A cringingly awful (but at least provocative) column by Gus Carlson in The Globe and Mail posits that “The new hate for Elon Musk is childish and hypocritical.”

The skepticism isn’t so new on this blog actually. But anyway, Carlson’s article surveys some of the recent anti-Tesla activism, and goes on:

• To the extent that Mr. Musk cares, he must see some irony in the turn of events. Once the brash pioneer who brought electric vehicles into the mainstream – and in the process made Tesla a shining, high-profile symbol of the progressive green agenda’s success – he and his products are now being demonized for his political leanings the other way.
• To be fair, there may be no evidence yet that those protesting, burning, shooting, defacing and allegedly seeking to blow up Teslas are left of centre. But let’s be honest – it is not a big stretch to deduce that they probably don’t share the political views of Mr. Musk and his boss.
• To that point, it seems no coincidence that the protests and attacks in the U.S. have all occurred in the bluest cities in the bluest states – New York, Massachusetts, Colorado, Illinois, Oregon and Washington state.
• And while his detractors say that because Mr. Musk is neither an elected official nor a government employee he does not have the authority to take on the mandate of rooting out widespread waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, what responsible taxpayer doesn’t think that’s a good idea?
• Disagree with Mr. Musk’s tactics, fine, but the worthiness of the quest – and the potential benefits for all taxpayers – should be apparent and applauded across political lines.
• But in the current political climate, wracked by emotion and partisan hysteria, even seemingly reasonable initiatives such as the DOGE agenda become politicized – and its main advocate vilified.
• In a show of support for his DOGE leader, Mr. Trump this week made a ceremonial “purchase” of a new Tesla at the White House.
• The fact that the objections to Mr. Musk and the way he is carrying out his new role have turned violent and are directed toward objects that have nothing to do with the politics themselves is beyond regrettable, even juvenile.
• This isn’t the playground sandbox. Those who are attacking Teslas are like children who throw things and break stuff when they get angry. And those seeking to dump their Teslas in protest or boycott the products, well, it seems that for them virtue signalling is a one-way street.
• The bottom line is this: Americans voted to give Mr. Trump a mandate. Like him and his tactics or not, Mr. Musk is part of that mandate.
• Protesters should put away their Molotov cocktails, firearms and cans of spray paint and act like constructive members of a democracy. Midterm elections are the appropriate place for them to register their disapproval of the jobs Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk are doing and, if they can, shift the balance of power in Congress.

But the anti-Musk outrage, fairly obviously, is rooted in far more than normal-course clashes of political inclination, as Carlson implies; it draws on the unseemly, reckless, amoral relish with which Musk has embraced his role. Never let it be forgotten that this is the man who said of the U.S. Agency for International Development that “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” thus summarily withdrawing (or at best muddying) funding which saves several million lives a year. Of course, one may hold the view that these lives aren’t an American priority, but given the underlying consequences and established structures of reliance, a change in policy should surely warrant more consideration and broad discussion than Musk applied during his gleefully destructive weekend. Carlson’s characterization of this and other Musk endeavours as a reasonable pursuit of a worthy quest is deeply ill-considered, to put it mildly.

But it also takes us back to our recent musings on the “public interest” in accounting, and its relationship with (in Carlson’s terminology) virtue signalling. Should accountants deploy whatever powers they have (to accept or not accept an engagement; to issue or withhold a report; to publicly advocate) as “Molotov cocktails, firearms and cans of spray paint,” or would that be a failure to “act like constructive members of a democracy.” As I write, Canada is experiencing a patriotic (and in particular, America-shunning) wave, with governments at all levels announcing Canada-focused procurement and other policies, corporations and other organizations amending travel plans, and individuals reorienting their day to day practices. In an article on the CPA Canada website, trade lawyer Lawrence Herman opines that we are experiencing “a sea change in our relationship with the United States, and that affects both CPA Canada’s members and Canadian business generally.” He says: “We need to address this as a most serious threat.” All right then, so where does that take us?

The opinions expressed are solely those of the author.