 |
|
|
|||||
The old Tesla cant come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, cause shes dead. Over the past few days, a new trend has emerged on TikTok: people are posting their Tesla trade-ins accompanied by the hashtag “ByeTesla” and soundtracked to Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do.” In the videos, the Tesla driver backs out of a driveway as the lyrics play: “I’m sorry, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, ’cause she’s dead.” Cut to a brand-new Rivian R1S, Porsche Macan Electric, or even a GMC Hummer EV SUV as the songs chorus plays: Look what you made me do. @vanessawade_ Bye bye Tesla #tesla #byetesla #cadillacescaladeiq @Cadillac #lookwhatyoumademedo Original Sound – Unknown The best upgrade Ive seen in this trend, one person commented on the video posted by the proud owner of a new Porsche Macan Electric, which retails for $75,300. Talking about an upgrade!!! To go from that cheap built plastic toy car to German engineering is quite the change!! Enjoy! Another user wrote: Never skip a Tesla trade-in video. The new GMC Hummer EV SUV driverwhich starts at about $98,845, compared to the Cybertruck’s starting price of about $99,990wrote in the caption of their trade-in: “Change is GOODwhen your principles/morals are important.” While some called out the cars depreciating value (the driver confirmed in the comments that it’s a lease), others cheered on his commitment to his morals. I never thought Id be cheering for a Hummer purchase, but I have to say ethics make it look great! one person wrote. Ive been saying this whole time imagine having cybertruck money and buying a cybertruck instead of the electric hummer. Approved, another commented. Those participating in the #ByeTesla trend are part of a growing number of consumers who bought Tesla vehicles before Musk took over the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and are now looking to sell or trade them in. Others have resorted to anti-Musk bumper stickers to distance themselves from the billionaire. Thousands of anti-Tesla protesters took to the streets on Saturday, March 29, as part of the broader peaceful protest movement, Tesla Takedown, targeting Tesla dealerships and vehicles in opposition to Musks role as the head of DOGE. Hoping to hit him where it hurtshis estimated $340 billion fortunethe biggest portion of Musks wealth consists of his stock in the electric vehicle company. Musk, however, did not appear concerned about an extended slump in new sales during a recent meeting. Instead, he reassured workers that the companys Model Y would remain the best-selling car on Earth again this year. He also predicted that Tesla will have sold more than 10 million cars worldwide by next year, up from the seven million currently sold. Clearly, he is not taking cues from TikTok.
Category:
E-Commerce
The climate activist group Just Stop Oil (JSO) has announced the end of its campaign of direct action. Many will read the groups legacy through the lens of public hostility: the frustration caused, the angry headlines, the outrage at its tactics. Not only have JSO activists been spat at, physically assaulted and run over by angry car drivers, but 15 members are also currently serving jail sentences following arrests and charges. But the intense backlash directed at JSO is not evidence that its campaign faltered. It is a sign that these activists succeeded in emotionally charging the public debate about climate change. They gave the public something to argue about, react to, even mockand in doing so, made the climate crisis impossible to ignore. The alternative, an apathetic consensus, would entail passively accepting the dominant approach to address the climate crisis. That means market-based solutions, a faith in technological innovation, and incremental policy reforms within existing political and economic systems. These have arguably to date failed, as global temperatures continue to skyrocket. Just Stop Oil climate activists glue themselves to a Van Gogh painting at the Courtauld Gallery on the 30th June 2022 in London, Unted Kingdom. [Photo: Kristian Buus/In Pictures/Getty Images] Through my own research on climate activism, I have studied how environmental protest influences policy, corporate behaviour and financial markets. Activists can stimulate change, but not through rational arguments alone. Change happens by making an emotional splash. It creates antagonism, dissent and tension, which are all needed to enliven public debate. Emotions including anger, fear and guilt play a key role in the ability of activists to create moral urgency and force issues into the spotlight. JSO harnessed this emotional logic not only from supporters, but from critics. Those who dragged protesters off roads, raged in comment sections and professed their hate towards the group were reacting because the group had emotionally triggered them. Like a person who gets under your skin, JSO became very hard to ignore. As business scholars Thomas Davenport and John Beck argue in their book The Attention Economy, in a saturated information landscape, being memorableeven disruptivelyis a strategic advantage. In this sense, JSO hacked this logic by demanding emotional and cognitive attention, whether through support or outrage. Disruptive protests may be unpopular, but they are effective at attracting media attention and public awareness. As many studies suggest, the more illogical or disruptive a protest, the more media coverage it receivesdespite coverage not necessarily translating into more donations and support. Of course, disruption risks alienating some peoplebut that can actually strengthen a movements overall influence. The radical flank effect shows that when radical activists push boundaries, they often make moderate voices in the same movement appear more reasonable. Recent research on JSO found that even when the group provoked public anger, support for moderate organisations such as Friends of the Earth increased. This dynamic reflects what sociologist Thomas Roulet calls The Power of Being Divisive. Being controversial can actually benefit a cause by amplifying its message and deepening support from those already aligned. Polarisation, in this view, is not always harmfulit can be strategically useful. In the case of JSO activists, controversy did not dilute their message. Rather, it intensified its resonance with those already primed to act. Turning emotion into action JSO has also uniquely been able to provide direction for many struggling to navigate climate changes volatile emotional context. As philosopher Glenn A. Albrecht describes in his book Earth Emotions, events such as climate change, mass species extinction and environmental degradation are creating a global emotional crisis, marked by a mix of grief, anxiety and powerlessness. JSO has effectively tapped into this emotional turbulence, turning despair into urgency and action. Its actions can be seen as emotional interventions for a society struggling to process ecological loss. Left undirected, emotions related to conditions such as climate change-related eco-anxiety can lead to paralysisa state of emotional overwhelm that prevents people from taking meaningful action or engaging with the