Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I want to discuss kind of a weird topic.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
That has really sort of lifted its head in the
social media discussions about the Democrat nominee for mayor of
New York, Zoron Mamdani, and this thing that liberals seem
to desperately want to do all the time and are
(00:26):
sort of blind too, and conservatives seem to do this
all the time too, this idea of elevating someone into
like a personal saint because you like their politics. I'm
(00:48):
under no illusions, all right. I agree with Ted Cruz
about a lot of things, probably most things politically, I
don't know a large number of things. I have no
illusions that Ted Cruz is a fun hang He's obviously not.
(01:10):
I'm he's very unpleasant, Okay, Like I I listen to
him talk and my skin crawls. Yeah, I don't think
i'd like to hang out with him. He doesn't seem
like a I don't know. Does he seem like a
good person or a bad But I don't know. He's
clearly an incredibly ambitious person. I don't know that he's
(01:30):
a good person or a kind Maybe he's personally charitable
or does very kind things in his private life. I
don't know, but I'm under I'm not under any illusion,
even though I agree with him on a lot of things,
that he's some you know, saint.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Similarly, even someone like JD. Vance. I mean, I think
Jady vance is.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I like Jade Vance's politics, probably more than almost anyone
in American politics, probably him and Marco Rubio. But these
are two very ambitious people, and I sometimes do wonder
if they compromised on their beliefs in order to get power.
And you know, and and I think I'd enjoy hanging
out with JD. Vans, but I don't go on and
(02:11):
on about the warmth and strength of his personality.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
And it's similar with Trump.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I mean, I think Trump is you know, I disagree
with Trump on certain things. I think probably I'm much
more socially conservative.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Than he is.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I think he'd be a fun hang I'm under no
illusions that he's the best person in the world. I mean, yeah,
he's got a pretty checkered past, and probably it would
be an uncomfortable fit if we were to hang out
a lot. You know, his lifestyle has been in the
past just very very different from mine.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Now.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I know there are a lot of stories about charitable
things that Trump has done sort of quietly, that have
been actually extremely generous and extremely kind, And those are
very good qualities. But he can also be very petty,
and he can be a terrible boss to work for,
and he can be very moody. And you know, I'm
(03:13):
just not under any illusion. As much as I favor
you know, Trump over Harris or whatever.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I'm not under any illusion that any.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Of these people, let me, let me put it this way,
I have no patron saints in American politics. I'm under
no illusions that any of these people are, you know,
Mother Teresa or Dominic Savio walking around with a halo
over their heads. But the coverage of zoron Mom Donnie
(03:44):
on the left, and I don't know if maybe it's
it's leftists do this a little more than rightis the
coverage of zoron Mum Donnie has been just this fawning like, well,
he just seems like such a nice person in you know,
the thing is Trump brings so much negativity, and Mom
(04:05):
Donnie brings so much warmth and personal he's such a
personally good kind person and he's personally he's so personable
and blah blah, blah blah blah, and people really really
invest like a lot of like sincerity into saying this.
(04:31):
Where you know, I just listed several Republican politicians, and
all of my reasons for probably not thinking that any
of these people are saints. Let's talk about Zora and
mom Donnie. Okay, Zorn Mam Donnie grew up with very
wealthy parents. His mom was very wealthy movie executive. Uh.
(04:51):
He is clearly extremely ambitious. He has posted all he's been,
never worked a real job day in his life. I mean,
I could go on and on and on about not
super nice things about his personality, stuff about his personality
that I think is phony, et cetera. The sort of
latent anti semitism of what he talks about. I find
(05:16):
his whole shtick to be, you know, fairly insincere. It
was the same way with Obama, though, and maybe I
shouldn't be so surprised at all this, especially for any
of you. I'll let me give this perspective. I don't
(05:37):
know how many of you listening were in college during
the Obama years, but wow, was it insufferable. It was
unbearable the level of slobbering hero worship that Barack Obama
(05:57):
was getting from college kids, college professors on college campuses. Okay,
So I was at Notre Dame as an undergrad in
two thousand and eight. I was in Notre Dame law
school in twenty twelve, and just the level of just
every Obarack Obama was basically.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
I don't know, he was like the pope for college.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Liberals, like just slobbering, fawning personal Oh he's such you know,
Obama is such a sincerely good person, and he's so sincere,
and he's young and energetic, and I was like, he's
like I as a college student was like, he's forty seven,
He's not that young. And the fawning desire to make
(06:51):
politicians into like saints as far as like their personal conduct.
