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The rise of the so-called New Democrats, which began under President Bill Clinton, was accompanied by overt hostility to the progressive left.
In 2013, President Obama, speaking at a fundraiser in Medina, Washington -- home to a small community of wealthy donors -- expressed a sentiment that has become all too common among Democratic Party liberals.
In 2013, President Obama, speaking at a fundraiser in Medina, Washington -- home to a small community of wealthy donors -- expressed a sentiment that has become all too common among Democratic Party liberals.
"I'm not a particularly ideological person," the president said in a reassuring nod to those made anxious by Republican hysteria, suggesting that Obama, despite his calm exterior, is, in fact, a raving revolutionary.
While not particularly remarkable, given the current temperament of the Democratic Party, Obama's casual, throwaway line is rather instructive: It describes quite well the shifting foundations of American liberalism.
Liberalism has become a political framework that, as Emmett Rensin has written, "insists it has no ideology at all, only facts. No moral convictions, only charts, the kind that keeps them from 'imposing their morals' as the bad guys do."
Since Bill Clinton's presidency, Democrats have become increasingly anti-ideological (in word), opting instead for an approach cloaked in the garb of objectivity and pragmatism: No longer, for instance, would liberals favor labor over business in principle.
Simultaneously, however, despite liberals' professed disdain for political doctrines, a new ideology arose in place of the New Deal tradition, an ideology that would ultimately infect both of America's major political parties: neoliberalism.
With the rise of neoliberalism came an aversion to the left's politics and projects, including its persistent support for the working class, its focus on rising income inequality, and its opposition to the entrenched free market consensus.
Bill Clinton, the embodiment of neoliberalism's rise to prominence, insisted that it was necessary to end "the era of big government" and embrace the "third way," a path that would smoothly navigate between the competing visions of conservatism and pro-labor progressivism, with the ostensible goal of transcending partisan squabbles altogether.
Riding the tide of an evolving Democratic Party, liberals came to embrace the riches of corporate sponsorship, abandoning, as a result, the party's working-class base.
And while many on the left were enthusiastic about the election of Barack Obama, he has insisted all along that he, himself, is no leftist -- no break from the trends set into motion by Bill Clinton. Rather, as he noted in 2009, he falls firmly in the camp of the neoliberals.
"I am a New Democrat," President Obama declared, a statement that should have done away with any illusions, still harbored by some, that the president is a leftist at heart -- that is if some of his key appointments had failed to do away with them already.
Although the Democratic Party -- the vehicle through which the left forced many important reforms throughout the 20th century -- has continued its rightward drift, the left has refused to go away. And in the face of intolerable income inequality, some of the left's core messages are hitting home.
When Bernie Sanders entered the scene in April of last year, his candidacy was widely dismissed. Everyone knew Hillary Clinton was already the nominee—despite the crucial fact that no one had cast a ballot.
At the end of the process, however, the picture looks nothing like analysts predicted it would: Though Hillary Clinton has effectively won the Democratic nomination, Sanders, that obscure democratic socialist from the small state of Vermont, far outperformed anyone's expectations, winning 22 states and sparking a movement that will set out to continue far beyond this race.
Yet despite the support he has garnered and the enthusiasm his campaign has generated among both new voters and longtime Democrats, from the beginning, Sanders faced near-total opposition from the Democratic establishment -- including politicians, top Democratic donors, and major media outlets.
"The elite freeze-out of Bernie Sanders," writes Matt Karp, "is without parallel in modern party history."
This opposition (in contrast with overall public opinion of Sanders, which is favorable) has not been due to animus toward Sanders, personally -- rather, it sprang from the Democratic Party's disdain for the left, for the ideas that the Sanders campaign has pushed on the national stage for more than a year.
The Democratic Party often purports to fight for the issues the left holds dear—a higher minimum wage, universal healthcare, a robust labor movement, and more democratic politics (namely, by removing corporate interests from the political process).
But as we have seen over the past several decades, this is a facade.
Democrats did not merely stand by and watch as Republicans destroyed welfare, deregulated Wall Street, and passed disastrous trade deals: They have been at the front fighting, with impressive enthusiasm, for the interests of corporate America and against the interests of those they claim to support.
President Obama has carried the baton with his endorsement of and aggressive lobbying for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement that, if passed, would grant corporations unprecedented power and influence.
Though her rhetoric has shifted drastically in the face of pressure from her left, Hillary Clinton represents more of the same -- another self-styled progressive whose campaign is heavily bankrolled by some of America's largest financial institutions and whose agenda focuses almost entirely on tempering the expectations and ambitions of Democratic voters rather than pushing them upward.
Though Clinton has attempted to position herself as a pragmatist, she has repeatedly demonstrated that her deep commitment to pragmatism is really a lack of commitment to progressive causes -- a lack of commitment that applies to the Democratic Party, broadly.
