Weekend Jolt: How to Not Firebomb a Tesla

WITH JUDSON BERGER

March 29 2025

Dear Weekend Jolter,

Imagine you believe that a particular type of product is vital to save the planet, and humanity itself. But the CEO of the company that produces the most successful version of that product, it so happens, has the wrong politics. He takes a role in government where he pursues policies at sharp odds with your preferences.

What do you do?

If your answer isn't, Commit a lot of arson and denounce the product's users as basically Nazis — well, then, maybe you haven't yet adapted to the modern way of thinking.

I write, of course, of Tesla, the EV company that advances a core goal of environmentalists. But in a confounding display of counterproductivity, many on the left have turned against it because of Elon Musk: torching and vandalizing vehicles, attacking dealerships, rooting for the total failure of an American company.

This is why principles matter. They keep us consistent, for one. As an added benefit, they take a lot of the guesswork out of punditry. National Review stands for truth and sanity in the war of ideas, and we apply that framework wherever we turn. And we ask for your support, if you can give it. We're running our spring webathon and hope you can chip in a little, or a lot of, somethin' to help us continue this work.

Explaining logically the above about-face on Tesla is impossible; climate change is presented as an existential threat, which couldn't rank below Musk's DOGE cuts in importance. Only if one internalizes that, for some, virtue-signaling and ephemeral passions trump any policy goal or foundational belief does it compute even a little. A similar incoherence was on display when Covid-conscious progressives gave up social-distancing rules mid-pandemic to protest in large crowds against police. NR hasn't been shy about torching the Tesla torchers, either. "It turns out electric cars run on a dual-power system of batteries and the approval of your liberal neighbors," Jim Geraghty tartly observed. Noah Rothman, Rich Lowry, Charles C. W. Cooke, Brittany Bernstein, Becket Adams, and the editorial board have been all over the Left's baffling EV renunciation, a campaign with implications, as Becket noted, for tens of thousands of employees.

To be sure, Right and Left both have struggled lately with factions unmoored from principles, with those of the former supporting certain actions they wouldn't were it not for President Trump's imprimatur. NR endeavors to cover every twist of this administration with the help of a consistent framework. When Trump does right, we say so, whether it's his border crackdowns or efforts to shrink the state or support for Israel or call for shipbuilding to compete with China. And when he does wrong, we say so, whether it's his feud with Canada or antagonism toward Ukraine or tariffs or use of lawfare tactics against political enemies. And sometimes, the truth as we see it is somewhere in between, and we explain that too.

A week ago, National Review Institute hosted its biannual Ideas Summit, and it was heartening to see an entire two-day program devoted to thoughtful, reasoned discussion about principles. Free speech. Free markets. Religious liberty. Constitutional adherence. The importance of U.S. leadership on the world stage. The need for vigilance against the persistent ideological threats to free society, including from communism and radical Islam.

These things matter now and will continue to matter for decades to come. As Rich wrote earlier this week, "I don't think that there is a publication in the country more committed to defending the American system, and its historical and philosophical foundations, than NR."

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EDITORIALS

On the story of the week: On Signal Leak, Take the L

As an important side note to the Atlantic leak scandal, JD Vance is mistaken about America's interests and shipping lanes: Securing the Seas Is Deeply American

Fortunately for the Trump administration, Columbia doesn't have a leg to stand on: Columbia Pays for Its Sins

There's, again, no justification for this: Anti-Tesla Terrorism

ARTICLES

Dan McLaughlin: Our Leaders Somehow Still Don't Take Information Security Seriously

Mark Antonio Wright: Yes, Pete Hegseth Should Be Fired for What He Texted — and for Lying About It

John Noonan: America Needs Good Men Like Mike Waltz

Jeffrey Blehar: Why Even Bother to Classify Our War Plans If We're Just Giving Them Away?

Audrey Fahlberg: Trump Says White House Supports Rescission Package to Codify DOGE Cuts

Audrey Fahlberg: Senate Republicans Are Surprised and Disappointed That the White House Pulled Stefanik's Nomination

Avraham Russell Shalev: The World Health Organization Is Covering for Hamas

Noah Rothman: Trump's Ultimatum to Columbia University Was Deserved

Noah Rothman: Where Is the Outpouring for the Gaza Protests?

Brittany Bernstein: A Homegrown Arizona Company Was About to Break Ground on a Billion-Dollar Development — Then a California Union Stepped In

Rich Lowry: Maybe It Wasn't Such a Great Idea to Support a Larger, More Extensive Federal Government for 100 Years

Jay Nordlinger: Tony Dolan — Some Memories

Christian Schneider: The Supreme Court Killed March Madness

Jack Butler: The Left Doesn't Want to Moderate on Transgenderism

Stanley Kurtz: Kicking Politics Out of Texas Schools

CAPITAL MATTERS

Dominic Pino, once more, on the real composition of the UAW: Why the United Auto Workers Supports Tariffs That Will Hurt Auto Workers

LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW.

