The original headline for today’s installment of The Morning Dump was going to be “No One Knows Anything.” That’s because, really, no one knows anything. There is no strategy, only tactics, and at best a vague idea of the outcomes the current administration wants. As an observer, I can only make guesses, but as an observer, I’m also struck by the notion that the primary decision makers are also only making guesses.
A court you probably never heard of overturned President Trump’s tariffs, and it did it in the strongest way that it could, issuing a summary judgment. That’s probably good news for investors, consumers, and a lot of businesses threatened with being wiped out by these sudden trade barriers. Will the Trump administration overcome this ruling? Maybe! Does it help car buyers? Maybe not. Does anyone know what will happen next? No. No one knows anything.
That goes for Elon Musk, who is officially ending his time with the government and going back to his normal businesses. What did he accomplish? That’s also an open question.
Just to make things more interesting for Musk, he’s got to fight battles on two new fronts in Asia. First, Tesla-like upstart Xiaomi just launched its Model Y fighter in China, and people seem excited. Additionally, iPhone producer Foxconn says it has just landed another Japanese production partner. I wonder who that is?
No One Knows Anything
Unless you work in the legal system, I hope you never have to truly understand just how many random federal courts are sprinkled around lower Manhattan. I was only vaguely aware of them until the day I had to go to the United States Bankruptcy Court with a bunch of other journalists to try to make sure our old company didn’t get absolutely hosed in the proceedings.
A little uptown from that court is the U.S. Court of International Trade. This court exists because the government is a truly complicated enterprise, and it helps to have groups of judges with a lot of specialized knowledge to deal with issues they understand. Specifically, this is an Article III court, which means it falls under the Constitutional authority given to Congress to establish these independent courts. In particular, this court exists partially to sort out messy questions about how and when certain actions are permissible or not.
Yesterday, and somewhat surprisingly, three judges on this court ruled that the justification for President Trump’s emergency tariffs was, in fact, not justifiable. This isn’t the case of some D-appointed lower judge throwing a spanner in the works; two of the judges were Republican appointees, including one nominated by President Trump.
The full ruling is here, if you wish to read it. In the discussion section, it starts out by quoting Federalist 48, written by James Madison (under a nom de plume). You can, and probably should, read that instead. The basic point here is that the Constitution exists to make governing hard, because simply saying “we don’t want kings” isn’t enough.
Or, as Madison put it, “A mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments, is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.”
It gets complicated, but there are numerous powers granted to the executive branch by Congress in order to protect the economy in times of crisis. The Trump Administration, as a justification for its tariffs, has used various powers, but the main one was something called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, or just IEEPA.
The idea here, according to the Trump Administration, was that “to cover the threat to the safety and security of Americans, including the public health crisis of deaths due to the use of fentanyl and other illicit drugs” President Trump had to issue these tariffs. How that applies to, say, Luxembourg, I’m not sure.
Neither is the court, and it issued a ruling tossing out the bulk of the tariffs against other countries:
The court holds for the foregoing reasons that IEEPA does not authorize any of the Worldwide, Retaliatory, or Trafficking Tariff Orders. The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs. The Trafficking Tariffs fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders. This conclusion entitles Plaintiffs to judgment as a matter of law; as the court further finds no genuine dispute as to any material fact, summary judgment will enter against the United States. See USCIT R. 56. The challenged Tariff Orders will be vacated and their operation permanently enjoined. There is no question here of narrowly tailored relief; if the challenged Tariff Orders are unlawful as to Plaintiffs they are unlawful as to all.
This is basically the strongest way you can do this, and while the Administration can and probably will appeal, this is a summary judgment applied to all potential plaintiffs, meaning that the tariffs are dead for now, although an appeal has already been filed with the U.S. Court Of Appeals, which could issue a stay.
What’s the administration saying? Here’s the statement, which does not mention Fentanyl, via CNBC:
White House spokesperson Kush Desai, in a statement on the ruling, said, “Foreign countries’ nonreciprocal treatment of the United States has fueled America’s historic and persistent trade deficits.”