It's this enormous instinct that people have in politics. And
I don't understand why this this, and you see it
constantly with liberals. I don't know, I feel like, I mean,
(07:13):
I mean, God knows, certainly people have done this a
lot with Trump, uh, but with liberals that they're they're
constantly trying to do this. First, the constant desire to
try to compare Barack Obama to your or Joe Biden
to our grandpa like. People constantly talked about him like that,
or Kamala Harris as your fun aunt or Mama La.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
That whole thing.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
People were constantly trying to paint these people in ways
they weren't.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Do you do you remember the whole joy thing.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Right after the Democrat nomination, the Democratic Party convention, all
of a sudden, Kamala Harris is thrust into the spotlight.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
She's the nominee. She gets Tim.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Walls, uh and and after and she had a little
bit of a bump right after the Democratic convention. She
was doing better in the polls, and the media kept
talking about, Oh, her campaign, it's just characterized by joy.
You have these straight, allegedly unbiased, straight news journalists talking about, Oh,
(08:19):
the joy that's characteristic of her campaign.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
You can really see that it's exuding joy.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
And it was no, it was just journalists relieve that
Joe Biden wasn't going to completely sink the ticket. And
they kept trying to ascribe these like wonderful personal qualities
to Kamala Harris, who again, I am a person who
is quite willing to criticize Republican politicians for their many
(08:48):
failings and shortcomings. I don't think any Republican politicians are saints.
Kamala Harris is not like some great person.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
She clearly is.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Was not a very effective vice president, is not a
good public speaker, is not you know, didn't have a
great professional pedigree until after she started sleeping with Willie Brown.
And it's just a fairly unimpressive politician and person, and
also a ruthlessly ambitious, cutthroat person, like so many people
(09:29):
in American politics, all these big figures in American politics,
I don't believe any of them as far as the
whole shuck sum just one of you. No, you're a
United States senator. You don't become a United States Senator
without a pretty significant degree of ambition.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
And I think a lot of these people have.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Deep, aggressive, sharp motives for what they're trying to do.
To a certain extent, I at least appreciate the openness
and the frankness of the Donald Trumps, even sometimes of
the Mitch mcconnald's, even though they're coming from very different perspectives.
(10:14):
Mitch McConnell was very sort of clear about what he wanted.
He wanted to advance the interests of certain kinds of Republicans,
the kind of Koch Brothers agenda, and he was fairly
forthright about that. Trump is similarly forthright about what he
wants to do, what he wants to advance. He doesn't
(10:35):
really pretend to be something other than what he is.
And that's what I can't understand why liberals don't see that,
Why they can't be as clear eyed about their politicians. Why, like,
you know this notion, I mean, I feel like they're
(10:57):
on track again to nominate Kamala Harre and that it's
going to be some kind of emotion fueled thing of
that black women.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
How who are you to deny a black woman?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And blah blah blah blah blah, Because I mean, you
look at the prospective field of candidates on the Democrats side,
she's still doing about as good, if not better, than
anyone else.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Her chief competition is Pete Boodhagig. This was a hilarious poll.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
It was this poll looking ahead to the twenty twenty
eight Democratic nominee to the twenty twenty eight Democrat presidential primary,
and it lists out a bunch of different names, Tim Walls,
Kamala Harris, Pete Bootagige several other people, and it did
a breakdown also based on race, the race of the
(11:48):
survey respondents, and what individual racial groups thought of different candidates.
And Kamala Harris did very well, certainly among Black voters
and overall did very well. I think she was either
first or second. She was neck and neck with Pete Bootajidge.
