Another Donald Trump presidential term, another spate of violence going largely ignored — or even smirked at — by Democrats and their media friends.
Tesla dealerships are being firebombed and shot at, while Tesla vehicles are vandalized and their owners assaulted.
Trump-supporting influencers are getting “swatted,” set up for dangerous police encounters by opponents who phone in hoax distress calls.
Relatives of Trump-aligned public figures — including the sister of US Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Elon Musk’s brother — are receiving bomb threats.
This cannot go on.
The multiple attacks on Teslas aren’t mere vandalism. This is terrorism exactly as the dictionary describes it: “The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.”
These “vandals” are terrorizing Tesla the company, as well as Tesla owners — going so far as to dox them with an online map — all because they don’t like the opinions of its CEO.
It’s calculated to scare, to terrorize, people away from driving Teslas in order to apply political pressure on Musk.
It’s “nothing short of domestic terrorism,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said Tuesday.
The Justice Department has already charged several perpetrators, she said, in cases that could carry five-year mandatory minimum sentences.
Five years is a good start — but it’s not enough. This kind of antisocial political barbarity is utterly unacceptable in a free country.
Threats of violence cannot be allowed to curtail our freedom of speech.
Nor should the extended families of public figures face threats to their lives and safety. The siblings of a Supreme Court justice or the head of DOGE did not choose a public life, and bullying them is disgusting.
Swatting, too, is on the rise, with more than a dozen incidents aimed at right-leaning media figures reported in just the last 10 days.
“This isn’t about politics,” FBI Director Kash Patel said Friday on X. “Weaponizing law enforcement against ANY American is not only morally reprehensible but also endangers lives, including those of our officers.”
Swatting isn’t just a scary inconvenience; it has had deadly consequences. Police killed a Kansas man in 2017 after someone called in a fake hostage situation at his address. The “swatter” was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
But every swatting has the potential to turn deadly — in fact, that’s largely the point. Just because swatters use technology, and law enforcement’s guns, shouldn’t give them a pass on the attempted murder of their political foes.
Meanwhile, there is no federal anti-swatting law, making it harder to prosecute.
Republicans in Congress must take action. They can reintroduce the Anti-Swatting Act, a 2015 bill that was sponsored by both Democrats and Republicans but never got a floor vote. ?
Can Democrats really support using our law enforcement to target political enemies?
Worst of all, much of this violence and abuse is being laughed off by people who would be weeping if the targets were their own political allies.
Jimmy Kimmel, ostensibly a late-night comedian but in truth more like an angry crank, sarcastically told his audience Tuesday, “Please don’t ever vandalize Tesla vehicles” — while looking mockingly into the camera, after a long pause, to let them know he meant the opposite.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, last seen as the great male hope of the failed Kamala Harris presidential campaign, told a crowd this week he keeps a finance app on his phone to follow Tesla and to “give me a little boost” whenever the stock declines.
“Two-twenty-five and dropping!” he exulted.
Such jeers, as well as the deafening silence from most other Democrats, are simply intolerable.
If progressive influencers and leftist leaders were on the receiving end of such horrid tactics, every Republican in the country would be made to answer for it. “This is not who we are,” right-wing media would proclaim.
And rightly so. But no such calls are coming from the Democrats and their media allies.
Donald Trump ran on a platform of law and order. The increasingly rabid reaction to his presidency calls for a serious response.
For the last five years, the violent left has run rampant with few consequences for the chaos it has sown.
Republicans in Congress, and the Trump Justice Department, should show them that ends now.
Karol Markowicz is co-author of the book “Stolen Youth.”