Bernie Sanders's campaign has exposed this reality. As Matt Karp argues, "The Sanders campaign has offered a valuable reminder of how few professional Democrats are willing to fight for a social-democratic platform -- and how many are eager to fight against it."
Sanders, by aggressively fighting for progressive causes, has pushed liberal hypocrisy out into the open.
Hillary Clinton has frequently touted her history of fighting for universal healthcare. But when confronted by a candidate who brings an ambitious proposal to the national stage -- a proposal supported by most Americans -- Clinton turns her back, insisting that it will "never, ever come to pass."
Barney Frank has long been an outspoken opponent of America's corrupt campaign finance system. Today, he equates criticism of Hillary Clinton's fundraising with McCarthyism.
The media has followed suit: The Washington Post has run article after article criticizing Sanders for running a campaign that cynically preys on the hopes of the masses. The New York Times, replete with voices similar to that of Paul Krugman -- who has offered take after take lamenting that Sanders just isn't very serious and that no serious person supports his agenda -- and Vox have fallen in line behind the liberal consensus, as well.
Not content to attack Sanders's platform, liberals have also, on many occasions, expressed utter contempt for his supporters, often pushing some version of the narrative that falsely characterizes backers of the Vermont senator as racist, sexist, "Bernie bros."
(They forget, of course, that in doing so, they, as Wendi Muse observes, erase from view the people of color and women among Sanders's supporters.)
One commentator anticipates the day when Democrats can finally shed the mask of progressivism and "gleefully and comprehensively trash" those who dared to back a democratic socialist for president of the United States.
High-ranking Democrats have been further angered by the idea that Sanders would actually hold to his promise to remain in the race through the Democratic convention to continue pushing his ideas and keep pressure on the wavering establishment.
Because Sanders has remained consistent in his denunciations of "establishment politics and establishment economics," Democrats have undergone a much-needed period of intense scrutiny from their left, from a movement that embodies the mass politics they long ago abandoned.
But as Matt Taibbi notes, they are likely to miss -- or disregard -- all of the lessons that could have been learned.
These lessons, if taken to heart, could prove significant for millions of Americans who are being crushed by a political system (and thus an economy) that answers predominantly to the desires of the few.
The party apparatus has been resilient, however, and elite liberals have fervently resisted the suggestion that the Sanders agenda could meaningfully influence the party's platform.
However, as Taibbi writes, "This inability to grasp that the problem is bigger than Bernie Sanders is a huge red flag."
Progressives are, in many ways, winning the war of ideas. Democrats have closed their eyes to this reality, seemingly content to believe that neoliberalism, with a view to adjustments, is adequate to address the problems we face. It's not.
As Lily Geismer has written, "A party without a working-class core can't be expected to improve the prospects of the working class."
Instead of devoting their efforts to a party that has lost its way, many are voting with their feet, demanding a $15 minimum wage, universal healthcare, tuition-free public college, an end to corporate-negotiated "trade" pacts, and a crackdown on Wall Street fraudsters.
Democrats have been slow to respond -- and quick to attack those on their left who offer ambitious solutions.
On the other hand, Democrats have been quick to recognize the blindingly obvious collapse of the Republican Party. But if they don't soon confront the deep flaws and extensive failures permeating their party, they may soon look back, as Republicans are today, asking what went wrong.
And the left will be there to answer the question.
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
In 2013, President Obama, speaking at a fundraiser in Medina, Washington -- home to a small community of wealthy donors -- expressed a sentiment that has become all too common among Democratic Party liberals.
"I'm not a particularly ideological person," the president said in a reassuring nod to those made anxious by Republican hysteria, suggesting that Obama, despite his calm exterior, is, in fact, a raving revolutionary.
While not particularly remarkable, given the current temperament of the Democratic Party, Obama's casual, throwaway line is rather instructive: It describes quite well the shifting foundations of American liberalism.
Liberalism has become a political framework that, as Emmett Rensin has written, "insists it has no ideology at all, only facts. No moral convictions, only charts, the kind that keeps them from 'imposing their morals' as the bad guys do."
Since Bill Clinton's presidency, Democrats have become increasingly anti-ideological (in word), opting instead for an approach cloaked in the garb of objectivity and pragmatism: No longer, for instance, would liberals favor labor over business in principle.
Simultaneously, however, despite liberals' professed disdain for political doctrines, a new ideology arose in place of the New Deal tradition, an ideology that would ultimately infect both of America's major political parties: neoliberalism.
With the rise of neoliberalism came an aversion to the left's politics and projects, including its persistent support for the working class, its focus on rising income inequality, and its opposition to the entrenched free market consensus.