The problem was that Pete Buotajidge had exactly zero percent
(12:09):
support from the African American respondents to the poll, zero percent,
which guess what, that is bad news for a Democrat
presidential candidate.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
If you don't get Black people to vote for you,
good luck.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
But I think even I mean even after the election,
there's a decent number of Democrats who are still really
have had bought this idea of Kamala Harris as your
fun aunt, Mama La, like the joy, all these sort
of personal character traits that were always phony baloney. When
(12:55):
I was younger, I used to believe some of these
kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I thought George W. Bush was a great, wonderful, good
sincere guy, And in retrospect, I think probably a more
accurate assessment is there are probably certain aspects of his
life and personal conduct whatever, where George W.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Bush is a very good guy, and I also think
he's a ruthless politician. He was a ruthless politician in
various other ways who had certain kinds of things that
he prioritized that I did not. But I'm not going
to continue living as a child. As far as my
(13:35):
political enthusiasms for people, I recognize, all these people are fallible,
all these people are human, all these people make mistakes.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
And I'm not going to have any canonized saints.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
It's very rare that you're going to find any canonized
saints in American politics. I would say, for me, the
closest we can get to that, the closest people I
can think of to that in American politics.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Maybe my ideal politician.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Right now on the American political scene is Jade Vance,
But even that I'm not sure. I mean, even with him,
I recognize this very ambitious guy who's trying to get
stuff done. It just amazes me how this mindset was
so huge for the Zoron Mumdani election. Now, in fairness,
(14:27):
Mumdanni had the advantage of running against Andrew Cuomo, who's
a slime ball. Like pretty much by any metric, Cuomo
was a slimeball. He was sexually harassing ladies, he was
a bad governor. He's power hungry, he's not exactly an
(14:48):
attractive fellow. And younger voters had the choice between him
and this fresh faced young guy who kept talking about affordability,
and guess what, Living in New York is extremely unaffordable.
And here he is promising the moon and the stars
about this is how we can help address affordability, if
(15:09):
we could do blah blah blah blah. But now all
of his solutions to the problem were wrong. The solution
that people need to think about is more supply. They
need more housing in New York. They don't build enough housing. Fundamentally,
That's what drives on affordability in New York. The cost
of rent, because everyone pays rent, filters into the cost
(15:31):
of literally everything else in society, food, clothing, everything else.
But that is my I guess it's my frustration is
that I think there is something deep seated in human
nature that wants to admire our leaders. I think there's
(15:58):
something in human nature that very naturally fits in you know, as.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
I read like you know, read Lord of the Rings
or something.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Like that, that wants to honor or even not even
reading Lord of the Rings, just looking across the pond.
The filial affection that the British public has.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
For the monarch.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Is a beautiful thing, I think, and inspiring, and we
don't really have that in America.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
And so.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Whereas in England they give that affection to King Charles
and he doesn't really do anything with politics, whereas over
here we have nobody and thus he's almost as the
head of state but not the head of government. Charles
can kind of be a personalized.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Sort of.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Representing the country in the form of a person in
a way that's good and decent, Whereas in America, I
think we give that love to a concept a country,
and that's good and wonderful and beautiful. And as we
celebrate this Fourth of July, it's I think it's a
(17:14):
fitting thing to love your country, to reverence your country,
to reverence the good ideals that it stands for. But
I think there's also something that people want that to
be sometimes in the form of a person, and we
do that sometimes with dead people. Were honoring George Washington,
the greatest, I would say, the greatest American, honoring Abraham Lincoln,
(17:36):
honoring our heroes.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
I would say, though, don't have that.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Extend to these people who work for you, who depend
on your vote. They're pretty much all trying to sell
you an idealized version of themselves. All right, audio essay done?
When we return Zora Mom Donnie eats rice with his
hands next on the John Girardi Show. One of the
(18:08):
moments from the zoron Mum Donnie campaign that people kept
commenting on in fawning terms about, Oh, he's just one
of us, is he has some interview and he's trying
to like pretend like he's casually eating while he's being interviewed.
This is a great politician thing, pretend like you're doing
(18:29):
something like normal people when it's supposed to be something
that's sort of more formal. And he's eating like some
kind of dish with rice, and he's eating it just
with his hands. And obviously, for most people we'd be like, okay, gross,
(18:50):
where have your hands been?