“These deficits have created a national emergency that has decimated American communities, left our workers behind, and weakened our defense industrial base – facts that the court did not dispute.”
“It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency,” Desai added.
Does this ruling apply to cars? Probably not. The justification for President Trump’s auto tariffs is a little different. In that case, President Trump is using authority given to the Commerce Department under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, arguing that too many foreign imports materially weakened the domestic production base, which is bad for national security. So those still stand.
Maybe. I don’t know. No one knows anything.
It’s possible President Trump just gets tired of all of this and gives up on tariffs. However, President Trump was also confronted with the popularity of the TACO trade on Wall Street yesterday. If you’re not aware, that’s the Trump Always Chickens Out trade, which is premised on the idea that President Trump eventually walks back his most extreme positions, representing a way to make a lot of money quickly on your investments merely by betting on him to chicken out. It’s all anyone seemingly wanted to talk about yesterday.
This came to a head in the White House yesterday, as CNBC reports:
When asked by CNBC about the term at the White House, Trump denied that he had ever backed down and suggested that his moves have helped the U.S. gain ground in trade negotiations.
“After I did what I did, they said, ‘We’ll meet anytime you want,’” Trump said of the European Union, which he had recently targeted with a 50% U.S. tariff — before announcing two days later that he was delaying that new levy.
“You call that chickening out?” Trump said.
“It’s called negotiation,” he added, after criticizing the question as “nasty.”
We actually have video of that exchange:
So, maybe in light of being called a chicken, President Trump just doubles down.
No one knows anything! I do know that I’ll miss the manual Versa.
Elon Musk Decides To Leave Government
Here’s a brutal headline/lede combination from Bloomberg, which reports that Tesla CEO Elon Musk is leaving the Department of Government Efficiency after creating quite a bit of chaos: “Musk Exits DOGE Leaving Threadbare Agencies and Strained Workers.”
And here’s the lede:
Brendan Demich and his team of research engineers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Pittsburgh were racing to complete a virtual reality program to help train miners on what to do in an emergency underground.
They feared that soon, time would run out, and Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency would throw them out of work.
“You’re calling on an incredible day,” Demich said while speaking with a reporter on the phone on May 2. The night before, his group had finished a stable version of their simulator, which could teach thousands of workers how to assist each other in the event of a mine collapse, explosion or fire.
“Nobody else in the world is doing this kind of thing,” Demich said. “And it’s basically going to get shelved.”
Hours later, Demich, along with nearly everyone else at his agency, learned he was out of a job.
That’s rough. Call me crazy, but that sounds like important work.
Musk initially claimed his work would save $2 trillion, but so far, even DOGE itself says it’s saved just $170 billion, and those claims are in doubt. Overall, federal spending has gone up year-over-year since DOGE was created.
It matters less now as Musk is returning back to his other work, which times out nicely with his end as a Special Government Employee. That’s something investors seem to want, as The Washington Post reports:
A group of activist Tesla Inc. shareholders sent a letter Wednesday to board chair Robyn Denholm calling for guarantees that CEO Elon Musk devote at least 40 hours a week to the electric vehicle maker after spending much of the past year focused on federal politics.
The letter was signed by SOC Investment Group, which is sponsored by a coalition of labor unions, and other small investors that together own about 7.9 million Tesla shares — a minuscule fraction of the company’s 3.22 billion outstanding shares. It comes amid investor and employee frustration over the impact Musk’s role with the Trump administration has had on the company’s sales and reputation.
Tesla’s most recent earnings call last month revealed a 71% drop in profits and a 13% slide in sales compared to the same time in 2024. Experts and analysts largely attribute that hit to Musk’s work with the U.S. DOGE Service, where he has inspired sweeping job and budget cuts in the federal government.
