Local #TeslaTakedown reveals ‘grassroots’ protests are AstroTurf
The Left is Exposing their deranged radicalism by Attacking Mostly Democrat Voting Tesla Owners and Protesting Musk for Exposing their Theft of Billions of Dollars of our tax dollars to fund their decades long Anti-American Communist assault on America!
By Asra Q. Nomani, Fairfax County Times,
Shouts rang out last Saturday at the Tesla dealership on Tyco Road in Tysons, as they have across the country since late February when fiery #TeslaTakedown protests started targeting Tesla founder Elon Musk for his work in the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
“Recall Elon!”
“People over profits!”
A man shouted into a bullhorn: “Tell me what democracy looks like.”
The crowd responded, “This is what democracy looks like.”
But as the man juggled an anti-Elon sign, his bullhorn and a script with pre-written chants, the Tyco Road protest, its organizers, and its participants revealed a broader story about the #TeslaTakedown events popping up nationwide: the AstroTurf nature of the multimillion-dollar professional protest industry, with the footprints of two behemoth enterprises, a $12.6 million political nonprofit, the Indivisible Project, and the Democratic Party. While local chapters of the Democratic Party have put their names to only a small percentage of the protests, their direct involvement is important because it underscores the partisan motivation behind some of the protests.
While the local #TeslaTakedown protest may appear spontaneous and community-driven, it is the product of a well-funded, tightly coordinated campaign led by national political organizations like the Indivisible Project, MoveOn.org, and professional protest firms. These groups use digital platforms, pre-scripted chants, pre-printed signs, and nationwide toolkits to manufacture the appearance of grassroots activism, and the messages on Tyco Road mirror the language of protests nationwide. This kind of organizing is known as “AstroTurfing”—a term used to describe top-down efforts that mimic authentic, bottom-up civic engagement.
Critics say these operations mislead the public, distort the media narrative, and erode trust in genuine democratic movements by masking partisan objectives behind a veneer of local outrage.
A protester had parked a wagon nearby with a sign, “Poster lending library.”
Coordinated Professional Protest Network
Earlier this month, MSNBC host Chris Hayes touted the “organic, bottom-up movement.” But details from the Tyco Road protest underscore that the “movement” was a staged partisan political action campaign led by Democratic Party political operatives, multimillion-dollar organizations enjoying 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofit status, and professional protest companies that specialize in “direct action.”
The Fairfax County Times and the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative, created a chronology of the protest actions, building a public database of anti-Tesla protests published online on ActionAlert.com and Mobilize.us, which support the Democratic Party. According to internet records, someone anonymously purchased TeslaTakedown.com on Feb. 12. As of March 25 at 11 a.m., the database currently includes 304 published events and will be regularly updated.
According to the data:
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Groups and individuals allied with the Democratic Party have organized 100% of the protests.
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Only about 15 organizations and their affiliates are behind all of the protests.
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Groups involved in the #TeslaTakedown protests have combined revenues of at least $43.1 million.
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Troublemakers, a Seattle-based professional protest organization, and the Disruption Project, a Philadelphia group that describes itself as “dedicated to supporting uprisings, resistance, and mass direct action,” have sponsored about 70%, or 220, of the protests.
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The Indivisible Project has organized at least about 29%, or 87, of the protests.
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Local Democratic Party chapters have organized some protests, including members' participation in the Fairfax County protest.
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Other Democratic organizations have sponsored protests, including the AFL-CIO, MoveOn.org, Swing Left, Third Act Initiative Inc., the Democratic Socialists of America, the Fight Oligarchy Club, 50501, and Tax Reformers LLC, which organize under the platform TaxElon.us.
Third Act Initiative Inc., a Madison Avenue political nonprofit based in New York City, promoted the Tyco Road protest through its local “Rocking Chair Rebellion” chapter. It organized people aged 60 and over and promoted the protest with a call to action that said, “Hurting Tesla is stopping Musk.” For most people, the sight of senior citizens and retirees protesting seems organic and grassroots but the reality is they are part of a highly-funded and lucrative political operation. According to its 2023 tax filing, Third Act Inititative Inc. has revenues of $2 million.
At the Tyco Road protest, the local connection to the Indivisible Protect became apparent a few minutes into the protest with the arrival of Marianne Burke, a local Democratic activist and leader of “Fairfax Indivisible.” Juggling a large American flag on a pole with a smaller blue-and-yellow flag of Ukraine, Burke recently promoted an anti-Trump protest organized by the Indivisible Project and MoveOn.org, writing: “Meet at the Treasury building at 5pm.”
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Soon after Burke unfurled her flags, her friend, Vanessa Hall, another local Democratic activist who has fundraised donations for the Fairfax Democrats, arrived. Burke and Hall co-founded a 501(c)(4) political nonprofit, “4 Public Education,” to support the all-Democratic Fairfax County school board.
Burke and Hall refused to comment. In fact, on the sidewalk by a sign for Papa John's, Hall slapped the camera phone of a Fairfax County Times reporter to block filming.
