Americans are losing their vote under a Supreme Court decision that attempts to remove democracy in favor of a monarchy with a loyalty test.
Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the nonpartisan Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which led one of the challenges, told ABC News, “None of this activity is random. It’s all highly orchestrated, but it’s also orchestrated with a purpose.”
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to issue an emergency stay to block the reinstatement of voters removed from the rolls.
[…]
She cast her first ballot for Barack Obama. A big surprise recently arrived in the mail; a letter from election officials told Martin, 37, her voter registration had been canceled because she’s a noncitizen. Martin, a lifelong Virginian, was baffled. “I was confused, to be honest. I was born and raised in Woodbridge, Virginia, so, you’ve got everything about me and now you’re saying that I’m an alien.”
Reinstatement of voters was ordered by lower courts, which had reasoned correctly that purging lifelong Americans illegally wasn’t… wait for it… legal.
It’s not an accident that this Supreme Court, setup by Russian-backed monarchists, would instead slide towards anti-democratic monarchism.
That has been a strategy since at least 2014, and a replay of heated American political fervor from the early 1800s. Old fizzures in the American political fabric are under intense foreign-backed pressure today.
Russia wants either a dictator or civil war, and thus has ordered its network of billionaires to pull out all the stops and destroy American democracy.
This analysis examines how Tesla and its CEO employ Cold War-era propaganda techniques to potentially undermine American democratic institutions, viewed through the lens of Karl Popper’s paradox of tolerance. The evidence suggests concerning parallels between historical authoritarian technological messaging and current corporate practices that may pose significant national security risks.
Tesla’s deployment of technological theater—particularly in its Robovan and autonomous vehicle programs—bears striking similarities to Cold War-era psychological operations designed to project technological superiority. Consider the historical precedent of robotic transit technology projected by America during the Cold War:
A 1950s demo of a “Robovan” concept that has since been delivered worldwide, known instead as an electric “Tram” service of major cities. Anyone who has flown into Dallas, Atlanta or Newark may recognize this particular “Robovan” design.
The historical context is crucial. Silicon Valley emerged from Department of Defense initiatives, particularly following the devastating losses during operations like the 1943 Schweinfurt raid. Transportation systems became a key ideological battleground, as documented in Berlin’s tram network history:
When Berlin was divided, the tramway was also split in twain. The West side was managed by BVG-West and the East side by BVG-Ost, later renamed the VEB Kombinat Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVB). The ideological differences between the two regimes were soon manifested on the tramway: before the city was split, women had been allowed to drive trams, albeit mostly during World War I and World War II during labor shortages. But in Fighting the Cold War in Post-Blockade, Pre-Wall Berlin, Mark Fenemore notes that women in West Berlin were banned from driving trams, as well as trains and buses, due to “medical rules.” As a result, authorities on the western side refused to allow a tram driven by a woman to cross into their sectors, and would “[make] the tram wait until a man replacement driver arrived.” In January 1953, large-scale prohibition of women tram drivers coming into West Berlin went into effect. As a result, one woman who was driving a tram was stopped at gun point and told to go back to the east.
This historical precedent of using transportation technology as an ideological battleground finds modern echoes in Tesla’s operations. Consider the 1959 RCA demonstrations, where technological promises served as anti-Soviet propaganda:
Source: November 1959 Mechanix Illustrated, “HOW RCA IS PLANNING YOUR WORLD OF TOMORROW” By James C. G. Conniff
All of these electronic miracles are in existence. They are products of the David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, N. J., and scientists of the Radio Corporation of America are working today to make them available to you tomorrow. Let’s examine the automated house and its amazing Home Electronic Center, which consists of a miniaturized system of all-electronic mechanisms already lab-tested at Princeton. […] RCA engineers call this wonder system the Home Electronic Center Kid, or HECK. […] These are just some of the electronic miracles that you will live to see. They are in the labs today. They will be in your home tomorrow.
Parallels between this historical propaganda and Tesla’s current practices are alarming. Both use grandiose promises of future technology to manipulate public perception and potentially mask deeper political agendas. Moreover, the underlying misogyny present in a 1959 demonstration finds clear echoes in Tesla culture, where women are often marginalized or objectified by a CEO who repeatedly refers to them as “birthing” systems to replenish the white race (e.g. 1943 beheading of Sophie Scholl). This 1959 “Robovac” promotional video literally ends by saying women don’t want to work.
Tesla’s modern incarnation of this strategy is particularly evident in its Robovan concept:
The odd concept for a Tesla electric tram, this militant-styled “cattle car” seems more aligned to becoming a VBIED or troop transport (no exposure, no windows) for assault/extraction than something deserving of the term “van”.