The deficit the United States is running is an important issue and certainly, there has to be waste in a system as big as our country’s government. Foregoing your own business interests in order to help your country discover waste is also, in theory, a noble thing to do.
Musk thanked the President and then retweeted a bunch of posts about how they’re both still friends and not to believe anyone who says they’re having a falling out, while also sharing a tweet that opposed cuts in the President’s key legislation.
Building cars is hard, but maybe governing is harder.
Xiaomi Debuts The Model Y-Fighting XU7
It’s great timing for Musk that he’s back in control of Tesla full time(ish), as upstart competitor Xiaomi just took aim straight at the Model Y with the handsome Xu7 SUV.
If I showed you a photo of that and told you it was a new McLaren SUV, you’d probably believe me. It looks great and allegedly has the stats to match. With Tesla already battling to maintain market share in China, this is bad news according to CNBC:
Less than a year after launching its first electric car, Xiaomi late on Thursday revealed its YU7 SUV and claimed it would have a driving range of at least 760 kilometers (472 miles) on a single charge.
That’s well above the 719 km advertised for Tesla’s extended-range Model Y. Driving range has been a selling point for consumers worried about frequent battery charging.
“We expect Yu7 would significantly erode Tesla Model-Y’s China market share,” Citi analyst Jeff Chung said in a report Sunday.
Analysts also think the Yu7 will be a little cheaper than the Model Y, with a starting price around $35,000.
Foxconn Has A New Partner, According To Foxconn
Foxconn, the Taiwanese company known for building iPhones (in China), has been out looking for partners for its automotive business. After spooking Honda into almost merging with Nissan, Foxconn then went on to secure a contract-manufacturing deal with Mitsubishi.
It doesn’t seem like Foxconn wants its own brand of cars. Instead, it wants to design and build a basic EV that can then be modified and branded by other companies. The first Japanese company to take up Foxconn’s offer was Mitsubishi, but it’s not the last if you believe the company’s Chairman Young Liu.
“There are two Japanese automakers; one has already been announced, and the other is almost ready to be,” Liu said at the company’s annual shareholders meeting, without elaborating.
Is it Nissan? The company is cutting a bunch of its budgets, so maybe it’s Nissan. My guess is Nissan.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I don’t know what’s going to happen more than anyone else, but I do know that Sammy Hagar has some real chops. Please enjoy “Paper Money” by Montrose.
The Big Question
What happens next?
Lead photo: Stellantis
“, Trump denied that he had ever backed down and suggested that his moves have helped the U.S. gain ground in trade negotiations.”
That’s typical… Never expect Crooked Trump to apologize, admit any weakness/backing down or ever admit he was wrong.
At this point, the most surprising thing to me that Donnie could do is start being honest, admitting he made mistakes and apologizing.
“Tesla CEO Elon Musk is leaving the Department of Government Efficiency after creating quite a bit of chaos”
Yep… the big institutional shareholders are getting pissed. Musk makes all this money from his position at Tesla. So he had better be there on a “full time job” basis.
For me personally, when I found out he was gonna start working for Crooked Trump AND still be in charge of Tesla, I sold my TSLA shares… but the biggest personal reason is because I was anticipating that Tesla would get hit with political blowback for aligning himself so closely with Crooked Trump and The Deplorables.
And I was right.
Right now the shares have gone back up… but I predict that isn’t gonna last. The political blowback against Tesla will last for years.
“What happens next?”
As long as Crooked Trump is President, expect more Chaos. It’s not a question of ‘if’, but ‘when’.
As a part of “No One Knows Anything” is the reality that Musk could come back in a week and say it was all a joke. Or he could be appointed to something else, like running NASA or the Federal Reserve.
It’s always possible he was never actually calling any shots and was just there as a distraction, and if that’s true we don’t really know how much he was aware of that.
What we do know is that reporting on what’s going on has been fantastically superficial and full of smokescreens. For every occasional deep report there have been 100 which treat people like Musk and Trump as normal policymakers who are fully in charge and making well-developed plans and strategies that mirror the processes of Toyota as it develops a new tailgate for the 2027 Tundra.
Reporting would be so much stronger if it reflected just how uncertain and haphazard things are, but that would mean admitting the media’s own weak position, and their own people need to pose as experts even more than Musk does.
If there’s one thing the current occupant(s) have illuminated is the utter incompetence of the traditional media at any sort of incisive and accurate reporting.
I get the feeling that every time Musk walks away from a place, that place instantly explodes into a fireball, like in a movie.
What happens next is the Democrats still don’t figure out a way to spin this all in their favor and keep losing.
I feel like the Carlin sketch, this is the best we can do, this is what our system produces. Occasionally we get “lucky” with somebody that can reduce the debt, keep the international scene quiet, move us forward in health and safety. But for the most part it’s just somebody out for their own fame and gain.
Luckily, at least in theory we have some controls in place, checks and balances, which if we hadn’t have been formed right after overthrowing an actual frickin’ Monarchy, we probably wouldn’t even have those.
But hey at least we might get Hemis back so that’s something.
What happens next? Someone loads up the NKA-47 and fires angry tweets out at 3am, screwing up everything from the day prior. Wash/Rinse/Repeat. Because Nobody Knows Anything.
I usually put $500 extra towards my mortgage every month, but this month, I might use it to buy Tesla shares. Why, you ask? Anything I touch turns to ash, so my investing in them would make Tesla’s collapse an absolute certainty.
Don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner – it might have saved the world if I had nipped him in the bud after the pedo/cave debacle.
What’s next? Who knows, but I’m guessing things continue to fall apart, and we (the US) end up mostly back where we started, except with a recession, most of the world pissed at us, missing a lot of key people and public functions that will severely cripple parts of societal functioning, and $1trillion added to the national debt from the legal fees of all of this idiocy.
What happens next is most tariffs from the US end disappear BUT many of the other countries that have been hard at work finding alternate sales channels keep their tariffs on the US in place, their tourists avoid the US, their students pay money to attend Oxford and other renowned universities instead of Harvard and our other renowned universities and their consumers shun our products. Our economy then actually does turn as bad as or worse than half the country somehow thought it already was and things fall apart even faster. Welcome to the United States of Haiti. (Hate-i?)
I probably shouldn’t be LOL, but that’s probably about right, guess I was a bit too optimistic? US of Hate-ye is quite appropriate for what we have become, minus the “united” part (Gulf of Hate-ye does have a nice ring to it though…) Maybe I should start training for the Darien Gap trek, in case I need to flee to Colombia in the future?
Thank you SO MUCH for Montrose “Paper Money”. Early Sammy with Ronnie Montrose was a potent combination.
Paper money don’t hold, but at least it’s not “air” like crypto bro!
What happens next? I’m going to get a coffee.
And some nice cheese, before it gets tariffed…
I just spent $40 on French butter before it’s $75.
I don’t blame you. 🙁 I feel like I’m going to have to move to Switzerland just to be able to afford my cheese habit.
Gosh, I ate too much cheese this morning and feel blergh. I’m not lactose intolerant or anything. I just ate too many buffalo-sauce-flavor cheese curds since they were good and I was just reading stuff on my laptop.
So, maybe some good ol’ Brown-O-Matic will work. Blow that colon.
I have just discovered one of the cats I’ve taken on is an absolute dairy fiend.
Bacon? No. Chicken? No thank you. Pork bits? Good day sir.
Cheese pieces light this cat’s soul on fire though. I had some yogurt fall out of the yogurt archive and splash everywhere. He was the best lil first responder, coming to help clean up immediately.
The instant his tastes turn fancy or expensive I’m sending him to you, though. I don’t have time or money for cheeses with silent letters.
Colon Blow or Super Colon Blow
https://youtu.be/Ku42Iszh9KM?si=33SeGY0Fr4OZCUfz
LOL, without seeing yours, mine was basically the same answer.
There was more actual reporting here than I have found in the news! Specicially re: the court system ruling.
It is nice to read the actual quotes interspersed with humor 🙂
I don’t know what’s going to happen specifically, but I can say with 100% certainty that it’s going to be fucking stupid and exhausting
I really hope this Unitary Presidency insanity ends soon.
Very unlikely.
The only ways it might end soon is if Trump as a catastrophic health issue OR… he has an ‘accident’.
The “backups” are not looking any better. At least the current one is predictable as far as chickening out and also known to take the viewpoint of whoever was last in the room with him. That can be planned/played toward as Wall Street is currently doing. Some of these other people though, while playing or appearing stupid, actually do have some intelligence which is misdirected. That’s the scary part.
Perhaps an Airforce 1 crash caused by a lack of traffic controllers that wipes out Trump and all those closest to him… maybe?
I like
Either would be acceptable
What happens next?
A bunch of lawsuits by importers to get all of their tariff expenditures refunded.
The lawsuits in general after this administration is over will drag on for decades.
Yep
And all of the money courts and the government will spend on legal fees, processing, restitution, and the like. Sounds like a highly inefficient use of Taxpayer dollars… It’s almost as if forcing every bit of bad and suspect policy to be dragged through the courts makes our government highly inefficient.
Better that than no courts.
The courts exist precisely so weirdos with god complexes can’t do whatever they want. People don’t understand the government is inefficient by design, and that’s a good thing.
What happens next? That is a very open ended question well for me I am probably going to trade in my ND RF Miata it has left a sore taste in my mouth the transmission lost the 3rd gear syncro at ~8k miles (trans was replaced under warranty though so that is good) but the fiance also doesn’t think it is safe for me to be dailying a convertible though I was dailying a 92 Cummins before which I am sure is much less safe hah.
Lost 3rd gear synchro on our Mazda3 because the RPM would hang on the 2->3 upshift. I think the RPM hang was to reduce hydrocarbon emissions for compliance but I was never able to find a way to get it fixed. Kinda ruined the fun of driving it.
So sounds like an issue across multiple Mazda models I know for the ND’s the syncro issue seemed to start around 2021-22 onwards. I am most likely just going to go an EV appliance mobile for my daily now. Love the Miata and can still get 35 mpg with some spirited driving but the transmission issue has just put the thought in the head when will this one fail now? Sure it is still in warranty for like 40 more months but what happens if the trans fails again and more down time? Or even worse I run out of warranty then it fails so now money out of my pocket.
Well dang. If it’s not a known-good fix (like if I could’ve fixed the RPM hang) and that sense of vulnerability worms into one’s head, it’s harder to enjoy it.
OTOH, most EVs are fun in their own way, but not in a Miata way.
Can’t help but feel like No One Knows Anything, is a bad thing.
It’s just so deeply hilarious to me that Elon is such a massively unlikeable, almost universally-despised loser-ass dork that he cost the Republicans a Supreme Court victory in Wisconsin and they got so mad they cut him loose. Just the second best possible thing that could’ve happened from his foray into government.
That might be part of it. But I suspect it was the threats from large institutional Tesla shareholders being main reason he quit.
Waste exists everywhere. Its existence isn’t a differentiating or meaningful characteristic. If there is specific evidence of waste that is disproportional to the value of something, it is worth looking at. The idea of waste in government as an umbrella statement that justifies anything is dishonest and niave.
Except he didn’t do that. Doing that would have meant forgoing his private businesses and not influencing decisions that could impact those businesses. Musk did neither. The fact that he might not have understood the degree to which Trump is an evil megalomaniac and that Tesla was going to suffer is immaterial.
“Foregoing your own business interests in order to help your country discover waste is also, in theory, a noble thing to do.”
Not buying this.
Meddling in something you have no knowledge of is not a good thing.
Staying in your lane and minding your business is the noble thing to do.