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Did you wash your hands? But it was turned into
this whole Oh my.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Gosh, he's just Oh, there's so many ethnic groups from
the Middle East and the Global South, what are the
the whatever areas that that's how they eat rice? As
they and so he's one of us. He's one of
the people. It's like, are you insane? This guy grew
up with millionaire parents in New York.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
He is not some off the.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Boat immediate immigrant who's showing his solidarity. It's a stunt.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Stop it. That's ridiculous. But that's part of this fawning
thing that people have for mom. Doney. Oh he's so nice,
he's so personable. Look at him. He's just like one
of the people. Oh, he's a dufus.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
He's a thirty three year old dufus who's never held
a real job in his life. His parents are multi millionaires.
He's never had someone Someone posed a picture of him,
He's always smiling, and then someone on Twitter reposted it
with the caption, well, yeah, he's smiling. He knows that
(20:05):
his parents he was raised as a multi millionaire. He
knows he never has to work a day in his life. Yeah,
I'd be smiling too if I knew I had millions
of dollars to fall back on.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
No matter how much I screwed up.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
We're gonna make this man the mayor of the biggest
city in the United States of America on the basis
of he's nice.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Oh he's nice.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
He's so nice.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Oh he's eating rice with his hands. He's like one
of us.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Or not one of us, one of the imagined poors
from the global South that we don't interact with. Oh,
he's just one of the people. It's like catnip for millennial,
barely college educated liberals who have a useless degree.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
It's unbelievable. Again, I'm not like.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Again, I'm not saying conservatives are immune to ridiculous hero
worship of their politicians. Like it's been funny to me
how there's certain like members of Congress, like between Thomas Massey,
Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boeber's certain members of Congress who
like are either heroes or villainous goats, depending on if
(21:25):
that week they agree with Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Well, are these good people or bad? Are you?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Are they superheroes or are they devils? Like you gotta
decide like anyway anyway. In short, I am not big
on this hero worshiping of politicians.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
And it's so patently blogoney with this Mom Donnie campaign.
I just thought it was funny, all right.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
When we return, Elon Musk is blathering about electric vehicles,
and why I kind of fundamentally still don't care about them.
Some thoughts on California's electric vehicle mandate now off the books,
energy costs, gas prices, and electric vehicles. Next on the
John Juardy Show, Elon Musk was tweeting out the other day.
(22:09):
It's weird the sort of space he's in now that
he's kind of out of the Trump orbit, and he
keeps blathering about I guess him and Thomas Massey wanting
to start some America Party or something like that, a
new political party basically to cut spending. It's called libertarianism.
It has no political cachet. Elon just heads up there.
(22:32):
He was tweeting about electric vehicles. I mean, it makes sense.
He's Elon Musk, and he retweeted this note that in Norway,
ninety seven percent of all cars sold in June were
electric vehicles. As goes Norway, so goes the rest of
the world, rights Elon Musk. It seems like a factually
(22:56):
dubious claim, but I'll let it pass. Combustion engine cars
will be like the steam engine, quaint but primitive. All right,
So let me talk about this. Certainly, if you could
make a car that didn't need expensive gas at the pump.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
That'd be great.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
If you had a car that didn't need the expensive
supply chain, heavy supply chain dependent, Middle East dependent system
that we have in place right now for automobiles, that
would be great. If people could save money and not
have to pay for gasoline, that'd be great. If we
(23:43):
could have cars that didn't produce any emissions, that would
be great.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
All of it would be great.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
And certainly I think we are looking we are staring
down the barrel in California, most especially of a disaster
US situation with gas and energy prices, so California committed
itself to various forms of energy disaster. California desperately wants
(24:15):
one hundred percent of all new cars sold in the
state by twenty thirty five to be electric. Now, the
Trump administration has taken action to sort of get rid
of that California vehicle mandate, but god knows, in twenty
twenty eight, Kamala Harris could be elected and that mandate
comes right back. Everyone on the left wants this big
(24:40):
uptick in electric vehicles on the grounds that electric vehicles
produce less, fewer emissions. All right, fine, I guess that
makes sense. That's that's a thing. We want fewer emissions.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Now.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
The problem is that there are a bunch of problems
with this, and California is about to face.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Some huge challenges.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
First, California does not have the energy infrastructure ready to
have fourteen million new electric cars all plugging into the grid.