Bill Clinton, the embodiment of neoliberalism's rise to prominence, insisted that it was necessary to end "the era of big government" and embrace the "third way," a path that would smoothly navigate between the competing visions of conservatism and pro-labor progressivism, with the ostensible goal of transcending partisan squabbles altogether.
Riding the tide of an evolving Democratic Party, liberals came to embrace the riches of corporate sponsorship, abandoning, as a result, the party's working-class base.
And while many on the left were enthusiastic about the election of Barack Obama, he has insisted all along that he, himself, is no leftist -- no break from the trends set into motion by Bill Clinton. Rather, as he noted in 2009, he falls firmly in the camp of the neoliberals.
"I am a New Democrat," President Obama declared, a statement that should have done away with any illusions, still harbored by some, that the president is a leftist at heart -- that is if some of his key appointments had failed to do away with them already.
Although the Democratic Party -- the vehicle through which the left forced many important reforms throughout the 20th century -- has continued its rightward drift, the left has refused to go away. And in the face of intolerable income inequality, some of the left's core messages are hitting home.
When Bernie Sanders entered the scene in April of last year, his candidacy was widely dismissed. Everyone knew Hillary Clinton was already the nominee—despite the crucial fact that no one had cast a ballot.
At the end of the process, however, the picture looks nothing like analysts predicted it would: Though Hillary Clinton has effectively won the Democratic nomination, Sanders, that obscure democratic socialist from the small state of Vermont, far outperformed anyone's expectations, winning 22 states and sparking a movement that will set out to continue far beyond this race.
Yet despite the support he has garnered and the enthusiasm his campaign has generated among both new voters and longtime Democrats, from the beginning, Sanders faced near-total opposition from the Democratic establishment -- including politicians, top Democratic donors, and major media outlets.
"The elite freeze-out of Bernie Sanders," writes Matt Karp, "is without parallel in modern party history."
This opposition (in contrast with overall public opinion of Sanders, which is favorable) has not been due to animus toward Sanders, personally -- rather, it sprang from the Democratic Party's disdain for the left, for the ideas that the Sanders campaign has pushed on the national stage for more than a year.
The Democratic Party often purports to fight for the issues the left holds dear—a higher minimum wage, universal healthcare, a robust labor movement, and more democratic politics (namely, by removing corporate interests from the political process).
But as we have seen over the past several decades, this is a facade.
Democrats did not merely stand by and watch as Republicans destroyed welfare, deregulated Wall Street, and passed disastrous trade deals: They have been at the front fighting, with impressive enthusiasm, for the interests of corporate America and against the interests of those they claim to support.
President Obama has carried the baton with his endorsement of and aggressive lobbying for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement that, if passed, would grant corporations unprecedented power and influence.
Though her rhetoric has shifted drastically in the face of pressure from her left, Hillary Clinton represents more of the same -- another self-styled progressive whose campaign is heavily bankrolled by some of America's largest financial institutions and whose agenda focuses almost entirely on tempering the expectations and ambitions of Democratic voters rather than pushing them upward.
Though Clinton has attempted to position herself as a pragmatist, she has repeatedly demonstrated that her deep commitment to pragmatism is really a lack of commitment to progressive causes -- a lack of commitment that applies to the Democratic Party, broadly.
Bernie Sanders's campaign has exposed this reality. As Matt Karp argues, "The Sanders campaign has offered a valuable reminder of how few professional Democrats are willing to fight for a social-democratic platform -- and how many are eager to fight against it."
Sanders, by aggressively fighting for progressive causes, has pushed liberal hypocrisy out into the open.
Hillary Clinton has frequently touted her history of fighting for universal healthcare. But when confronted by a candidate who brings an ambitious proposal to the national stage -- a proposal supported by most Americans -- Clinton turns her back, insisting that it will "never, ever come to pass."
Barney Frank has long been an outspoken opponent of America's corrupt campaign finance system. Today, he equates criticism of Hillary Clinton's fundraising with McCarthyism.
The media has followed suit: The Washington Post has run article after article criticizing Sanders for running a campaign that cynically preys on the hopes of the masses. The New York Times, replete with voices similar to that of Paul Krugman -- who has offered take after take lamenting that Sanders just isn't very serious and that no serious person supports his agenda -- and Vox have fallen in line behind the liberal consensus, as well.
Not content to attack Sanders's platform, liberals have also, on many occasions, expressed utter contempt for his supporters, often pushing some version of the narrative that falsely characterizes backers of the Vermont senator as racist, sexist, "Bernie bros."
(They forget, of course, that in doing so, they, as Wendi Muse observes, erase from view the people of color and women among Sanders's supporters.)
One commentator anticipates the day when Democrats can finally shed the mask of progressivism and "gleefully and comprehensively trash" those who dared to back a democratic socialist for president of the United States.