And we all know that “discovering waste” is not why he did it.
What he did was buy access to steal data and destroy institutions which have oversight of his companies – thereby eliminating the pending actions against him on many fronts, including EPA matters from his manufacturing operations, SEC matters from his false statements and market manipulation, and FAA issues due to his rockets “sudden unscheduled disassemblies”.
“The fact that he might not have understood the degree to which Trump is an evil megalomaniac…”
I believe Musk knew exactly who he was dealing with – and used it to what he believed would be his advantage.
I completely agree. Maybe with a minor caveat that it is possible he underestimated the level of Trump’s disdain towards even his most significant source of campaign funds. But once Trump had the ability to sell pardons for billions and manipulate the stock market for his own benefit, he didn’t really need Musk’s money. And yes, Musk got every penny’s worth in the data he stole.
Watching two people debate the details of their shared delusion is making my valve act up, ignatius.
What business can plan for next year, when they don’t know what next Thursday brings?
If I were GM or Ford – I’d be regretting winding down/selling off my European and Australian operations.
And if I were Stellantis – I’d be spending a lot more time and effort on my European operations – Perhaps even soliciting joint ventures w/ Chinese manufacturers for non-US markets.
Agreed. At least you can count on those regions to be stable.
Worse, anything coming out of the US is ripe for reciprocity for what may happen next.
I’d like to hear from some of the Europeans here about how stable they feel it is over there…
It’s all relative.
Which is exactly the point.
It’s about a six, maybe a seven out of ten.
Limited ground war, trade OK except for with one country, worrying rise in the political far right. We’ve seen much worse.
Exactly, and when things don’t go as well as hoped, how much ability will CEOs have to say “Well, if it weren’t for Trump…”
This is a genuine concern. Billions of dollars of potential wealth and societal improvement are being lost every day to a complete intangible: uncertainty.
And it’s an uncertainty that’s self-inflicted, not some force majeur or terrorist attack.
“Does this ruling apply to cars? Probably not.”
Actually – Yes it would.
The only tariffs that apply are those enacted by Congress in their taxation authority.
Not some random social media posts and unilateral scribbles by the Chicken Taco King.
The tariffs on cars and steel is still on because those were done using a different authority. Sector specific tariffs are still perfectly fine when done on the executive’s whim, but as authorized by congress they require jumping through hoops, collecting actual evidence, and holding a public hearing. Pharmaceuticals is currently going through this process and it takes a while.
Nope – The US trade court ruled that the President’s actions were not authorized by Section 232, as the tariffs were not linked to national security concerns.
*Update – now the appellate court has sided w/ the Chicken Taco Administration.*
So even before the appellate court made its ruling, the tariffs on cars were not going away. Cars, Steel, and Aluminum are a completely separate thing.
The “separate thing” was Section 232.
There is no national emergency.
Tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico under Section 232 not allowed. Tariffs on aluminum, steel, and aluminum on every country under Section 232 is still allowed. Sector specific is still a separate thing. Much easier to make national security arguments on the actual stuff needed to build tanks and jets.
What happens is the tariffs stay in place because guy thinks he’s a king and has skin thinner than tissue paper. Typical bully. Can dish it but can’t take it. The political flunkies who owe their patronage jobs to the guy will order the career employees to keep on collecting the money to prove that their boss isn’t a chicken.
So much winning.
What did Musk accomplish?
He walked away with EVERY government database.
That includes all your tax information and probably your medical records.
Yup. A fascist sociopath simply took the most valuable exchangeable asset that the U.S. had control of without anyone seeming to care.
And favorable rulings from federal agencies, and contracts for his corporations.
What happens next is Elon might be put on a 90 day performance improvement plan (PIP), supervised by Robyn Denholm, and we all know what those are for
(The 40 hour/week demand, which will likely require documentation, kind of feels like part of one of those to me)
They should also require a weekly email with 5 bullets for what he accomplished *for Tesla* the previous week.