The infrastructure shift that's going to have to happen to
transition California, let alone the rest of the country to
(25:27):
electric cars rather than gas powered cars. It's something that
we are just not prepared for, nor have we even
begun to kind of start the infrastructure that would be necessary.
In part, it's because of our own are the artificial
(25:48):
structures we've placed on our own ability to produce energy
in California. If Governor Newsom had on day one of
his governorship said we're going nuclear, the state of California
is going nuclear. We want zero emission cars on our roads,
and the only way we're going to produce enough electricity
for our electrical grid to sustain fourteen million new electric
(26:09):
cars on California roads, the only way we're gonna do it.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Is if we go nuclear.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Baby nuke power will build nuclear power plants all up
and down the state, keep them away from any fault lines.
Put them all in the San Joaquin Valley, Okay, put
them in Pixley whatever, and we'll we'll just supercharge this state. Now,
(26:36):
if Newsom had done that, all right, that's a plan.
That's a great plan. Nuclear power is safe. The nuclear
waste that's produced as a byproduct is no more than
the byproduct that's produced from electric solar panels. Cause, guess
what this is the absurd thing about electrics that the
(27:00):
solar energy being deemed green but nuclear energy being deemed
not green.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Why.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Well, because nuclear energy produces nuclear waste, so you have
to do something with Well, solar energy produces a bunch
of battery cells made with rare earth minerals that you
got to do something with. You can't recycle them, You
can't just throw them in the gar You could just
throw them in the garbage, I guess, but it's these
rare earth minerals with all kinds of bad, harmful effects
with the environment. So the idea of solar energy as green.
(27:30):
We sort of have decided that solar energy is green,
but not nuclear energy.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
I don't know, it's not very green.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
For the African mines that you need to maintain with
you know, to get all the solar panels out, to
get all the raw materials that are necessary for making
the solar panels.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
The mining that has to happen is not particularly green.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I guess we're just offloading our you know, environmental harms
to the third world.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Anyway, if Newsom had done that, we'd be ready.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
But he didn't do that, and he has instead insisted
on this system of energy production that is focused on
wind and solar, not even focused on hydropower, which hydropower
is like the one legit zero emissions form of energy
production that actually can produce a lot of energy. Okay,
(28:28):
the Pacific Northwest is largely powered through hydropower, but the
liberals environmentalists in California, they don't want to do that
because it hinders the fishies. So they don't even want
to do more hydropower. They're like, they're okay with existing hydropower,
but they don't want to do anymore, so they restricted
(28:52):
us to wind and solar, which are like the most
inefficient forms of energy production. Solar energy reduction is only
producing energy during the daytime. Wind energy production is only
producing energy when it's windy. You know, when nuclear power
plants work all day, every day, twenty four hours a day,
(29:14):
churning and burning baby, hopefully not burning, just churning all
right now, So we're.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
We're not really equipped for this big change.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
But at the same time, California has set up this
crisis like situation with energy costs. It is going to
cost so much to power your gas car that we're
gonna start it's gonna get to a point where we're
gonna be desperate to buy at least hybrid cars, if
(29:49):
not evs. And maybe that's a deliberate part of newsom
strategy was to drive up the price of gas so
unsustainably as to force our hands into buying e So
not only do we have the sixty that the estimated
could cost as much as sixty five cents a gallon
(30:11):
sort of cap and trade regulations that are coming into
effect July first, and gas taxes going up, but we
also have the specter of a year or two from now,
several oil gas refineries in California are gonna shut down.
