by fossil fuels — which made him a “hypocrite.”
“The car was impractical, but it had sentimental value,” he explained in the story. “My environmental activist friends were not impressed by my assiduous urban composting, LED bulb installations and energy-saving appliances. I needed to do more to diminish my carbon footprint. The icebergs were melting, my friends said, and at least one polar bear was wandering around homeless and hungry because of me.”
So Blumenthal purchased a Tesla, which he felt was “pricey but worth it.”
Yet now that the Tesla founder has allowed for Twitter’s policies to be more in line with the First Amendment, Blumenthal is again worried about what his friends might think of his car and his moral stature.
“Because of the recent revelation of Elon Musk’s political views — all of which I abhor — I’m starting to worry about what sort of political statement the car is making,” the writer fretted. “Will people see me as a symbol of right-wing environmentalism, a living oxymoron?”
The author says that he is “horrified” by Musk’s political views — exactly which stances he doesn’t quite say. His only argument is that Musk is allowing unseemly characters on Twitter while banning journalists.
Blumenthal neglects to mention that Musk’s recent bans of journalists were in accordance with the rules he created and is now applying equally. As Musk put it, journalists aren’t “special.”
So, Blumenthal now wonders whether he should sell his Telsa as a form of “protest” against one of the world’s richest men.
He acknowledges that the sale of the car wouldn’t actually do much to deter Musk from his beliefs, but he does believe it could make him feel better.
“It’s a beautifully designed car with no carbon emission, and initially, I was proud of owning it and being seen driving a vehicle that displayed my concern for the environment,” Blumenthal claimed. “But I’m a liberal, and if Musk’s politics don’t change radically for the better, driving a Tesla will become, at least for me, as hypocritical and untenable as driving a gas guzzler was.”
In other words, he admits he mostly bought it so he could be “seen” supporting the correct causes.
Blumenthal’s column unwittingly exposes the modern Left’s unseriousness of the problems at hand.
Far from being the individual critical thinkers they believe, they simply follow the crowd on all topics of the day.
They often make decisions not out of any genuine concern or logic, but because a mob of people bullies them into making the “right” choice. In this case, Blumenthal’s friends are the mob. If he wants to fit in with his California comrades, then he better dress the part and ditch the Tesla.
First, their judgy natured pushed him toward the electric vehicle, now he’s under the impression he must sell that same car to fit in with the in-crowd.
Of course, he could just decide to be a grown man and not be concerned with what others think, but then he might lose his friends.
The other thing is that it would appear that climate change is out as the most threatening thing in the world, and instead, a commitment to free speech has come to the surface of the latest leftist hysteria.
So, it looks like Blumenthal may sell his Tesla so that the social justice warrior crowd doesn’t associate him with Twitter’s so-called fascist-in-chief … a man who stands against big government in bed with Big Tech.
He has to broadcast his support by promoting certain symbols. It’s sort of like those people online who fill their profiles with Ukrainian flags and BLM fists or put up those “hate has no home” yard signs on their lawns. For leftists, it’s always the thought and most superficial tangible sign of support that counts — not the actual outcomes certain policies and beliefs create.
In other words, the important thing for progressives isn’t that they actually create changes that help the world, no, what matters is that they signal to other liberals they’re part of the same team.
What a tiresome existence.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.