Every day is headline news day with this Trump administration. It’s a feature, not a bug. TV performers want the spotlight, and every day there’s a new Donald Trump headline.
Maybe that’s a good thing and maybe it’s bad, depending on one’s own perspective of the political scene enveloping us.
If you’re into peace and quiet, this is a discouraging time. If it’s “action” you want – kicking over tables and generally running bull over America’s China shop — these are the best of times for you.
It’s a matter of personal preference and how you like to run your life.
While he was by no means a perfect president, I enjoyed the Barack Obama years. We could go a week without hearing his name. Each day was about the same as the day before. “No drama Obama” was the moniker for those days.
Today?
We’ll hear from Mr. Trump every few hours. I read a viewpoint today, “Trump announces everything because he works for us, and he tells us what he’s doing.”
Fair enough. Hear from him, we do. And hear, we will, for four more years.
One piece of good Trump news was that Trump decreed the Treasury discontinue minting pennies. Turns out it costs over 2 cents to mint ever one penny.
Smart move to kill the penny. Hurray for common cents!
Who among us liked getting those two or three pennies as change with every cash transaction, fidgeting with what to do with them?
Mine end up in the center console of my car … to be collected and given to grandkids at the eventual time of vehicle resale. Hundreds of dead pennies, collecting grim along with a dozen or so lost french fries over years. Most Americans share this absurd nuisance. We all have our penny jars, loose change drawers, and center consoles in our cars.
If, as a national crusade, we voluntarily returned all pennies to the Treasury, we’d knock down our national debt by half a trillion. More dough than all the tax-DOGEr Richest Man in the World Elon Musk has ever paid!
Us working folk could make up for all our tax-dodging billionaires. Oh, yeah … we already do.
Hurray for Trump on the penny decree. I wish he’d gone farther and pulled them all out of circulation. We’d have no more annoying, “99 cent” items. Just one buck. No change on every transaction. Eggs for $3.17 a dozen? Gone. Just pay an even $10.
The egg crisis is no yoke. Eggs are in everything … not just those five-egg omelets at the Black Bear Diner. Everything but bacon has a 50-cent surcharge per egg at Waffle House. Why can’t we trade of some In-N-Out Burgers for a few Waffle Houses?
With Denny’s closing stores, we’re in a world of hurt for greasy post-hangover breakfasts.
One thing we don’t suffer from is lack of Musk’s Teslas. Specifically, white Teslas. Have you noticed? Those of a certain age remember when every eighth car on the road was a VW Bug. In the ’70s, Bugs were everywhere. Bugs are where most of us learned to drive stick shifts. If, of course, you’re old enough to remember what a stick shift is.
Teslas are the new Bugs. But opposite of Bugs teaching us driving skills, Musk is systematically removing our skills.
Forget that today’s kids won’t ever learn to drive a stick. Musk’s objective is to kill skills completely. The idea of physically steering /accelerating / braking your car will be as arcane as riding a horse down McBean Parkway.
Seen at the 2050 Fourth of July flying car parade up Old Orchard (hopefully without hovering reflective Sky Butt-Paddles), “Look, Mommy! There’s an old dude DRIVING himself, ON THE GROUND!”
Our Tesla/Musk future projects us as do-nothing WALL-E blobs, passively sucking up Musk Star Link internet as we cruise our navigational skills to oblivion.
There’s a phenomenon nowadays called “White Tesla Syndrome.” It’s real, and you’ve witnessed it. No Santa Claritan can drive a mile without seeing five to 10 white Teslas.
They all look identical, with no particular defining features. White jellybean cars.
White Tesla Syndrome is when you park your white Tesla at in a parking lot and when you return, there’s three or four other white Tesla jellybeans parked right next to you.
You’re confused and disoriented. You’ve entered a Twilight Zone of identical car ownership where everyone is exactly the same. Fortunately, there’s a solution: Stick your favorite baseball cap on the dashboard to tell your white jellybean from the others. Low tech solves new tech Bugs. So to speak.
White Tesla syndrome may burn out like one more Tesla battery explosion. Musk is doing his billionaire best alienating his once-loyal liberal customer base with his invasive government interference, driving devotees toward less politically tainted modes of transport. Sales in Europe are down 40-50%. American sales are falling, also.
Trump killed the penny! Good job, for realsies! Musk may be killing Tesla. This won’t go well with the Department of Shareholder Efficiency … just as Musk’s DOGE is likely to explode on the Department of Ordinary Americans.
Gary Horton’s “Full Speed to Port!” has appeared in The Signal since 2006. The opinions expressed in his column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Signal or its editorial board.