The design’s striking similarity to historical authoritarian transport concepts raises serious security concerns, especially when viewed alongside Tesla’s pattern of unfulfilled technological promises. Since 2016, CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly promised coast-to-coast autonomous driving capabilities, as evidenced in this statement to TechCrunch:
Our goal is, and I feel pretty good about this goal, that we’ll be able to do a demonstration drive of full autonomy all the way from LA to New York, from home in LA to dropping you off in Times Square in New York, and then having the car go park itself, by the end of next year [in 2017]. Without the need for a single touch, including the charger.
The security implications become more acute when considering potential foreign influence. The Robovan’s design bears concerning similarities to the Nazi Breitspurbahn initiative of 1942:
Of particular concern is the possibility that extremist elements within the government may be using Tesla as a vehicle for advancing anti-democratic agendas while evading traditional oversight mechanisms. SpaceX, like Tesla, allegedly may have had Musk as a cover story under a federally funded strategy beneath his antics and outside the accountability of government agencies. The company’s extensive track record of delivering the least safe vehicles while promising the safest, combined with its CEO’s troubling pattern of promoting extremist symbolism, raises serious questions about underlying motivations and potential threats to national security.
Recommendations
1. Implement enhanced oversight mechanisms for technology companies with significant government contracts, particularly those involved in transportation infrastructure.
2. Develop new frameworks for evaluating technological claims against historical propaganda patterns.
3. Strengthen counterintelligence capabilities focused on identifying and mitigating corporate technological theatre that may mask national security threats.
4. Establish robust accountability measures for companies receiving government funds while engaging in public deception campaigns.
The synthesis of historical Cold War propaganda techniques with modern corporate practices presents a unique challenge to national security infrastructure. As technology companies increasingly influence critical systems and public perception, understanding these historical parallels becomes crucial for maintaining democratic institutions and national security integrity.
“Rerum cognoscere causas” – to know the causes of things, taken from Book 2 of Virgil’s Georgics poetry. The full quotation is “Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas”.
Big news news from my alma mater. Sources say the award ceremony was delayed by three hours of LSE professors arguing about the best algorithm to determine the most efficient way to accept the trophy:
The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide has ranked LSE as the top university in the UK and named the School as its ‘University of the Year 2025’. This is the first time the Good University Guide has awarded LSE the prestigious ‘University of the Year’ title, and the first time we have been ranked number one in the country. […] This fantastic result follows other high rankings in university league tables over the last year. In September 2024, The Guardian placed LSE as the top university in London, and as the best place to study Accounting and Finance. Likewise, the Complete University Guide 2025 named the School as the number one university in the capital.
LSE students are reportedly “cautiously optimistic” about the news, as they’re still trying to calculate the long-term societal and economic impact of celebrating rankings. LSE’s Director, beaming with indignation, announced, “This recognition validates our long-standing belief that if you can’t measure it, it doesn’t matter. And if you can measure it… why? We look forward to quantifying this award in terms of social good. We’re thrilled, of course, but we need to consider the opportunity cost of joy.”
In a final stroke of genius, the LSE administration has decided to commemorate this achievement by commissioning a statue of a giant invisible hand.
Meanwhile, well-appointed representatives from Oxford and Cambridge were spotted in a corner, drowning their sorrows in spiked lukewarm tea. Overheard mutterings included phrases like “patronage failure” and “maybe unresolved bad legacy is bad,” suggesting a dawning realization that rowing prowess and ancient stone blocks carved to resemble elephantine profits from colonialism might not be the best metrics for educational excellence in the 21st century. An anonymous don was heard lamenting, “Perhaps we should have focused more on direct and honest economic models and less on which tie to wear for dinner.”
…the state is targeting vehicles that do not meet FMVSS, with a focus on vehicles the state identifies to be in the Kei class. The RMV identifies a Kei vehicle through the above list and through a short VIN. The state’s logic is that this will be for safety since a Kei vehicle is not built to FMVSS.
I’m sure you can see the problem here. Not only does the above list include vehicles outside of the Kei class, but the state doesn’t seem to be aware that short VINs are not limited to Kei vehicles. A large Nissan Civilian bus will have a short VIN, as would a Toyota Century. I asked Natasha about how the state will interpret short VINs and she told me that they will be applied only to vehicles believed to be in the Kei class with a short VIN. The state is not looking to deny registration to vehicles imported from other countries, either. So, you could import a Japanese car that was sold in Europe and the state wouldn’t care. But that same car from Japan would be a problem.
Notably, states have the authority to ban cars, and they do so based on claims of adhering to federal safety rules. Here’s the clever part: States say they are following federal guidelines, while the federal government claims it’s up to the states. This creates a situation where actual inexpensive, intelligent, and safe cars—vehicles with a history of minimal or no harms—are banned under the pretense of safety, even though the real reason has nothing at all to do with actual safety.
