Donald Trump’s attempts at “fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past” have a chance to succeed — by spurring the very sort of “revisionist movement” he denounces in his March 27 executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”

Not that Trump’s “solemn and uplifting public monuments” will engender much high-mindedness among the American public, even though they will surely avoid quoting from Fart Proudly: Writings of Benjamin Franklin You Never Read in School. And Trump’s trumpeting of America’s “unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing” is at odds with his 2017 inaugural address describing a country in which heretofore “there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land,” since “for too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.”

But the administration’s very heavy-handedness might make Americans think twice about what they think they know about their history.  On April 2, New York Times contributor David W. Blight insisted that what Trump dubs a “revisionist” approach is necessary to “maintain relevance,” and that “many Americans … actually prefer complexity to patriotic straitjackets.”

The newspaper wasn’t always so charitable to the revisionists.  In 2007, Howard Zinn responded to Walter Kirn calling his A Young People’s History of the United States less devoted to “telling the truth” than “editing and motivating” in The New York Times Book Review with a letter to the editor insisting that “there is no such thing as a single ‘objective’ truth” independent of “the viewpoint of the historian.”  This year, a contribution by Jeet Heer discerned “a proto-Trumpian politics” in Murray Rothbard viewing America’s rules as “a sham that ripped off ordinary citizens” (“Why We Got Kash Patel and a ‘Gangster Government’,” January 30).

Yet the Rothbard who Heer sees as yearning for rule by real-life equivalents of “the mobster antiheroes of the ‘Godfather’ movies” had no use for the not-so-little “Caesar in the White House” who imposed wage and price controls in his 1971 Times op-ed “The President’s Economic Betrayal,” or Nixonian Republicans who “have forgotten their free enterprise rhetoric and are willing to join in the patriotic hoopla.”

In contrast, the February 1976 issue of Rothbard’s The Libertarian Forum lauded “the Revisionist, even if he is not a libertarian personally” since “to penetrate the fog of lies and deception of the State and its Court Intellectuals” is “a vitally important libertarian service.”

“Fights between individuals, as well as governments and nations”  Nikola Tesla wrote in 1905, “invariably result from misunderstandings in the broadest interpretation of this term. Misunderstandings are always caused by the inability of appreciating one another’s point of view.”

The quote strikes me as apt and applicable to the recent wave of vandalism, arson, etc. against the cars named for the man.  There’s a lot of misunderstanding involved, and  Elon Musk, owner of Tesla, Inc., correctly addresses the matter:

“That’s somebody else’s car. Leave it alone.”

You may not like Elon Musk very much, and I won’t try to convince you that your dislike isn’t justified.

He became one of the richest men — some say THE richest —  on Earth in large part due to his keen eye for corporate welfare opportunities. Even if you’ve never bought one of his products, you’ve been paying him with your tax dollars for years.

Now he’s wormed his way into a direct government role, taking a fire ax to programs and institutions you may consider good or even necessary through the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) while, unsurprisingly, his own take from the government till seems to be increasing rather than decreasing.

If you don’t like Musk, you can and should avoid buying/using the products and services he offers: Not just Tesla’s vehicles, but social media platform X (formerly Twitter) and Internet Service Provider Starlink.

You might also do what you can (very little, I’m sorry to say) to oppose his corporate welfare take via government contracts for SpaceX, tax credits for purchases of Tesla vehicles, etc.

What you shouldn’t do, because it’s both wrong and stupid, is vandalize or destroy any of the more than 4 million Tesla vehicles currently on the road worldwide.

Why it’s wrong: They’re not yours.

Other people bought them. Other people own them. Even if vandalizing or destroying Musk’s property is a reasonable form of self-expression (it isn’t), vandalizing or destroying the property of someone who’s never done you any harm, just because they once bought something from Elon Musk, isn’t.

Why it’s stupid: Setting someone else’s Model 3 or Cybertruck on fire won’t stop Musk from doing things you dislike. In fact, it may actually help him continue doing things you dislike.

US president Donald Trump has already slapped the label “terrorism” on such vandalism. That probably presages yet another welfare revenue stream for Musk in the form of making Tesla’s in-house insurance company whole for any claims arising from the attacks.

Trump’s “base” is already turning out at Tesla dealerships to counter anti-Musk protesters … and maybe buy one of his cars.

The silliness of keying, crashing into, or burning someone else’s Tesla lets Musk run the perennial Trumpian play: Using other people’s misfortune to paint himself as “the victim.” He can probably ride that self-serving whine all the way to the financial and political bank.

Even if acting in a counterproductive manner doesn’t bother you, being wrong when Musk is right should. That’s somebody else’s car. Leave it alone.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Since Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration on January 20, the news cycle keeps coming back around to two questions.

Every time Trump issues, or federal agencies attempt to implement, an unconstitutional executive order — one or both of which happen on a near-daily basis — journalists and pundits want to know:

First, will the courts order a halt to the executive branch’s latest   roughshod running over of the US Constitution?

Second, if the courts do so rule, will the administration comply with those rulings?

I find that line of questioning rather odd, since history’s already answered it for us many times over the Constitution’s 230-odd years of supposed rule.

The answer to both questions is “maybe, maybe not.”

American government — legislative, executive, and judicial branches alike — point to the Constitution when it supports their desires and ignores it when it thwarts those desires.

The Supreme Court in particular boasts a long record of changing its mind, reinterpreting the Constitution’s usually fairly clear commands based on deference to both popular opinion and the immediate goals of the other two branches, rendering the interpretation of law most favorable to government actors even in contradiction to that law’s own text, and hiding in chambers when its occasional ruling the other way gets ignored or “worked around.”

We need look no further back than March 26 for an example of how well we can expect the Constitution to fare versus when the Supreme Court weighs its requirements against executive edicts contradicting those requirements.

In Vanderstok v. Bondi (formerly Vanderstok v. Garland — Trump’s appointee to the office of US Attorney General took the case over from Biden’s), the court ruled that:

1. A rogue federal agency (the  US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) may
2. Apply an unconstitutional federal law (the Gun Control Act of 1968) to
3. Objects which that law’s text does not cover and never has covered.

The objects at issue are “ghost gun” kits. They’re not guns. They’re just collections of parts that, with some work and possibly additional components, can be made into guns.

The text of the GCA didn’t cover “ghost gun” kits and, as Justice Neil Gorsuch openly admits in the majority ruling, had no reason to: “[T]he milling equipment, materials needed, and designs were far too expensive for individuals to make firearms practically or reliably on their own.”

Beyond magically reinterpreting the text, meaning, and intent of the GCA, the court also just ignored the plain language, and the clear and unambiguous meaning, of the Second Amendment: “[T]he right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

In noting that it refers to “a right of the people,” the Constitution’s proscription applies not just to the federal government and all its agencies, but to state and local governments as well.

In addition to being stupid and evil, “gun control” legislation, of any kind, at any level of government, violates the “Supreme Law of the Land.” Period.

Don’t expect the courts to protect your rights. They quit that job long ago.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY