The Rebirth of the Regime Car

Last Updated on: 20th February 2025, 03:14 am

For many years, politicians and conservative activists have pointed to the Soviet Union as the ultimate example of how bad things can be at the bottom of the slippery slope of socialism. Do anything other than support large corporations getting control of everything, and we’re certainly on the path to utter doom, they say. While there were certainly some really bad things in the Soviet era that we’d best avoid, we’re now seeing US Republicans do things that are shockingly similar.

The Politics Of Soviet Cars

In most of the world today, you can buy any vehicle you can afford. Prefer a classic car? You can buy one and restore it, or pay someone else to do that for you. Prefer the latest and the greatest? If you can make the payment, it’s right there on a dealer lot somewhere ready to drive away after you sign on the line.

This wasn’t the case in the Soviet Union. If you lived there in those times and wanted a car, everyone but the most well-connected had to apply for vehicle ownership. Not everyone was even allowed to purchase a vehicle. If the Party approved, you’d end up on a waiting list, sometimes for years. Then, when your number came up, you’d get to buy from a limited selection of vehicles, and sometimes would be given just one option. The choices of vehicle you’d have access to would depend on your social class, profession, and other political factors.

Most people were given the choice to buy one of the “proletariat” cars. These were rugged and utilitarian, but almost always ugly. This was intentional, as the Party didn’t want anybody getting any ideas about being better than anyone else. Ugly ducklings sold overseas included the movie famous Zastava Yugo. When the wall came down in Germany, people in the West got to see a parade of ugly cars like the Trabant take to western European streets. 

In the West, it’s hard to understand why one’s choice of vehicle should be political. At least until recently.

Tesla Is Becoming The New Regime Car

Today, we’re seeing this mingling of cars and politics come back. Government officials aren’t telling us what vehicles we can buy, but political pressures are still pushing people to buy or not buy certain vehicles. This shouldn’t be surprising, as consumer behavior has been influenced by politics for decades. Chik-Fil-A faced boycotts after its CEO expressed anti-LGBT sentiments. Only “liberals” are supposed to drink lattes. The Toyota Prius was known as a car for environmentalists and hippies.

This trend has only accelerated in the last few years, especially for vehicles. 

As we’ve covered recently several times, Tesla’s sales are dropping. The company has been trying to make inroads with the kind of buyers who approve of Elon Musk’s political activities. But, that hasn’t been working out. Many alt-right types aren’t going to give up on ICE vehicles, even if Dear Leader is at the helm of an EV company. At the same time, Tesla’s core market of environmentalists has eroded significantly.

However, this is only the surface-level story. Looking at all of Tesla’s new models and updates in the last few years, there’s a bizarre trend toward oversimplifying the vehicles. It’s well-known that Elon Musk identifies as autistic, but many people online wonder whether he’s just trying to sanitize his narcissism. Whatever he’s actually afflicted with, the obsessive-compulsive need to eliminate buttons, stalks, and shifters has led to increasingly barren interiors. The same push for brutalist design has extended to the exteriors, with the Cybertruck being the best example (so far).

While people buy Tesla vehicles for all sorts of reasons, often not political at all, it’s hard to stay out of the fray. Vandalism of Cybertrucks is on the rise. Unless you put on an “I bought it before we knew Elon was nuts” sticker, there’s a chance people will assume you’re one of “them” and something bad could happen.

The end result is that there’s immense pressure to sell a Tesla if you’re not a Trumpist, and there’s a looming threat of violence and property damage in the back of your mind. That’s not the same as some Kommissar telling you what vehicle you can buy, but it’s also not that different.

Featured image by Tesla.