High-ranking Democrats have been further angered by the idea that Sanders would actually hold to his promise to remain in the race through the Democratic convention to continue pushing his ideas and keep pressure on the wavering establishment.
Because Sanders has remained consistent in his denunciations of "establishment politics and establishment economics," Democrats have undergone a much-needed period of intense scrutiny from their left, from a movement that embodies the mass politics they long ago abandoned.
But as Matt Taibbi notes, they are likely to miss -- or disregard -- all of the lessons that could have been learned.
These lessons, if taken to heart, could prove significant for millions of Americans who are being crushed by a political system (and thus an economy) that answers predominantly to the desires of the few.
The party apparatus has been resilient, however, and elite liberals have fervently resisted the suggestion that the Sanders agenda could meaningfully influence the party's platform.
However, as Taibbi writes, "This inability to grasp that the problem is bigger than Bernie Sanders is a huge red flag."
Progressives are, in many ways, winning the war of ideas. Democrats have closed their eyes to this reality, seemingly content to believe that neoliberalism, with a view to adjustments, is adequate to address the problems we face. It's not.
As Lily Geismer has written, "A party without a working-class core can't be expected to improve the prospects of the working class."
Instead of devoting their efforts to a party that has lost its way, many are voting with their feet, demanding a $15 minimum wage, universal healthcare, tuition-free public college, an end to corporate-negotiated "trade" pacts, and a crackdown on Wall Street fraudsters.
Democrats have been slow to respond -- and quick to attack those on their left who offer ambitious solutions.
On the other hand, Democrats have been quick to recognize the blindingly obvious collapse of the Republican Party. But if they don't soon confront the deep flaws and extensive failures permeating their party, they may soon look back, as Republicans are today, asking what went wrong.
And the left will be there to answer the question.
In 2013, President Obama, speaking at a fundraiser in Medina, Washington -- home to a small community of wealthy donors -- expressed a sentiment that has become all too common among Democratic Party liberals.
"I'm not a particularly ideological person," the president said in a reassuring nod to those made anxious by Republican hysteria, suggesting that Obama, despite his calm exterior, is, in fact, a raving revolutionary.
While not particularly remarkable, given the current temperament of the Democratic Party, Obama's casual, throwaway line is rather instructive: It describes quite well the shifting foundations of American liberalism.
Liberalism has become a political framework that, as Emmett Rensin has written, "insists it has no ideology at all, only facts. No moral convictions, only charts, the kind that keeps them from 'imposing their morals' as the bad guys do."
Since Bill Clinton's presidency, Democrats have become increasingly anti-ideological (in word), opting instead for an approach cloaked in the garb of objectivity and pragmatism: No longer, for instance, would liberals favor labor over business in principle.
Simultaneously, however, despite liberals' professed disdain for political doctrines, a new ideology arose in place of the New Deal tradition, an ideology that would ultimately infect both of America's major political parties: neoliberalism.
With the rise of neoliberalism came an aversion to the left's politics and projects, including its persistent support for the working class, its focus on rising income inequality, and its opposition to the entrenched free market consensus.
Bill Clinton, the embodiment of neoliberalism's rise to prominence, insisted that it was necessary to end "the era of big government" and embrace the "third way," a path that would smoothly navigate between the competing visions of conservatism and pro-labor progressivism, with the ostensible goal of transcending partisan squabbles altogether.
Riding the tide of an evolving Democratic Party, liberals came to embrace the riches of corporate sponsorship, abandoning, as a result, the party's working-class base.
And while many on the left were enthusiastic about the election of Barack Obama, he has insisted all along that he, himself, is no leftist -- no break from the trends set into motion by Bill Clinton. Rather, as he noted in 2009, he falls firmly in the camp of the neoliberals.
"I am a New Democrat," President Obama declared, a statement that should have done away with any illusions, still harbored by some, that the president is a leftist at heart -- that is if some of his key appointments had failed to do away with them already.
Although the Democratic Party -- the vehicle through which the left forced many important reforms throughout the 20th century -- has continued its rightward drift, the left has refused to go away. And in the face of intolerable income inequality, some of the left's core messages are hitting home.
When Bernie Sanders entered the scene in April of last year, his candidacy was widely dismissed. Everyone knew Hillary Clinton was already the nominee—despite the crucial fact that no one had cast a ballot.
At the end of the process, however, the picture looks nothing like analysts predicted it would: Though Hillary Clinton has effectively won the Democratic nomination, Sanders, that obscure democratic socialist from the small state of Vermont, far outperformed anyone's expectations, winning 22 states and sparking a movement that will set out to continue far beyond this race.
Yet despite the support he has garnered and the enthusiasm his campaign has generated among both new voters and longtime Democrats, from the beginning, Sanders faced near-total opposition from the Democratic establishment -- including politicians, top Democratic donors, and major media outlets.