Don't believe every bad thing you hear about D.C. Brian Allen, in town last week (I can confirm this; I saw the real him), puts in a good word for the museums, or at least this one: A Visit to the National Gallery, a High Point in the Swamp

Armond vs. Snow (White): Snow White vs. Misericordia

FROM THE NEW, MAY 2025 ISSUE OF NR

Dominic Pino: Free Trade Is How You Live Your Life

Michael Brendan Dougherty: Free-Traders Need to Make a Small Exception

Jim Geraghty: Syria After Assad

Audrey Fahlberg: How John Thune Plans to Deliver

Jessica Hornik: Four Days, Two Quests, and 736,000 Sandhill Cranes

Ross Douthat: The Vibe Shift Hits Hollywood

M. Anthony Mills: We Still Haven't Reckoned with Covid's Costs

DON'T FORGET TO TIP YOUR SERVER

About that Atlantic story . . . here's Dan McLaughlin:

This leaves us asking once again the Casey Stengel refrain that has become louder with each passing year of the past several presidential administrations: Can't anybody here play this game? Specifically, does anybody understand how to use technology without compromising security? Donald Trump, usually the last person to be credited for reticence, seems to have been the only person involved in this decision who had the good sense not to put anything in writing over his phone.

The chronic trouble of our leadership class with information security — especially of the digital variety — has led to a seemingly endless series of scandals over the past decade and a half (longer, if you count CIA Director John Deutsch's taking home laptops with classified information, for which he ended up being pardoned by Bill Clinton). Consider just a partial list:

The colossal 2013–15 hack of the federal Office of Personnel Management, which led to the exposure of personal information of millions of federal workers to foreign (likely Chinese) hackers and was botched by OPM management badly enough to produce a congressional investigation and resignations.

Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, routing official emails through an insecure private server in her home. Fallout from the Clinton story revealed lesser but also concerning use of private channels by figures such as Colin Powell. It is no exaggeration to say that the ensuing scandal probably swung the 2016 election.

A huge hack of the Democratic National Committee's emails, which apparently happened because former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta fell for a phishing scam. This, too, produced endless leaks embarrassing to the DNC during the 2020 election.

Hunter Biden left and forgot at a repair shop his laptop containing all manner of incriminating and embarrassing evidence of public corruption and drug use, triggering a daisy chain of events that led to the New York Post getting its story on the laptop suppressed in one of the most notorious incidents of social media platform censorship during the 2020 election; 51 national security professionals (including several former heads of the CIA and other intelligence agencies) prostituting their credibility to declare the laptop a Russian fake (which, in turn, got their security clearances revoked); Hunter's convictions on tax and gun charges; and his ultimate pardon.

Trump, Biden, and to a lesser extent Mike Pence getting caught having stored classified or otherwise secret or sensitive documents at their homes, resulting in an FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago, Trump's indictment on more than 30 federal felony counts, and Biden's humiliating exoneration on grounds of his declining mental state by special counsel Robert Hur. Again, both the Trump and Biden stories resulted in massive, long-running scandals that bled through the 2024 election.

What I must yet again ask, at this late date, is why we can't manage to stanch this by establishing more regular systems and protocols. I get that some of these are matters of age and generation in technology use, but Waltz is 51, and Hegseth is 44. Once Goldberg was added, it may have been hard for other recipients to notice him, but should somebody more junior not have been able to double-check all the recipients? The failure here was not even a matter of technology but of user error — still, it ought not to be that hard to just establish closed systems where one need not worry about fat-fingering a list of recipients.

Over a decade on, we seem to learn nothing.

And more, from our editorial on the value of hitting the Houthis in the first place:

"I just hate bailing out Europe again," Vice President JD Vance said in the group chat Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added to. Vance's comment was in reference to ramping up strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, which the Trump administration has been doing in recent weeks.

Vance pointed out that far more European than American cargo transits the Suez Canal and said the strongest reason for the strikes was to "send a message," implying that he believes real American interests are slim. "I think we are making a mistake," the vice president said.

The U.S. is not making a mistake, and it must continue the fight against the Houthis so that all vessels can once again use the Suez Canal safely. Defending international shipping isn't some kind of plot hatched by globalist utopians in the 1990s. It's as American as apple pie, baseball, Broadway musicals, and ice-cold light beer. It goes all the way back to the Founders' generation.

The "shores of Tripoli" in the Marines' hymn is a reference to the Barbary Wars, fought by the U.S. in the Mediterranean against pirates from North Africa beginning under President Jefferson. Those pirates attacked U.S. ships as well, but their primary victims were Europeans who were captured and sold into slavery.

The U.S. did not view its actions then as "bailing out Europe." Jefferson had a higher purpose in mind. He told Congress in 1801 that America's actions in the First Barbary War were motivated by "a conscientious desire to direct the energies of our nation to the multiplication of the human race, and not to its destruction." The principle of free, unmolested navigation likewise led President Adams to fight the "Quasi War" with France and President Madison to fight the War of 1812 with Britain. There are few foreign policy questions on which the Founding generation was more unanimous.

