BLOWIN' IN THE WIND – OVERNIGHT:  One of the things we like to do at Urgent Agenda is to try to spot trends that are just beginning, the ideas and people who will take us into the future.  It's almost impossible to get it right all the time, of course, but we sometimes see something that reflects the mood of the country, and its direction.

If there's anything that defines America right now it's the wish for a fresh start, a belief that we need more than another election.  We need a national makeover, a reason to believe in ourselves again.

We've gone through this before.  It happened during the Depression.  It happened in the 1970s, after Vietnam.  We came out stronger each time, the first time by fighting and winning World War II, which established us as the world's superpower; the second time by electing Ronald Reagan as president.  He reminded us of who we were, and he led us to victory in the Cold War. 

As MacArthur said, there's no substitute for victory.  It's not like the Olympics.  In building a nation, there's no silver medal for greatness. 

Now, today, we notice something.  Consider Elon Musk, the guy who's buying Twitter.  I know very little about him, so I come in without prejudice.  It looked at first like a business deal, a big one, but just a business deal.  Now Musk is speaking like a president.  He can't run for the presidency because he's not native-born, he was born in South Africa, but he clearly wants to lead, to say, in effect, "We're in a mess.  It can't go on.  This is what we must do."  And I'm seeing more of this attitude every day.  Maybe we've just reached the point where Americans are saying, "enough."  Maybe the Elon Musks of the world can help.  There is something very refreshing about this.  From Fox Business: 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whose purchase of Twitter remains ongoing, slammed President Biden in a podcast interview Monday and warned that if the government continues printing money, inflation will get worse and the U.S. might follow the path of Venezuela.

"This administration doesn't seem to get a lot done," Musk said. "The Trump administration, leaving Trump aside, there were a lot of people in the administration who were effective at getting things done."

He also claimed that the Democratic Party is "overly controlled by the unions and by the trial lawyers, particularly the class action lawyers." He argued that when Democrats go against "the interests of the people," it tends to come from the unions and the trial lawyers, while when Republicans do that, "it's because of corporate evil and religious zealotry." 

"In the case of Biden, he is simply too much captured by the unions, which was not the case with Obama," Musk said. The Tesla CEO defended Obama as "quite reasonable," but insisted that Biden prioritizes the unions ahead of the public.

The Tesla CEO also weighed in on Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's claim that the White House has resorted to "misdirection" in order to "muddy the topic" of inflation.

"I mean, the obvious reason for inflation is that the government printed a zillion amount of more money than it had, obviously," Musk said, echoing Republican critics who claim that Biden's American Rescue Plan COVID-19 relief stimulus bill contributed to the near-40-year-high inflation the U.S. experienced in April. 

COMMENT:  Read the rest.  Whether you like Musk or not, at least he's thinking beyond the prepared statements and the PR hype.  He's treating a serious time seriously, and that is unique in 2022, when fluff is considered philosophy. 

May 16-17, 2022