"The elite freeze-out of Bernie Sanders," writes Matt Karp, "is without parallel in modern party history."
This opposition (in contrast with overall public opinion of Sanders, which is favorable) has not been due to animus toward Sanders, personally -- rather, it sprang from the Democratic Party's disdain for the left, for the ideas that the Sanders campaign has pushed on the national stage for more than a year.
The Democratic Party often purports to fight for the issues the left holds dear—a higher minimum wage, universal healthcare, a robust labor movement, and more democratic politics (namely, by removing corporate interests from the political process).
But as we have seen over the past several decades, this is a facade.
Democrats did not merely stand by and watch as Republicans destroyed welfare, deregulated Wall Street, and passed disastrous trade deals: They have been at the front fighting, with impressive enthusiasm, for the interests of corporate America and against the interests of those they claim to support.
President Obama has carried the baton with his endorsement of and aggressive lobbying for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement that, if passed, would grant corporations unprecedented power and influence.
Though her rhetoric has shifted drastically in the face of pressure from her left, Hillary Clinton represents more of the same -- another self-styled progressive whose campaign is heavily bankrolled by some of America's largest financial institutions and whose agenda focuses almost entirely on tempering the expectations and ambitions of Democratic voters rather than pushing them upward.
Though Clinton has attempted to position herself as a pragmatist, she has repeatedly demonstrated that her deep commitment to pragmatism is really a lack of commitment to progressive causes -- a lack of commitment that applies to the Democratic Party, broadly.
Bernie Sanders's campaign has exposed this reality. As Matt Karp argues, "The Sanders campaign has offered a valuable reminder of how few professional Democrats are willing to fight for a social-democratic platform -- and how many are eager to fight against it."
Sanders, by aggressively fighting for progressive causes, has pushed liberal hypocrisy out into the open.
Hillary Clinton has frequently touted her history of fighting for universal healthcare. But when confronted by a candidate who brings an ambitious proposal to the national stage -- a proposal supported by most Americans -- Clinton turns her back, insisting that it will "never, ever come to pass."
Barney Frank has long been an outspoken opponent of America's corrupt campaign finance system. Today, he equates criticism of Hillary Clinton's fundraising with McCarthyism.
The media has followed suit: The Washington Post has run article after article criticizing Sanders for running a campaign that cynically preys on the hopes of the masses. The New York Times, replete with voices similar to that of Paul Krugman -- who has offered take after take lamenting that Sanders just isn't very serious and that no serious person supports his agenda -- and Vox have fallen in line behind the liberal consensus, as well.
Not content to attack Sanders's platform, liberals have also, on many occasions, expressed utter contempt for his supporters, often pushing some version of the narrative that falsely characterizes backers of the Vermont senator as racist, sexist, "Bernie bros."
(They forget, of course, that in doing so, they, as Wendi Muse observes, erase from view the people of color and women among Sanders's supporters.)
One commentator anticipates the day when Democrats can finally shed the mask of progressivism and "gleefully and comprehensively trash" those who dared to back a democratic socialist for president of the United States.
High-ranking Democrats have been further angered by the idea that Sanders would actually hold to his promise to remain in the race through the Democratic convention to continue pushing his ideas and keep pressure on the wavering establishment.
Because Sanders has remained consistent in his denunciations of "establishment politics and establishment economics," Democrats have undergone a much-needed period of intense scrutiny from their left, from a movement that embodies the mass politics they long ago abandoned.
But as Matt Taibbi notes, they are likely to miss -- or disregard -- all of the lessons that could have been learned.
These lessons, if taken to heart, could prove significant for millions of Americans who are being crushed by a political system (and thus an economy) that answers predominantly to the desires of the few.
The party apparatus has been resilient, however, and elite liberals have fervently resisted the suggestion that the Sanders agenda could meaningfully influence the party's platform.
However, as Taibbi writes, "This inability to grasp that the problem is bigger than Bernie Sanders is a huge red flag."
Progressives are, in many ways, winning the war of ideas. Democrats have closed their eyes to this reality, seemingly content to believe that neoliberalism, with a view to adjustments, is adequate to address the problems we face. It's not.
As Lily Geismer has written, "A party without a working-class core can't be expected to improve the prospects of the working class."
Instead of devoting their efforts to a party that has lost its way, many are voting with their feet, demanding a $15 minimum wage, universal healthcare, tuition-free public college, an end to corporate-negotiated "trade" pacts, and a crackdown on Wall Street fraudsters.
Democrats have been slow to respond -- and quick to attack those on their left who offer ambitious solutions.
On the other hand, Democrats have been quick to recognize the blindingly obvious collapse of the Republican Party. But if they don't soon confront the deep flaws and extensive failures permeating their party, they may soon look back, as Republicans are today, asking what went wrong.
