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The damming of Musk for his Texas-sized sin: A strategy a wannabe be artist would’ve loved
PERSPECTIVE
musk
Elon Musk is moving Tesla headquarters to Austin, Texas.

The most enlightening moment in the 1999 Manteca City Council campaign was sprung from old fashioned hate.

Dave Macedo was a political neophyte running for a council seat. His opponents — including sitting incumbents — wanted to build a majority voting block on the council. Macedo’s election would prevent that from happening.

So they unleashed a bit of hate.

Of course, the act of hate was painted in somewhat soothing and less menacing words — political tricks — to take the edge off of it and to justify their actions.

On a Sunday morning when thousands of Manteca voters were leaving their chosen places of worship they found their windshields papered with flyers. They described in no uncertain terms that Macedo was pro-abortion and therefore not be fit to serve as a council member.

Besides the fact the council has nothing to do with decision making regrading abortion laws, there were two little details. One was Macedo didn’t harbor strong pro-abortion thoughts. The other “detail” verified the first. Macedo had been put up for adoption at birth by his mother.

It was a detail that Macedo didn’t broadcast.         

Of course those accusing him of being pro-abortion didn’t let go. Macedo, they proclaimed, was lying.

As the campaign unfolded some people started putting two and two together based on events in their lives. It turned out Macedo had a brother — Frank Guinta.

The move to win at all cost not only failed spectacularly but the pure unadulterated political hate trigged a series of events where two men who knew each other as acquaintances found out they were brothers.

Macedo is certainly no Elon Musk and Manteca is not Texas.

But the vicious backlash Musk is getting for announcing the move of Tesla headquarters from Palo Alto in the Bay Area to Austin in Texas reeks with the arrogance of those that claim absolutes ownership of the high road to justify winning at all costs.

Musk — who doesn’t exactly come across as Mr. Rogers — had the bad timing of making his decision while all eyes are on Texas with its current rancorous debate over that state’s snitch abortion law.

Musk is being vilified for having the audacity to move his headquarters to Texas and “rewarding” its leadership with a win in the tech bragging column which — by way woke folk see it — means he’s against choice. Rest assured that his decision has nothing to do with his views on abortion. It has everything to do with making money and being able to operate his business with minimal government interference.

And based on his personal philosophy that he never hesitates to share it is seriously doubtful he supports the Texas law.

But in this age of absolute allegiance the woke movement demands that a wannabe artist from Austria back in the first decade of the 20th century would be thrilled to see, one must toe the proverbial party line.

That means companies today can’t simply be held to standards that require them to treat employees properly, protect the environment as much as they can in producing goods or delivering services, and pay legally required taxes but they have to weigh in on the “right” side issues or be subject to the wrath of the woke.

In time woke folk will go after businesses already based in Texas. This will be picked up by the Sacramento-Seattle-Portland progressive axis. The edict will come down banning State of California as well as Seattle and Portland municipal workers from traveling on Texas-based American Airlines, as an example, because of the snitch abortion law.

The problem with the damming of Musk over where he opts to locate Tesla’s headquarters or going after local politicians by applying litmus tests on issues that have nothing to do with what authority they may have to put laws in place is it assumes the world has to be pure and true to one homogeneous set of values.

It’s the same bent ultimately pursued by a young zealot that supported himself between 1909 and 1913 by painting watercolors of scenery in Vienna.

The dislike of the Texas abortion law to go after Musk for deciding to move Tesla headquarters could, under the rules of woke engagement, ultimately led disciples to push for a boycott of Teslas.

This would then justify painting all owners of Teslas as being anti-choice and encourage vandalizing Tesla charging stations.

The real weakness in such strategies that are becoming more prevalent and more demanding because they are meeting success from those that would rather cower or those who stay silent because the woke police aren’t coming after them is the fact we live in a world that is far from being black and white.

There are endless degrees of gray. It doesn’t mean, as an example, if one favors school choice they are somehow an anti-vaxxer or if you are fiscally conservative you are against immigration.

And when you apply that same standard to commerce it is even more blended.

A month ago the Wall Street Journal ran a story explaining how complicated the world supply chain and how it has been turned upside down by the pandemic.

The reporter used the shortage of hot tubs available for purchase as an example.

They focused on Bullfrog Spas in Herriman, Utah where some of their most elaborate backyard spa packages they manufacture required thousands of components in the process.

Those components came from a multitude of companies and countries.

If the demand is made that manufacturers such as Bulldog Spas and Tesla adhere to the purity of woke agendas based on the self-proclaimed prophets du jour whether they are a teen from Sweden or an economist that worked their way through Boston University as a waitress and a bartender, then the litmus test needs to apply to all of those companies that benefit from the sale of a spa of an electric vehicle.

And that should also put companies that strive to be trendy and woke in the crosshairs as well. The odds are high Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream somewhere along the line has done business with someone — an equipment manufacturer or even a dairy farmer — that harbor pro-Israel views.

Broad brushes that label people or require they must be 100 percent in alignment with their views is not bringing people together. It is forcing them to submit. There is a big difference.

The tactic of lying about someone’s beliefs and views to win is no different than deploying guilt by association.

Over the centuries both have been essential components of how-to-guides to crush people and forcing them into submission whether it was on the far right that harnessed disillusioned young people in the mid-1930s in Germany  or the far left that utilized zealous young people dressed in stylish Mao garb in the mid-1960s in China.

 

 This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com