Just a quick word to make clear that I do not condone or support any illegal destruction of property or any violence.

Amidst protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) indiscriminate raids, some people have vandalized Waymo cars. Americans have often combined protest with symbolic destruction, going all the way back to the Boston Tea Party in 1773 when colonial Americans dumped tea into the harbor to fight back against unfair taxation. But why are cars—which once sought to symbolize American freedom, sex appeal, and adventure — now the target of American anger?

Waymos aren’t the only cars getting destroyed. Earlier this year, in protest of Elon Musk’s DOGE and conflict-of-interest-filled role as Trump’s advisor, protestors not only picketed Tesla dealerships, but also set fire to Teslas and Cybertrucks. Teslas once represented the vanguard of electric cars. Now they’ve become synonymous with Musk’s abhorrent politics.

Just a few weeks before Trump was inaugurated, on New Year’s Day, a Green Beret committed suicide and set off explosives in a Cybertruck outside the Las Vegas Trump hotel. On the same night, a man driving a pickup truck plowed through crowds on Bourbon Street in New Orleans killing 14 people. Both cars were rented from the rental app, Turo. Renting a vehicle to commit a crime is nothing new — but it used to be that the vehicle was just a means of transportation. Now cars, trucks, and apps are part of the act.

For those of us who have long lamented our car-centered society, we might have been eager for the day when cars lost their luster in Americans’ eyes. But definitely not like this.

I had hoped that a combination of autonomous vehicles, rental apps, and ride hailing apps could one day mean that people would no longer need to own cars. And that we’d produce fewer cars, drive less, and slowly turn the tide away from car-centered development and infrastructure. A new generation would stop getting their drivers’ licenses because they embraced transit, biking, and walking. Instead, we’re seeing something more disturbing than that.