Within minutes, two anti-Musk protestors rushed over, one of them calling the Fairfax County Times reporter a “piece of s**t” and “pathetic,” before saying about the reporter, “I don’t even know where the hell she’s from, where she was born,” as the other man, wearing a blue “Dump Trump” baseball cap, told the reporter, “You’re an idiot.”
Indeed, in its 2023 IRS tax filing, Indivisible Project's mission is to “cultivate and lift up a grassroots movement of local groups to defeat the Trump agenda.” Led by married cofounders Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg, both living in the D.C. area, Indivisible Project boasted revenues of $12.6 million, with $8.6 million spent on salaries.
Levin bragged that Indivisible Project used “activists who hold the organizing and mobilization savvy to execute inside-outside strategies that help achieve our goals.” Levin added, “The organization seized key moments to shape the public discourse around MAGA extremism,” providing “direct funding” to “help local groups organize in-person events.”
Officials at the Indivisible Project and other organizations involved in the protests didn’t return requests for comment.
Partisan Financial Machine Behind #TeslaTakedown
The influence of Indivisible and the Democratic Party is evident in protests nationwide, but the details of the protests don’t immediately reveal the organizers.
In Ann Arbor, Mich., “Wendy for Good Government” is the organizer for protests against Musk at the Tesla dealership on Jackson Road, but a closer look reveals the true organizers. A local Sun Times News article from a Feb. 27 protest names the organizer, “Ann Arbor Indivisible.”
On March 3, New York Indivisible promoted a noisy video from a “TESLA TAKEDOWN” protest at the Tesla dealership in Manhattan, noting eight members of “Rise and Resist” were arrested at their “peaceful protest.” One of the women arrested wore a shirt that read, “ABOLISH CAPITALISM.”
On its Facebook page, Indivisible Virginia promoted a #TeslaTakedown protest at the Tesla dealership on N. Military Highway in Norfolk. It offered “Some ideas for signs,” including smears against Musk and Tesla. “BOYCOTT SWASTI-KARS!” “SEND ELON TO MARS - NOW!” “NO MUSK RATS!” “HONK IF YOU HATE NAZIS!”
In Fairfax County, protestors held signs with messages from the same script, one showing Trump and Musk kissing with the message, “Putin’s Puppets. Fire Musk-Rat.” Another read, “Don’t buy Nazi cars.” Yet another delivered the space theme: “Deport Musk to Mars!” Another with the theme of cueing up drivers to express their support: “Honk if you hate fascism.”
According to internet records, on March 8, one of these protest organizations bought BetterThanATesla.com to promote the message of “don’t buy” Tesla cars.
Indivisible Virginia shared an article from the Patch media platform, which quoted Christopher Ambrose “of Fairfax County,” saying he was demonstrating for the second time in three weeks on March 15 against the “unlawful takeover” of the government. It didn’t mention that Ambrose is a “long-time Fairfax Democratic activist,” as BlueVirginia, a media platform promoting the Virginia Democratic Party, describes him. Ambrose is a former vice-chair of finance with the Fairfax County Democratic Committee and a former member of the Democratic Party of Virginia Central Committee.
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In Pennsylvania, a March 21 protest in Mechanicsburg was described by local media as a gathering of “concerned citizens,” with activist Susan Roller quoted as representing “PA’s 10th District Network.” But, as with so many of these demonstrations, the organizing group is simply a local Indivisible chapter of the larger Indivisible operation.
On March 22, as protestors gathered in Tysons, the Connecticut Post wrote that the Tesla dealership on Boston Post Road in Milford, Conn., had become an “organic target for protest,” but the organizers were actually Indivisible Amity, a chapter of the national organization outside New Haven, Conn. They followed the recommended script for other Indivisible protests, with the same protest sign, “DOGE is a criminal enterprise,” that popped up at the Tyco Road protest in Tysons.
Indivisible has set its sights on the next big protest day: March 29. Troublemakers, the Seattle company behind a bulk of protests, sent an email to subscribers this week, touting a “goal of 500 global protests on the same day,” March 29, “teaming up again” with Indivisible and “Seattle DSA,” the acronym for Democratic Socialists of America.
In addition, its leaders have organized April 5 “Hands Off!” “National Day of Action” protests. Indivisible uploaded a “Hands Off! Mobilization from Indivisible Digital Asset Management,” with premade graphics, templates, “Flyers, Rally Signs, & Printed Materials,” and a Google Doc “Toolkit for Hosts.” In a mailing this week, Indivisible’s Levin told supporters the protests now number “more than 600 local events planned.” The mega-Democratic group, MoveOn.org, plans a “Hands Off: De-escalation Training” on April 2.
Protests are also planned again on Tyco Road in Tysons. During the protest this past Saturday, a steady stream of prospective buyers walked through the doors of the Tesla dealership, one man shouting at the protestors, “I’m buying two Teslas today because of you!”
