Many liberals feel embarrassed driving their Teslas, but conservatives seem comfortable using their Macs in public.

Every big company lobbies politically, usually on both sides of the aisle. And their employees often make their own campaign bribes too. And to some extent they will all do some virtue signaling (supporting their choice of LGB/trans/law enforcement/women/2nd amendment/minorities/whatever). Most of that is just whatever... people shop at Amazon, Home Depot, Meta, Google, Chick-filet, Walmart, Hobby Lobby, whatever, and they all have their values...

But... very very few of those companies are led by an outspoken unfiltered CEO with their own social media. Even Zucky doesn't go way out of his way to broadcast his political agenda on his social media platforms. Musk is unique in that way. And Musk has also flip-flopped somewhat, from being somewhat liberal (though barely) in the past to being burned by California politics and then shifting ultra-right these days. So people who bought their Tesla thinking he was a liberal or at least neutral, well, they're stuck with their cars even after Musk changed his tune.

Computers are just a tool, relatively inexpensive and replaceable. Consumer motor vehicles are largely a lifestyle product - very few people can afford to buy a new one whenever they want and they are not very necessary in most urban areas, so which one is bought is much more significant. This is only intensified by recent political conflicts over ICE bans and electric vehicle mandates.

Would you kindly inform people from faraway cultures and different information sources why would "Macs" be «seen as political», as to some of us this is very "new".

The last relevant characterization some of us have seen is "Oh, must be an architect". Probably pretty dated.

Maybe it has something to do with Elon Musk donating more than $100 million to the Trump campaign and openly attacking liberals on X day in and day out.

I mean, Tim Cook doesn't spend all his time on Twitter (or whatever the Apple equivalent of Twitter is, perhaps Ping) ranting and raving, so there's that.

Also, like, Cook isn't notably left-wing. If he was a loud Marxist (which would be weird for the CEO of a large company, but whatever), you might find that attitudes would be a little different.

I have a good many neighbors with Teslas and while the media loves to spin a tale about Teslas and Liberals being a thing, my first hand observations don't support that narrative.

Tim Cook is a friend to conservative lawmakers, conservatives feel fine paying Apple because it financially supports the values they respect. Money spent buying an iPhone or Mac is the ultimate expression of respect for concentrated wealth.

Both purchases are still a political statement, but their constitutent markets are oftentimes too dumb to even understand what statement they're making with it. Liberals get sucked into counterproductive marketing schemes when they see silhouettes dancing to Mariah Carey - conservatives whip out their wallets when you use social media to espouse centuries-old disproven rhetoric as gospel. Both of these consumer bases are so profoundly stupid that their own insecurity is a direct byproduct of not using common sense when spending money.

If they weren't vulnerable to simple marketing, Americans might actually think about what they buy. Thankfully for the marketers, original thought in America has been getting phased out since the 1960s.

Wait, since when do liberals feel embarrassed driving Teslas? Is this just manufactured?