And the left will be there to answer the question.
"Consumers all over the world are sick of Elon Musk's attempt to promote dangerous far-right leaders, policies, and movements," said one advocate.
On the heels of the news that Tesla CEO Elon Musk's investment of $20 million in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race—including offers of $1 million checks to individual voters—didn't manage to swing the election in the Republican Party's favor, the Trump administration adviser's electric car company learned of more trouble: Tesla's global sales declined by 13% in the first quarter of 2025, dropping to their lowest point in nearly three years.
The plunge in sales was evident across markets, even in countries where Musk hasn't sparked outrage by embedding himself into politics by bankrolling and supporting far-right candidates and groups.
In Norway, The New York Times noted, electric cars account for more than 90% of new car sales—but among Norwegians, whose prime minister recently rebuked Musk's involvement in the political systems of Germany and the U.K.—Tesla sales have nearly matched the global trend so far this year, declining by more than 12% in the first quarter.
Sales in other European countries were even more dire in the first three months of 2025—down 41% in France, 50% in the Netherlands, and 55% in Sweden, where consumers have Musk's anti-labor practices to contend with in addition to his political activities in Europe.
Sweden's largest insurer said Wednesday it had sold its $160 million stake in Tesla after investing in the company since 2013, saying Tesla's workers' rights position violates its investment guidelines.
"The American people have gotten a crash course in what happens when the richest man in the world gets the keys to our country."
Musk, whose net worth is $386.6 billion, has long refused to sign a collective bargaining agreement with fewer than 200 mechanics in Sweden to ensure they earn a fair wage. Unionized mechanics in the country have been on strike for over a year.
One Norway Tesla owner told the Times that he "would never drive a Tesla again."
"It's a question of ethics," said urban planner Geir Rognlien Elgvin.
After pouring nearly $300 million into the 2024 elections in the U.S. to help President Donald Trump and other Republicans get elected, Musk has spent the past two months boasting of his push to cut public spending and government jobs—attacking the popular anti-poverty Social Security program as a "Ponzi scheme"; gutting the Department of Education, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and other federal agencies; and pushing tens of thousands of civil servants out of their jobs through the Trump-created advisory body the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Adam Zuckerman, senior clean vehicles campaigner with government watchdog Public Citizen's climate program, said Wednesday that Tesla's most recent sales numbers illustrate how anger over Musk's activities—which has also been expressed with protests at Tesla dealerships—extends past U.S. borders.
"Tesla's plummeting sales show that consumers all over the world are sick of Elon Musk's attempt to promote dangerous far-right leaders, policies, and movements," said Zuckerman. "They are fed up with DOGE's effort to gut life-saving services and aid. Consumers want electric vehicles, not cruelty, fascism, racism, and neo-Nazism. Unless Musk changes course, Tesla sales will continue to decline."
A poll by Yahoo News and YouGov late last month found that two-thirds of Americans said they would not drive a Tesla, with a majority saying Musk himself was the reason for their distaste.
"Musk is driving our country into the ground," said Zuckerman when the poll was released. "If he continues, he could take Tesla and America's urgent transition to an electric future with it."
Tesla's plummeting sales contrast with global electric car sales overall, which are on the rise. Ford Moter, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz are among the automakers planning to soon introduce new electric vehicles.
"Previously consumers might have struggled to find other options than Tesla that really competed," Will Roberts of research firm Rho Motion told the Times. "That's now not the case."
Trump has attempted to shore up his benefactor and ally's company, holding an event on the White House lawn last month during which he praised Musk's electric cars and condemned protests at Tesla dealerships. He also suggested people who are turning away from Tesla are "Radical Left Lunatics" who are "trying to illegally and collusively boycott" the car company.
His administration has since doubled down on threatening people for vandalizing the cars or dealerships, with the president saying he would send them to El Salvador, where hundreds of people accused of being gang members have been sent to a prison in recent weeks.
But despite the show of loyalty, Trump was reportedly considering pulling back on Musk's front-and-center presence in the administration Wednesday.
Economic justice group Groundwork Collaborative said Musk's impending exit—which Trump denied was coming—is likely in response to Musk proving "to be a liability," but cautioned that rights advocates will still have to fight the Trump agenda even without Musk in the White House serving as a "special government employee."
"The American people have gotten a crash course in what happens when the richest man in the world gets the keys to our country," said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the group. "Musk's threat to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid has pushed consumer confidence to new lows. Businesses are pulling back on investments, and markets have plunged. Americans can now celebrate Musk's exit."
"But Musk's ouster is only the first step in achieving true liberation," said Owens. "He is a symptom of a broader disease, which is that billionaires are tightening their grip on our democracy. To cure the disease, we must put our power back in the hands of the people."
