Despite (or Because of) Schumer, We are Seeing Progress

Chuck in retreat, Tesla tanking, Musk under fire, we can only be stopped by easing off and bad strategy...

Well, well, well, the cowardly Senate lion Chuck Schumer “postponed” his book tour due to blow back from Democratic rank & file and progs over his cave in on Trump’s budget. Great! This is what I mean about making our elected officials fear us. No need for violence or death threats, when some old fashioned, in-you-face outrage works. It is the kind of outrage that we expect from leaders of the opposition, leadership that we have failed to see from Democratic leaders.

That doesn’t mean that all Democrats are spineless cowards. As noted, Schumer is taking a lot of heat from his caucus, which is a good thing. If he is to be replaced, the caucus are the ones who replace him. Of course, the caucus, as a whole, isn’t known for its fight, so it is vital that we force them to fight.

Get in their ear about this one. Demand that they replace Schumer. Tell them we need a fighter. Not the equally useless Dick Durbin or the exhumed corpse of Dianne Feinstein (likely the choice of James Carvelle). A real, down and dirty fighter. The reliable and awesomely named Perry Bacon gives some examples of the kind of Democrats (and an indie) that we need in leadership, people who are acting like real leaders right now.

I must emphasize that it is very important not to let this go. It can’t become yet another moment of outrage that gets sidelined by something else, especially another Trump distraction. Like strategy, leadership is foundational shit. It’s what we must build from.

Remember that the Democratic Party is just one tool we have to resist Trump. While we mustn’t focus solely or even mostly on the party, we would be fools to dismiss it outright, just as we’d be stupid to throw our one saw – rusty and bent, but still a saw - out of our toolbox. We need as many tools as possible in this fight, including that we are subjecting Tesla to.

I am pretty much for all the heat Elon Musk and Tesla are getting. What we are seeing – from refusal to buy Musk’s product to protests to sabotage – is the economic boycott we need. Seriously, the boycott tactic is more than refusing to buy something from or use the service of a company that you don’t do business with anyway. Refuse to buy, yes, but bolster that with protest and, if needed, sabotage…against a Nazi.

I mean, who among us has or has owned a Tesla? I’d say less than 10% of those reading this. Who has, in the last few years, thought about buying a Tesla? Probably less than 10%. Now, how many of you are so pissed off at Musk that you’d throw a brick through a Tesla showroom window. I am not saying that you would or should break windows. I am talking about the level of your anger. Fueled by outrage alone, protected from legal consequences, I’d guess 90%, if not all of you, would love to break some Tesla glass. That is how pissed we are, that is how much we don’t give a crap about Tesla’s products.

And, it is that kind of outrage that we need to focus on people like Musk. Again, I’m not saying to go out a torch a Tesla lot or paint swastikas on Cybertrucks. I’m talking about showing up and being present in your dissent. Why? Because it works and because Musk is more vulnerable than you think.

Since December, Tesla stock has lost 50% of its value. Musk alienated his core customers – liberals – and decimated Tesla’s European sales. Even the price of used a Tesla – now glutting the market – is dropping fast. The Wall Street smart guys are trying to pump up the stock, saying now is the time to buy, but, as of this morning, the stock continues its tank. Part of the reason why Tesla continues the tank is that our fury-fueled actions are having an effect of the brand’s attractiveness. Part of it is that Tesla now has competition, something that makes the company a ripe target. All this adds to Musk’s vulnerability, something not a secret to Tesla shareholders.

Every so often, I play around with the Security Exchange Commission’s search function (yes, I probably need to get out more). Yesterday, I pulled up Tesla’s 10-k annual report for January 2025. 10ks are reports compiled for shareholders and filed with the SEC so that those investing in a company or who are thinking about investing know what is going on with that company. They are fairly straight forward and mostly honest. What fudging occurs tends to be with wordage, deemphasizing certain negatives while pumping up the positives. It’s fudging that anyone with a critical mind immediately sees through.

Always, the first thing I look at in a 10-k is the segment on risks. Buried in Tesla’s January 2025 report is this nugget:

We are highly dependent on the services of Elon Musk, Technoking of Tesla and our Chief Executive Officer. Although Mr. Musk spends significant time with Tesla and is highly active in our management, he does not devote his full time and attention to Tesla. For example: Mr. Musk also currently holds management positions at Space Exploration Technologies Corp., X Corp., X.AI Corp., Neuralink Corp. and The Boring Company, and is involved in other ventures and with the Department of Government Efficiency.

This is a good example of a risks that the report writers are playing tenderfoot with, in this case, so they don’t piss off the “Technoking,” Musk’s self-chosen title for himself as CEO. The report writer acknowledges that Tesla is “highly dependent” on Musk, without saying that he is a power-hungry micromanager. They cite that he “spends significant time with Tesla” (caveat to come) and is “highly active” (power hungry micromanager), but “he does not devote his full time and attention to Tesla,” listing his other obligations and endeavors (the caveat).