Avraham Russell Shalev, with the Kohelet Policy Forum in Jerusalem, puts Trump's move to withdraw the U.S. from the WHO in context:

His executive order pointed to the agency's botched response to the Covid-19 pandemic, its troubling susceptibility to Chinese political pressure, and the outsized financial burden it places on American taxpayers. But beyond these high-profile failures lies a quieter, more insidious scandal: the WHO's systematic effort to obscure Hamas's exploitation of hospitals in the Gaza Strip. This travesty demands far louder condemnation.

The evidence of Hamas's commandeering of Gaza's medical infrastructure is overwhelming and beyond dispute. The terrorist organization has transformed hospitals into command centers, weapons stockpiles, and active combat zones — an abuse so blatant it defies denial. Yet, the WHO and its director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, have churned out hundreds of public statements and social-media posts decrying Israel's supposed "assault" on Gaza's health-care system. Ghebreyesus has taken his advocacy to the loftiest stages — the United Nations Security Council, Lebanon, and Qatar — without ever acknowledging the well-documented allegations of Hamas's infiltration.

The WHO clings to a narrative that casts Gaza's hospitals as innocent civilian sanctuaries unjustly targeted by Israeli forces. The WHO went even further and delivered supplies to terrorist headquarters. This isn't mere oversight or diplomatic tiptoeing; it's active complicity in a deadly charade.

Hamas's exploitation of hospitals isn't new — it's a long-standing, grim reality. During the 2009 Israel–Hamas war, the Israel Defense Forces discovered that Hamas had shuttered entire sections of Al-Shifa Hospital, repurposing them as its operational headquarters. Dave Harden, who served as U.S. Agency for International Development mission director in the Palestinian territories, posted in November 2023 that during his tenure in 2014, it was "broadly suspected/understood" that Al-Shifa functioned as Hamas's base of operations. A Dutch journalist went further, claiming to have personally observed Hamas fighters inside the hospital, adding that "everyone in Gaza, including UN staff," was fully aware of its dual purpose. The accounts of released Israeli hostages paint an even bleaker picture. Maya Regev described how Hamas terrorists dragged her to a Gaza hospital, where they tortured her and performed surgery on her leg without anesthetics. Yarden Roman-Gat and Mia Shem both recounted being hidden in and beneath medical facilities during their captivity. British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari reported that her surgeon at Al-Shifa — who introduced himself as "Dr. Hamas" — operated on her without pain relief, a chilling testament to the hospital's true masters.

Last but certainly not least, the new issue of NR is out. You can hit the harder stuff inside the cover, but I'll close out with Ross Douthat's advice for Hollywood in a changing cultural climate:

Let's not talk about Snow White, the Disney artistic dud and box office disappointment. The only interesting thing about the movie is the political conceit that gave it shape, the theory that the American cultural inheritance can be ideologically cannibalized indefinitely, so that a company like Disney can keep getting rich off its own past while making "equity" rather than truth or beauty the measure of all things.

Guess what? It can't. While Snow White was meeting harsh reviews and audience indifference, my New York Times colleague Ezra Klein was interviewing the Democratic pollster David Shor about the 2024 election, and both were marveling at the indicators that young people are moving right, with Gen Z "becoming potentially the most conservative generation that we've experienced maybe in 50 to 60 years."

This is not just a political fact; it's a commercial one as well. Throughout the first Trump presidency, as the Great Awokening rolled over Hollywood, movie big shots could tell themselves that by disappearing potentially problematic tropes and genres (romances in Disney movies, romance generally, traditional male action heroes, broad and potentially offensive comedy, historical dramas with too many white people), they were just pivoting to where the younger generation expected them to be, and keeping themselves viable in the age of endless TikTok and YouTube competition.

But if the younger generation isn't actually defined by its super-progressive elements, if Generation Z is recoiling from the woke maximum, if young men especially are never going to show up for woke cinema, then as of 2025, commercial self-interest should be dictating a real pivot. And certainly Hollywood has executed pivots in the past: You need only contrast 1970s cinema with the movies of the 1980s and 1990s to see how a political vibe shift can alter cultural production.

So, if studio heads had any sense, they would be studying that not-so-distant past. The formulas involved are not very complicated, and don't require some kind of stark return to 1950s values. The Disney renaissance that began with The Little Mermaid, for instance, was achieved through the straightforward idea that you could take traditional fairy tales and adapt them with light-touch rather than heavy-handed modernizations. (Beauty and the Beast, too, managed to give Belle an extra dose of female agency and use its villain to satirize machismo — but all within a still deeply traditional fairy-tale structure.)

CODA

To change things up a bit: Groove into your weekend with this Medeski Martin & Wood track.

Thanks for tuning in. Catch you when I catch you.