"We need a leader who will tell a clear story about what Musk and Trump are doing... rally the people and organize in congressional districts across the country, and... engage forcefully and clearly in the media."
Dozen of advocacy organizations on Wednesday joined the growing call for U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to step down from his leadership position after caving to Republicans on a stopgap spending measure last month.
Given GOP control of Congress and the White House, people across the country saw the looming government shutdown as a rare opportunity for Democratic lawmakers to fight against President Donald Trump's agenda. However, Schumer (D-N.Y.) led 10 caucus members in partnering with Senate Republicans to force through the spending legislation.
Since then, polling has made clear that voters are frustrated with the Democratic Party and Schumer in particular, and want political leaders to challenge the GOP's agenda, which is primarily passing more tax giveaways for the wealthy and gutting the federal government—an effort led by Trump adviser Elon Musk, the richest person on Earth.
"As Trump and Musk seek to dismantle not just the key public health and safety functions of our federal government, but also the fundamental pillars of our democracy itself, we require the unflinching, bold and strategic resistance of every single Democrat in Washington—especially party leaders such as Senator Schumer," said Mitch Jones, managing director of policy and litigation at Food & Water Watch, in a statement.
"Schumer's inexplicable surrender and support for a dangerous and cruel MAGA spending bill amounted to a complete dereliction of duty and failure of leadership. For this simple reason, Schumer must step down as Senate majority leader immediately," added Jones, whose group led the letter with Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD).
"Sen. Schumer, you have lost the confidence of elected Democrats, and you have lost the confidence of our organizations."
Ultimately, over 50 other groups signed on to the letter to Schumer, which begins, "We write to urge you in the strongest terms to step down as Senate minority leader so that someone more prepared and willing to fight the disastrous Musk-Trump agenda can step up and lead."
Pointing to the shutdown battle, or lack thereof, the letter asserts: "You surrendered one of the very few points of leverage Democrats have to stop the full-scale dismantling of key government functions and Musk-Trump's complete disregard for congressional actions. Further, it was evident throughout the process that there was no plan, no message, and no strategy. We face an existential crisis for our food, water, health, communities, and climate. We simply cannot afford more of the same."
"Trump, Musk, and the Republican Congress are engaging in an assault on basic government functions," the letter stresses. The Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) "is cutting or eliminating many critical programs that include consumer protection from corporate fraud, clean water and food safety and assistance, education, renewable energy, and healthcare and retirement and access to them including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid."
With the spending bill, "is clear there was no strategy around the fight and no communication plan. Frankly, there hasn't been since the start of the Trump administration," the groups argued. "You simply gave your vote and support, receiving nothing in return except praise from Trump. This is inexcusable."
"Sen. Schumer, you have lost the confidence of elected Democrats, and you have lost the confidence of our organizations," the coalition continued. "We need strong leadership to really fight the Musk-Trump agenda. We need a leader who will tell a clear story about what Musk and Trump are doing, who will hold daily briefings with key messages, who will rally the people and organize in congressional districts across the country, and who will engage forcefully and clearly in the media—including alternative media."
"Allow a Democratic senator who can do all these things to step up and lead," the organizations implored. "It's time to do the right thing. It's time to step down as Senate minority leader."
While the groups did not put forth any alternative names to fill the role, PDA executive director Alan Minsky said Wednesday that "we need a fearless Senate minority leader who will seize every opportunity to disrupt Trump's plans. Chuck Schumer has never been a strong negotiator, and his capitulation last month over the budget showed he is not the right leader for this moment. Democrats need a new minority leader—one who understands the stakes and will never back down."
Brett Hartl, government affairs director at CBD, warned that if Schumer remains, "the best Democrats can hope for is permanent minority status in the Senate, the worst will be the end of our democracy, complete ruin of the climate, and the evisceration of all our bedrock environmental protections."
"Booker said that he was speaking in spite' of [Thurmond's] remarks against the 1957 Civil Rights Act." This is a much-improved record, to say the least. Congratulations and thank you to @booker.senate.gov for standing up for democracy!
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— Food & Water Watch ( @foodandwater.bsky.social) April 2, 2025 at 2:44 PM
The letter came a day after Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), a 2020 presidential candidate, broke the record for the longest Senate speech with over 25 hours of remarks decrying Trump and Musk's assault on the government. Multiple Democrats, including Schumer, asked Booker questions, to give him opportunities to rest and shift topics.
Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who caucuses with Democrats and sought the party's 2016 and 2020 presidential nominations—is in the midst of a "Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here"
tour across the United States. Multiple Democratic lawmakers have joined him, including New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who faces mounting pressure to primary Schumer in the 2028 cycle.
Israeli forces also bombed an U.N. clinic in Jabalia, killing at least 68 Palestinians including elders, women, and children—one of them a newborn baby.