That bit about “full time and attention” is not just an observation, it is a gentle reminder from shareholders to Musk that he has an obligation to Tesla that he is not fulfilling. It is a hint that if he can’t or won’t do the job, Tesla needs another leader. I’ve never seen a SEC shareholder’s report demanding a CEO step down because it almost never happens. Same thing with a “full time and attention” prod. That’s usually stuff addressed privately in boardrooms, not in public, especially not in official filings. Given Telsa’s shareholders lost 50% of their stock’s value in the month that the report was being written, I look forward to Tesla’s next risk assessment!

Now, this does not mean that Musk is out at Tesla, or that we’ve won, or we should ease off Tesla and Musk, or that Tesla without Musk is going to stop Musk’s rampage. It does mean that he is vulnerable from the inside and that outrage from the outside is having an effect. Keep it up.

Talking about rampages. Canadian comic book writer Ian Bootby has a post on social media which likens Trump to Godzilla storming Tokyo and the opposition as hapless soldiers firing guns at the monster. He then pivots to what he thinks is effective “resistance” - making fun of Trump as was done during his first term. Bootby states that stuff like Alec Baldwin’s SNL portrayal “got under Trump’s skin,” which I assume means victory! He them rattles off a bunch of other things that pissed Trump off. This, he says, is the key to beating Trump the Celebrity (as opposed to Trump the Politician).

While Bootby’s much circulated blast seems quite reasonable, it is also quite shallow. Yes, Trump is not a normal politician, but he is also more than just a celebrity. He is the president of the United States with an extreme amount of power. Yes, he gets pissed off when mocked, but he is also always pissed off. The man was born full of rage and has spent his life looking for places and ways to express it. Fine if he is just a celebrity or even a mere politician, but there is that monster with extreme power thing. Make fun of Godzilla, but be prepared to be crushed when he turns his rampage towards his mockers (has Bootby even watched a Godzilla movie?).

Bootby doesn’t seem to understand that the conditions now are not what they were in Trump’s first term, when he had Republican elected, establishment handlers, and nameless functionaries checking his madness. John McCain thwarted Trump in the Senate. As hapless and odious as they were, John Kelly and John Bolton stopped some of Trump’s more extreme actions. William Barr prevented Kash Patel from relatively minor position in the DOJ. People like Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman were in places that they could effectively dissent from. None of that is there right now.

Trump has surrounded himself with MAGA ideologues, syphers, and sycophants. Kash Patel is director of the FBI. He’s put Musk in charge of the wrecking ball. There is no one in the administration or the Republican Party to say “No” to him or even act as an obstacle.

Bootby doesn’t just fail to see the difference between 2017 and 2025, he also neglects the fact that there was much more, much more effective resistance to Trump in his first term than Alec Baldwin and the satirists. There were very effective protests like the airport takeovers and the Floyd/Taylor protests. There was a strong, united Democratic front led by Nancy Pelosi (not Chuck Schumer). There were active citizen groups like Indivisible. There were Republicans within the administration and the party fighting Trump. There was much, much more going on than satire and entertainment.

What Bootby proposes is that we make fun of the king and sit back, waiting for cracks to show so we can topple him with, I dunno, I guess more satire. Sounds simple, way too easy, way too passive, way too spectator-like, and way too dangerous. You see, monsters like Godzilla aren’t what you call deep thinkers. Shoot at them literally (with a frontal assault) or metaphorically (with satire) and they react as if they were attacked. They get angry and rampage.

I’m not saying to be quiet and respectful. I’m saying that monsters are going to rampage, so you best have something more than making them so mad that they rampage, something like coordination or a back-up plan. Bootby’s “all in one basket” solution to our problem is bunk, a path to cynicism (“We made fun of him but he won’t stop! Now what?”), a strategy akin (and linked) to shaming.

The other day, I was hanging out with a friend, talking about strategy and tactics, when I went on a rant about shaming as a tactic. By our nature, humans do not react well to shaming. While the goal is to change the shamed’s behavior, what tends to happen is that the shamed retreats into themselves or lashes back (sometimes after retreating into themselves).

The entertainment-world example I use to illustrate of the futility (and danger) of shaming is from the TV show, Game of Thrones. Deep into the series, Cersei Lannister pisses so many people off that she’s sold out to religious extremists, imprisoned for moral defects, and then forced on a walk of atonement though the streets of King’s Landing, where citizens mock her, chanting “Shame! Shame! Shame!”

So, how does Cersei respond to the shaming? She rejects shame for rage, harbors that rage, plots, and waits. And when she finds her moment, she blows the fuck out of the religious extremists’ Sect, during a ceremony where her enemies are present, killing all of them. It’s fiction, for sure, but also the perfect metaphor of how effective shaming is.

I’ve said this before: We have no easy out here. There is no one we can outsource our opposition (or our survival) to. There is not simple strategy (and if you read or hear of one, dismiss it). There is absolutely no way satire alone will change anything except our moods, temporarily. We need more and it must come from ourselves. And, again, that is not a bad thing. That is us taking control of our lives and actually doing democracy.