An opinion published in the Los Angeles Times reveals the angst experienced by environmentalists who bought Teslas, and who now suffer from embarrassment because Tesla founder Elon Musk has since transformed social media giant Twitter into a free-speech zone. These liberal elites now find it awkward to own a Tesla — and not because of the contracts Tesla has with China to supply rare minerals such as Lithium, but because of Elon Musk, who has purchased Twitter and describes it as having purchased a “crime scene,” due to its collaboration with the government to suppress speech.

To understand more about these tortured liberal owners of Teslas, and how they process information, we’ve excerpted John Blumenthal’s op-ed, which was evidently scribed in complete seriousness. In italics throughout his essay, we’ve excerpted Blumenthal’s own biography, in order to help the reader understand the lens through which elite mainstream writers view the world and their distain for American values:

“A few years ago, I bought a used Tesla, not because I’m a car nut but because I had been a hypocrite. For years, I had been outspoken about the dangers of carbon emissions. Yet at the same time, I was driving an old gas-powered heap that got about 25 miles per gallon, and that sounded like a rocket launch every time I turned on the ignition,” Blumenthal starts out in his op-ed.

Introverted and admittedly somewhat lazy by nature, John Blumenthal decided to become an author at the age of 9 when he realized he could do it at home. “An early influence was Mark Twain, who often wrote in bed in his pajamas,” he says. “Very civilized. More importantly, I loved the wry humor in much of his writing.”

“The car was impractical, but it had sentimental value. My environmental activist friends were not impressed by my assiduous urban composting, LED bulb installations and energy-saving appliances. I needed to do more to diminish my carbon footprint. The icebergs were melting, my friends said, and at least one polar bear was wandering around homeless and hungry because of me,” he writes, with an attempt at self-deprecating reflection.

John was born in Middletown, NY, the son of a physician and a stay-at-home mom. He attended Tufts University where he majored in English, with a minor in Not-Being-Drafted-And-Sent-To-Vietnam.

“Many insisted that Teslas were the best for the environment. Pricey but worth it. So I said goodbye to my gas guzzler and made the leap,” the writer continues.

After college, John became a whale’s tooth polisher (true) for a scrimshaw carver on Nantucket Island. It was during this Melville-esque dental hygiene career that he wrote a humorous, self-deprecating letter to the editor of Esquire and was hired as a fact checker. Later, he took a job as a writer/editor at Playboy magazine.

“Someone once said that Teslas are smartphones on wheels, so for an adult like me who suffers from technical issues, sitting in the driver’s seat for the first time was like trying to master calculus after failing algebra. Where was the ignition? How do you make the thing move? What’s a fob? It took a few weeks to figure out the essentials, but I started to feel some real affection for the car’s sleek design and bells and whistles. But that feeling was short lived,” Blumenthal whines to the Los Angeles readers. The reader might be thinking that writing is clearly a lucrative career, if such a person can live in Santa Monica and drive a Tesla.

“Because of the recent revelation of Elon Musk’s political views — all of which I abhor — I’m starting to worry about what sort of political statement the car is making. Will people see me as a symbol of right-wing environmentalism, a living oxymoron?” he writes.

Blumenthal must be expressing his wit at this point. He cannot be serious. This is not the choice of Agamemnon in The Odyssey, who faces the decision of whether or not to sacrifice his daughter to the goddess Artemis, so that the goddess will blow wind for Greek warships to get to Troy. With that decision, Agamemnon would either lose his daughter or lose the war. He sacrificed his daughter. With Blumenthal, we’re talking about firing up a battery to get to Whole Foods. Why not go with a electric bike? Oh, because it’s really about social status…

“When I bought the car, I had no real opinion on Musk’s somewhat clouded political beliefs. Now that Musk has apparently swung to the far right — banning journalists from Twitter while reinstating neo-Nazis — I’m horrified to be associated with his brand whenever I drive anywhere,” he writes.

Horrified to be driving a Tesla? This is going to be a problem for him in Los Angeles. His friend might shun him.

John lives in Santa Monica, CA with his wife and an adorable but not very bright canine. He has two delightful adult daughters. Between his last two novels, he wrote regularly for The Huffington Post, producing over 100 articles in five years. Other short pieces have appeared in Esquire, Playboy, Punch, American Woman, Publishers’ Weekly, Oui, TV Guide and Salon.

“What is Musk up to with this acquisition and destruction of Twitter? Publicity? Political power? It’s certainly not a financial strategy. If there’s one demographic that is unlikely to buy a Tesla, it’s the  climate change deniers and anti-science voices he’s been cozying up to,” Blumenthal continues. Then he goes in for the kill, calling conservatives Nazis and other names:

“Musk has turned Twitter into an unsupervised playground for neo-Nazis and other random hatemongers and wackadoodle QAnon followers, embraced everything Trumpian and responded tepidly to Kanye West’s outrageous flirtation with Hitler. As if all that weren’t enough, Musk’s heartless treatment of his Twitter employees — a pre-Christmas firing with no severance pay — was downright Dickensian.”

Undeterred by the fact that by buying a Tesla, he has already deprived a traditional combustion-engine auto mechanic of his livelihood, Blumenthal pours out his tortured conscience into the newsprint of a dying medium:

“Given Musk’s political descent into the dark side, I wonder whether I should sell my Tesla as a form of protest. How would that adversely affect Musk? Not at all, really. The sale of a used Tesla would hardly cause a blip for the company. Even if I were part of a vast movement, and many other politically aware would-be Tesla owners opted for other, newer EVs, would a blow to Tesla stock really change anything about Musk’s politics? There would be collateral damage. How many people would lose their jobs if people stopped buying Teslas?”

Why do I write? Partly because I have a compulsive need to express myself, partly because I don’t have to commute and partly because I’m not much good at anything else.

Alas, Blumenthal then runs out of ideas, and so repeats himself. All this public hand-wringing and self-flagellation helps the rest of us understand how first-world wealthy liberals are suffering terribly and unjustly by Twitter’s new ownership:

“I don’t know whether to sell, but I do know that I’m just not as comfortable driving it anymore,” he anguishes.

“It’s a beautifully designed car with no carbon emission, and initially, I was proud of owning it and being seen driving a vehicle that displayed my concern for the environment. But I’m a liberal, and if Musk’s politics don’t change radically for the better, driving a Tesla will become, at least for me, as hypocritical and untenable as driving a gas guzzler was,” he concludes.

In 2020, Blumenthal published an equally tortured op-ed in the New York Daily News, “How I plan to survive utter despair if Trump steals the election.”

You cannot make this stuff up.

Blumenthal’s op-ed was found at the Los Angeles Times; his autobiography is found in complete form at his website.