Israel's far-right government on Wednesday admitted to a major land grab in the embattled Gaza Strip, where the forced removal of Palestinians accelerated amid ongoing airstrikes that killed scores of civilians, including at least 68 people slain in the bombing of a health clinic run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) renewed assault is "expanding to crush and clean" Gaza while "seizing large areas that will be added to the security zones of the state of Israel for the protection of fighting forces and the settlements," a reference to plans by far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government for the ethnic cleansing and Israeli recolonization of the Palestinian enclave.
"Did you decide that we are sacrificing hostages for capturing land?"
Israeli forces control what they call a buffer zone along Gaza's entire border and on Monday ordered a sweeping evacuatione that forced approximately 140,000 Palestinians to flee from Rafah and other areas. In scenes reminiscent of the Nakba—during which over 750,000 Arabs fled or were forced from Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948—Palestinian families were seen carrying their possessions or loading them atop vehicles and donkey carts as they sought ever-elusive safety.
Ihab Suliman, a former university professor forcibly expelled from Jabalia with his family, told The Associated Press on Monday that "there is no longer any taste to life. Life and death have become one and the same for us."
The fresh wave of expulsions follows last month's creation of a new IDF directorate tasked with ethnically cleansing northern Gaza under the guise of "voluntary emigration." Katz said the agency would be run "in accordance with the vision of U.S. President Donald Trump," who last month said that the United States would "take over" Gaza after emptying the strip of its over 2 million Palestinians and transform the coastal enclave into the "Riviera of the Middle East." Trump has since attempted to walk back some of his comments.
The renewed ethnic cleansing of southern Gaza came amid heavy IDF airstrikes throughout the strip, including the Wednesday bombing of a clinic-turned-shelter run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Jabalia that killed at least 68 civilians, including women, children, and elders and wounded dozens more, according to local officials. Graphic video of the strike's aftermath showed a man holding up the headless body of a newborn baby outside the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia.
Gaza's Government Media Office called the strike "a full-fledged war crime," while the Palestinian Foreign Ministry urged the international community to pressure Israel "to halt its genocide, displacement, and annexation, and impose a political settlement per international law."
Israel admitted to carrying out the strike, claiming it targeted "Hamas terrorists" hiding among the civilians. Israeli policy implemented after Hamas led the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 permits the IDF to knowingly kill an unlimited number of civilians in order to kill just one Hamas member, no matter their rank or role in the organization.
Katz called on Gaza residents to "expel Hamas and return all hostages" kidnapped from Israel on October 7.
However, the umbrella group representing families of some of the abductees—24 of whom are believed to still be alive—on Wednesday accused Netanyahu of "burying the hostages alive" by unilaterally abandoning aa cease-fire with Hamas last month.
"Did you decide that we are sacrificing hostages for capturing land?" the Hostages and Missing Families Forum asked following Katz's announcement. "Instead of getting the hostages out in a deal and ending the war, Israel's government is sending more soldiers to Gaza to fight in the same places that they already fought over and over again."
Since March 18, when Israel broke the cease-fire with Hamas and resumed its assault on Gaza, more than 1,000 Palestinians, including over 320 children, have been killed, and thousands more wounded, according to local and international officials.
Since Israel resumed its terror bombing of Gaza on March 18, every day we see images of small children with their heads or limbs blown off by U.S. weapons. Doctors having to cut holiday clothes off of children in a desperate attempt to save them. Amputations without anesthesia.
— Jeremy Scahill ( @jeremyscahill.com) April 2, 2025 at 3:51 AM
Since October 2023, Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 175,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children, according the Gaza Health Ministry. That figure includes at least 14,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Almost all of Gaza's more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced, often multiple times. Meanwhile, Israel's "complete siege" of Gaza has exacerbated widespread and sometimes deadly starvation and illness.
On Monday, the Gaza Government Media Office said that at least 1,513 humanitarian workers have also been killed by Israeli forces since October 2023. It is uncertain whether that figure includes the 15 first responders—including eight Red Crescent workers and six Civil Defense personnel—whose bodies, some of them allegedly bound and shot, were found in a mass grave that day.
Israel is facing an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice, and Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are fugitives from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which last year issued arrest warrants for the pair for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The ICC joined human rights groups on Wednesday in condemning Netanyahu trip to Hungary, a signatory to the Rome Statute governing the world's top war crimes tribunal. Hungarian President Viktor Orbán and other members of his far-right government are set to welcome Netanyahu for a four-day visit underscoring both countries' disdain for international law.
Meanwhile in the illegally occupied West Bank—where thousands of Palestinians have been killed or wounded by IDF troops and Jewish settler-colonists since October 2023—the UNRWA area director said this week that the scale of forced displacement is unprecedented during the 58 years of Israeli occupation.
This article has been updated to reflect the latest death toll from shelter bombing.