That's going to massively lessen the supply of gasoline that's
(30:33):
available in the state, and that's going to massively jack
up costs. I mean, we could be looking at six
dollars a gallon gas, So what are we supposed to
do then, I mean, at the very least, hybrid cars
at the very least.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
But that's the thing. It's weird. The shift on the
part of.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
State regulators has not been to encourage hybrid cars. That
that was certainly what they were promoting ten years ago,
it's not really what they're promoting now. It's just electric vehicles,
just all electric vehicles, no gas, not a hybrid system,
just electric vehicles. The California standard that the federal government
(31:22):
overran was by twenty thirty five for one hundred percent
of vehicles to be EV's, not you know, fifty percent
hybrid and fifty percent evs one hundred percent evs. They
don't even seem to really like hybrid cars anymore, even
though this is one of the fascinating things. Hybrid cars
have pretty much caught up as far as affordability goes
(31:45):
with normal gas powered cars. They're not that much more
expensive anymore so, and that I've always sort of thought
that I I have no objection to buying an EVY
or a hybrid car as opposed to a normal gas guzzler.
(32:07):
I mean, I'm not like doctrinally committed to using gasoline
and burning gasoline.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
It's always just been a question of cost.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Like if I can afford an a hybrid car, if
you can advance the technology to such a point that
hybrid cars can be as an expensive as a normal car.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Then great, I'll jump for it.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
I really want to get you know, my car is
working fine, so I don't really have any reason to
do this.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
I would love to get one of those little Ford Mavericks.
It's as little.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
It's basically it's a Chevy al Camino on steroids, not
even on steroids, but it's kind of like a Chevyl Camino.
It's a tiny pickup truck basically, and it's a hybrid.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Looks it looks great.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I'd love to get one of those. It'd be perfect
for me. But the push is constantly towards electric vehicles.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
And this is the thing.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
We're still not there with electric vehicles as far as affordability,
and that's the key thing. Cars are becoming way too
unsustainably expensive for especially young people to afford. Other than
even the used car market is absurd, and forget about it.
(33:27):
When you're talking about electric vehicles. The only way electric
vehicles are even close to sustainably affordable is because of
the various subsidies that these companies get for producing them.
So I think Elon Musk can kind of blather all
he wants that, oh, the future is electric cars, all right, Well, Elon,
(33:51):
if you want the future to be electric cars, here's
the electric car market right now. It's Tesla's, which are
still like kind of luxury status symbols and are priced
that way. Tesla's are not cars for the everyman, all right,
they aren't. The cyber truck is not a worker's pickup truck.
(34:17):
The various Tesla Sedans, et cetera. The people I know
who have them, at least new versions of it, they're
all like doctors and lawyers and stuff. It's not middle
class people getting those cars because they can't afford it,
because they're too expensive even with subsidies. And you look
at the list of electric vehicles that the state of
(34:37):
California will give rebates for give subsidies for the vast
majority of majority of them are super high end brands Portia, Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, Volkswagen, Volkswagen.
(34:58):
Like it's all spensive cars, really expensive car brands. A
Porsche SUV that's an electric vehicle is not helping me.
So I think that's really the challenge here that California is.
California is staring down a real crisis where electric vehicles
(35:22):
are just not affordable yet and the cost of gas
is getting absurd. We're going to be pushed towards electric
vehicles before electric vehicles are really ready for a mass market.
Electric vehicles won't be ready for a mass market until
without subsidies, they can produce a small sedan that's about
(35:45):
the same size as a normal Toyota Corolla, Until they
can produce a minivan that's about the same price as
a Dodge Caravan, until they can produce a normal pickup
truck that's about the same price as a Ford F
one fifty or a Ford Ranger. Until they can do that,
I kind of don't want to hear about it. I
(36:06):
don't want to hear about how everyone needs to get
electric cars, not if you can't make them affordable, not
if you can't make them accessible to normal human beings.