climate problem. But research shows that when movements channel emotionsespecially by transforming fear into shared actionthey build momentum. One study of climate organisers found that protest participation gave people a way to manage despair by reclaiming a sense of purpose and solidarity. A frequent refrain is that the objectives are valid, but the strategies are too extreme. But history shows that disruptive tactics have long played a role in forcing attention to urgent issues. From the suffragettes chaining themselves to railings, to civil rights sit-ins, to ACT UPs dramatic interventions during the Aids crisis disruption has often preceded progress. Movements that are easy to ignore tend to be forgotten. JSO made itself, and its cause, impossible to ignore. JSOs campaign may be over, but the emotional legacy it leaves behindfrustration, urgency and debatewill outlast its tactics. The group exposed a ociety uneasy with the scale of change climate action demands, and showed that public anger is not a threat to activism, but a measure of its impact. If you were angry at them, thats understandabledisruption is inconvenient. But the real question now is where we direct that energy: towards those resisting climate action, or those demanding we seriously do something about it. George Ferns is a senior lecturer in business and society at the University of Bath. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Category:
E-Commerce
President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to overhaul the nation’s elections faced its first legal challenges Monday as the Democratic National Committee and a pair of nonprofits filed two separate lawsuits calling it unconstitutional.The Campaign Legal Center and the State Democracy Defenders Fund brought the first lawsuit Monday afternoon. The DNC, the Democratic Governors Association, and Senate and House Democratic leaders followed soon after with a complaint of their own.Both lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ask the court to block Trump’s order and declare it illegal.“The president’s executive order is an unlawful action that threatens to uproot our tried-and-tested election systems and silence potentially millions of Americans,” said Danielle Lang, senior director of voting rights at the D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center. “It is simply not within the president’s authority to set election rules by executive decree, especially when they would restrict access to voting in this way.”The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.The legal challenges had been expected after election lawyers warned some of Trump’s demands in the order, including a proof-of-citizenship requirement for voter registration and new ballot deadline rules, may violate the U.S. Constitution.The order also asserts power that legal experts say the president doesn’t have over an independent agency. That agency, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, sets voluntary voting system guidelines and maintains the federal voter registration form.The suits come as Congress is considering codifying a proof-of-citizenship requirement for voter registration into law, and as Trump has promised more actions related to elections in the coming weeks.Both the legal challenges draw attention to the Constitution’s “Elections Clause,” which says statesnot the presidentget to decide the “times, places and manner” of how elections are run. That section of the Constitution also gives Congress the power to “make or alter” election regulations, at least for federal office, but it doesn’t mention any presidential authority over election administration.“The Constitution is clear: States set their own rules of the road when it comes to elections, and only Congress has the power to override these laws with respect to federal elections,” said Lang, calling the executive order an “unconstitutional executive overreach.”The lawsuits also argue the president’s order could disenfranchise voters. The nonprofits’ lawsuit names three voter advocacy organizations as plaintiffs that they allege are harmed by Trump’s executive order: the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Secure Families Initiative and the Arizona Students’ Association.The DNC’s lawsuit highlights the role of the government’s controversial cost-cutting arm, the Department of Government Efficiency.It alleges the order’s data-sharing requirements, including instructing DOGE to cross-reference federal data with state voter lists, violate Democrats’ privacy rights and increase the risk that they will be harassed “based on false suspicions that they are not qualified to vote.”“This executive order is an unconstitutional power grab from Donald Trump that attacks vote by mail, gives DOGE sensitive personal information and makes it harder for states to run their own free and fair elections,” reads a statement from the plaintiffs.Trump, one of the top spreaders of election falsehoods, has argued this executive order will secure the vote against illegal voting by noncitizens. Multiple studies and investigations in individual states have shown that noncitizens casting ballots in federal elections, already a felony, is exceedingly rare.Monday’s lawsuits against Trump’s elections order could be followed by more challenges. Other voting rights advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have said they’re considering legal action. Several Democratic state attorneys general have said they are looking closely at the order and suspect it is illegal.Meanwhile, Trump’s order has received praise from the top election officials in some Republican states who say it could inhibit instances of voter fraud and give them access to federal data to better maintain their voter rolls.If courts determine the order can stand, the changes Trump wants are likely to cause some headaches for both election administrators and voters. State election officials, who already have lost some federal cybersecurity assistance, would have to spend time and money to comply with the order, including potentially buying new voting systems and educating voters of the rules.The proof-of-citizenship requirement also could cause confusion or voter disenfranchisement because millions of eligible voting-age Americans do not have the proper documents readily available. In Kansas, which had a proof-of-citizenship requirement for three years before it was overturned, the state’s own expert estimated that almost all the roughly 30,000 people who were prevented from registering to vote during the time it was in effect were U.S. citizens who had been eligible.Monday’s lawsuits are the latest of numerous efforts to fight the flurry of executive actions Trump has taken during the first months of his second term. Federal judges have partially or fully blocked many of them, including efforts to restrict birthright citizenship, ban transgender people from military service and curb diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives among federal contractors and grant recipients. The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about the AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Ali Swenson, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||