Fun history fact. An initial popular Kei car (keijidosha — light vehicle) in Japan was a U.S. occupation-managed 1947 Tama EV, which sported hot-swap battery bay doors that would still be considered advanced technology.
Nissan’s car making origin story is this E4S-47i (Electric 4 Seater of 1947 initially) with rapid battery replacement on both sides. Top speed was 35km/h.
Americans clearly want smaller, more affordable cars, but the major car brands loathe the low margins those cars bring. Instead, they manipulate the system to ensure their higher-margin, larger vehicles dominate the market. The result? Larger vehicles threaten safety, creating a race to excess that defies common sense. Political and corporate interference blocks sane, practical engineering that could improve the quality of life for Americans.
One absurdity in these regulations is the enforcement of a 35 mph speed limit on small cars. This rule is a relic from the 1990s [1], when American car manufacturers exploited low-emission laws by arguing that electric golf carts should count as full cars within their “low emissions” fleet. They imposed a federal 35 mph cap on these vehicles, preventing their widespread use as actual cars. Essentially, they used the low emissions credit to pad their numbers for environmental compliance while continuing to profit from selling higher-margin, gas-guzzling vehicles.
Tesla has merely replaced this golf cart strategy with a new loophole. Instead of golf carts, Tesla sells “clean” credits [2], allowing companies like Stellantis to continue producing massive, polluting vehicles. Worse yet, Tesla’s cars—unnecessarily fast, overpowered electric vehicles often charged using electricity from coal and diesel plants—are marketed as environmental solutions when, in fact, they enable continued environmental damage. Tesla profits from selling credits that fuel the production of gas guzzlers, allowing corporate giants to dodge real emissions reduction, all under a fraudulent “green” banner.
This has led to the worst of both worlds becoming the American standard: inefficient, dangerous cars flooding the market while genuinely affordable, safe, and environmentally sound alternatives are banned.
And then, we come to Tesla’s Cybertruck—the culmination of all these systemic problems. It’s not only a symbol of excess, but also the worst vehicle in history, riddled with basic safety flaws and involved in a string of tragedies.
Despite its glaring design issues and its threat to public safety, it’s not even being considered for a formal ban. The irony is palpable: the vehicles most deserving of being kept off the roads, like the Cybertruck, sail through without much resistance. It’s a bizarre and dangerous reality when a vehicle as inherently unsafe as the Cybertruck is left unchecked.
To draw a parallel: If this were about diet, it would be like banning fresh organic vegetables for being “too dirty” while subsidizing corporations that sell cancer-causing lumps of coal as fast food.
[1] The 25 mph speed limit for small electric vehicles, like Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs) and Low-Speed Vehicles (LSVs), originated in part from America’s Clean Air Act and low-emission regulations in the 1990s. Automakers used bogus concepts of NEVs and similar vehicles to sponge up credits toward their environmental compliance targets, primarily by buying golf carts and abruptly classifying them as part of an overall vehicle fleet. The speed cap was a cynical ploy for manufacturers to fulfill low-emission quotas without having to do any actual work on their production of gas-powered vehicles. They continued selling larger, high-margin gasoline-powered models while falsely claiming they were making strides toward emissions reduction. The NEVs were shamelessly marketed for “local use” (such as fleet sales to private campuses, with no benefit to urban areas or public roads) by forcing them to stay under speed limits of 35 mph or lower with federal regulations. The baked-in limitation of these “special” fleet numbers prevented adoption of actual widespread urban alternatives to conventional cars.
[2] Tesla has been leveraging the sale of regulatory credits to generate significant revenue, benefiting from emissions credits sold to other automakers who fail to meet strict emissions targets. Tesla made nearly $9 billion by selling these credits (arguably its primary income), particularly to companies like Stellantis, allowing entrenched “gas guzzler” models to avoid fines while continuing to produce high-emissions. This predatory model by Tesla intentionally delayed serious efforts to cut emissions by misrepresenting “clean” credit sales. Tesla itself, fraudulently promoting its vehicles as an environmental solution, has faced not enough scrutiny for how it prefers electricity generated from coal or diesel plants, and how it lied to reduce sales of more popular and environmental EV models (e.g. Nissan LEAF, Chevy Bolt). The anti-science dynamic has raised concerns about the corruption and effectiveness of current regulations in genuinely reducing global emissions, since Tesla’s stock is based on propping up the continued production of large, gas-guzzling vehicles while aggressively undermining other brands’ meaningful reductions in pollution (e.g. lying about safety, lying about range).
a blog about the poetry of information security, since 1995