All right, when we return, one quick fourth of July,
thought on George Washington, The greatest American Next on the
John Gerardi Ship. Just one quick thought on George Washington,
(36:30):
the greatest American. Washington was thought of as the Cincinnatus
of his time. Cincinnatus was a figure from the early
Roman Republic, possibly legendary. He was a Roman senator, prominent
figure who was called upon to be the dictator. Basically,
the Roman Republican constitution had this function of a dictator,
(36:52):
a guy who was asked temporarily to be the one
guy in charge of the state. All Roman magistracies had
at least two occupants who could veto each other. So
when you had a military invasion, maybe you need just
one guy to be in charge. They would call someone
up to be a dictator Temporarily. He was elected, he
was chosen to be the dictator. He led Rome's armies
(37:13):
to victory, and he didn't keep his power. He set
his power down, went back to the plow, back to
his farm.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
And that's George Washington.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
He was the decisive figure of the American Revolution, the
figure who probably could have made himself king if he
had pushed for it, The decisive figure in winning the
revolutionary war, the decisive figure, the commander in chief, the
decisive figure in the fledgling Republic who was able to
(37:47):
get the Constitutional Congress to write the Constitution and get
that passed. The first president who decided to not keep
running for reelection stopped after two terms, which set the
standard for the rest of American history. Only opened by FDR.
Truly set the country on its path, and in many senses,
(38:09):
I think it's hard to say anything.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Other than he was the greatest American.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Happy Fourth of July, everybody, We'll see you next time
on The John Girardi Show.
I want to discuss kind of a weird topic.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
That has really sort of lifted its head in the
social media discussions about the Democrat nominee for mayor of
New York, Zoron Mamdani, and this thing that liberals seem
to desperately want to do all the time and are
(00:26):
sort of blind too, and conservatives seem to do this
all the time too, this idea of elevating someone into
like a personal saint because you like their politics. I'm
(00:48):
under no illusions, all right. I agree with Ted Cruz
about a lot of things, probably most things politically, I
don't know a large number of things. I have no
illusions that Ted Cruz is a fun hang He's obviously not.
(01:10):
I'm he's very unpleasant, Okay, Like I I listen to
him talk and my skin crawls. Yeah, I don't think
i'd like to hang out with him. He doesn't seem
like a I don't know. Does he seem like a
good person or a bad But I don't know. He's
clearly an incredibly ambitious person. I don't know that he's
(01:30):
a good person or a kind Maybe he's personally charitable
or does very kind things in his private life. I
don't know, but I'm under I'm not under any illusion,
even though I agree with him on a lot of things,
that he's some you know, saint.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Similarly, even someone like JD. Vance. I mean, I think
Jady vance is.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I like Jade Vance's politics, probably more than almost anyone
in American politics, probably him and Marco Rubio. But these
are two very ambitious people, and I sometimes do wonder
if they compromised on their beliefs in order to get power.
And you know, and and I think I'd enjoy hanging
out with JD. Vans, but I don't go on and
(02:11):
on about the warmth and strength of his personality.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
And it's similar with Trump.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I mean, I think Trump is you know, I disagree
with Trump on certain things. I think probably I'm much
more socially conservative.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Than he is.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I think he'd be a fun hang I'm under no
illusions that he's the best person in the world. I mean, yeah,
he's got a pretty checkered past, and probably it would
be an uncomfortable fit if we were to hang out
a lot. You know, his lifestyle has been in the
past just very very different from mine.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Now.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I know there are a lot of stories about charitable
things that Trump has done sort of quietly, that have
been actually extremely generous and extremely kind, And those are
very good qualities. But he can also be very petty,
and he can be a terrible boss to work for,
and he can be very moody. And you know, I'm
(03:13):
just not under any illusion. As much as I favor
you know, Trump over Harris or whatever.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I'm not under any illusion that any.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Of these people, let me, let me put it this way,
I have no patron saints in American politics. I'm under
no illusions that any of these people are, you know,
Mother Teresa or Dominic Savio walking around with a halo
over their heads. But the coverage of zoron Mom Donnie
(03:44):
on the left, and I don't know if maybe it's
it's leftists do this a little more than rightis the
coverage of zoron Mum Donnie has been just this fawning like, well,
he just seems like such a nice person in you know,
the thing is Trump brings so much negativity, and Mom
(04:05):
Donnie brings so much warmth and personal he's such a
personally good kind person and he's personally he's so personable
and blah blah, blah blah blah, and people really really
invest like a lot of like sincerity into saying this.