Exactly as I thought, just not HOW I thought it would go down:
I’ve heard of moving the Overton Window, but Trump punches a hole in the drywall and says “Nice window, loser!”
“It’s all about meeeeeeee….”
Don’t forget step 5: Execute Order 66.
I feel Palpatine was far better at governing, with much more forethought. He did awful things in the name of seeking power, but there was at least thought behind it.
It’s sad how I’ve had to re-evaluate fictional evil governments in light of the past ten years of US politics. Plotlines I once thought were completely implausible now seem mundanely stupid compared to what’s happening in the real world.
I never thought we would blow right past the notion of how evil a leader could be, but yea, I have had to really re-adjust. The thing that is hardest for me is that while evil villains in fiction can be bumbling, they are still so much more intelligent than what we are working with now.
House of Cards was a great TV show with storylines that were simply amazing…until 1996. Then all of a sudden it became weak sauce compared to the actual reality unfolding on the news. And now even that is Saturday morning cartoon stuff comparatively to today.
At least its a small hole in the dry wall, because of his tiny hands
Yeah, the language is clear and the threats overt at this point. They just need to keep beating the “unnelected judges” drum to the point they can ignore the courts without any worry. Not that the MAGAts and their “both sides” hype-men need much of a reason to excuse fascism.
Overturn window.
In trying to make big predictions, I’m reminded of John Mulaney’s “horse in a hospital” bit, especially this part:
Everyone knows that if you want to get fentanyl, just tell the doctor that sometimes you get nervous on airplanes.
I think about this bit all the time. Mulaney says a lot of smart things, but this is the one I think about the most.
Horseshit. There are plenty of experts out there. I’ll buy that the news fails to find them, but ignoring the experts’ advice is a big part of how we got where we are.
Edit: To be clear, my objection is that this smacks of the “I do my own research” argument so popular with anti-vaxxers and the like. Dismissing experts as no more credible than the random conspiracy theorist down the street is a dangerous philosophy.
You’re working real hard to get outraged and argue a joke. If you’ve not seen the John Mulaney Netflix special this references, you should stop what you’re doing and go watch. Now. You can thank me later.
Okay, I clicked the link someone else posted to provide context for it, and I still disagree with the premise. Because here’s the thing: What’s happening is not unprecedented (either the horse or the president). The specific details of this instance may be unique, but not the general situation. Animals end up in buildings they shouldn’t be in all the time. That’s why we have animal control (you know, the experts he claims don’t exist…and then specifically references later in the bit).
We’ve seen fascists take power before. Hell, we’ve seen it in the past few years in multiple countries. Sure, nobody knows exactly what’s going to happen next, but plenty of people know where we’re headed in broad terms. We need to listen to those people.
As a comedy bit it’s amusing. As a philosophy to live by? Not so much.
I don’t think the “Lighten up, Francis” meme has ever been more appropriate to respond with.
I could go on at length about this being a joke and no one was proposing that it’s a philosophy to live by. But you seem hell bent on being mad at the world and irritated that no one is as mad as you about it.
The whole bit is very clear that the problem isn’t really finding someone who knows how the hospital works, but finding someone who can predict what the horse will do. There are plenty of experts who can tell you the likely outcomes of, say, tariffs, but that doesn’t really tell us what TFG will do. It’s about the unpredictability, not about expertise.
He also includes a bit in there about how the horse catcher should go take care of it, but it turns out the horse has fired the horse catcher. “I didn’t even know the horse could do that.”
It’s a lot longer bit than the snippet I quoted, but still plenty short to go give it a listen/watch.
John Mulaney is not without his problems, but he’s never struck me as a someone who writes off experts, and I think it takes a very specific reading of his comedy to get that from it.
Also, I was posting this bit mostly to say I don’t want to be the guy who’s seen a bird in an airport, on the news making predictions about what the horse will do. Not to say that analysis is not warranted.