(04:31):
Where you know, I just listed several Republican politicians, and
all of my reasons for probably not thinking that any
of these people are saints. Let's talk about Zora and
mom Donnie. Okay, Zorn Mam Donnie grew up with very
wealthy parents. His mom was very wealthy movie executive. Uh.
(04:51):
He is clearly extremely ambitious. He has posted all he's been,
never worked a real job day in his life. I mean,
I could go on and on and on about not
super nice things about his personality, stuff about his personality
that I think is phony, et cetera. The sort of
latent anti semitism of what he talks about. I find
(05:16):
his whole shtick to be, you know, fairly insincere. It
was the same way with Obama, though, and maybe I
shouldn't be so surprised at all this, especially for any
of you. I'll let me give this perspective. I don't
(05:37):
know how many of you listening were in college during
the Obama years, but wow, was it insufferable. It was
unbearable the level of slobbering hero worship that Barack Obama
(05:57):
was getting from college kids, college professors on college campuses. Okay,
So I was at Notre Dame as an undergrad in
two thousand and eight. I was in Notre Dame law
school in twenty twelve, and just the level of just
every Obarack Obama was basically.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
I don't know, he was like the pope for college.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Liberals, like just slobbering, fawning personal Oh he's such you know,
Obama is such a sincerely good person, and he's so sincere,
and he's young and energetic, and I was like, he's
like I as a college student was like, he's forty seven,
He's not that young. And the fawning desire to make
(06:51):
politicians into like saints as far as like their personal conduct.
It's this enormous instinct that people have in politics. And
I don't understand why this this, and you see it
constantly with liberals. I don't know, I feel like, I mean,
(07:13):
I mean, God knows, certainly people have done this a
lot with Trump, uh, but with liberals that they're they're
constantly trying to do this. First, the constant desire to
try to compare Barack Obama to your or Joe Biden
to our grandpa like. People constantly talked about him like that,
or Kamala Harris as your fun aunt or Mama La.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
That whole thing.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
People were constantly trying to paint these people in ways
they weren't.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Do you do you remember the whole joy thing.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Right after the Democrat nomination, the Democratic Party convention, all
of a sudden, Kamala Harris is thrust into the spotlight.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
She's the nominee. She gets Tim.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Walls, uh and and after and she had a little
bit of a bump right after the Democratic convention. She
was doing better in the polls, and the media kept
talking about, Oh, her campaign, it's just characterized by joy.
You have these straight, allegedly unbiased, straight news journalists talking about, Oh,
(08:19):
the joy that's characteristic of her campaign.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
You can really see that it's exuding joy.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
And it was no, it was just journalists relieve that
Joe Biden wasn't going to completely sink the ticket. And
they kept trying to ascribe these like wonderful personal qualities
to Kamala Harris, who again, I am a person who
is quite willing to criticize Republican politicians for their many
(08:48):
failings and shortcomings. I don't think any Republican politicians are saints.
Kamala Harris is not like some great person.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
She clearly is.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Was not a very effective vice president, is not a
good public speaker, is not you know, didn't have a
great professional pedigree until after she started sleeping with Willie Brown.
And it's just a fairly unimpressive politician and person, and
also a ruthlessly ambitious, cutthroat person, like so many people
(09:29):
in American politics, all these big figures in American politics,
I don't believe any of them as far as the
whole shuck sum just one of you. No, you're a
United States senator. You don't become a United States Senator
without a pretty significant degree of ambition.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
And I think a lot of these people have.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Deep, aggressive, sharp motives for what they're trying to do.
To a certain extent, I at least appreciate the openness
and the frankness of the Donald Trumps, even sometimes of
the Mitch mcconnald's, even though they're coming from very different perspectives.
(10:14):
Mitch McConnell was very sort of clear about what he wanted.
He wanted to advance the interests of certain kinds of Republicans,
the kind of Koch Brothers agenda, and he was fairly
forthright about that. Trump is similarly forthright about what he
wants to do, what he wants to advance. He doesn't
(10:35):
really pretend to be something other than what he is.
And that's what I can't understand why liberals don't see that,
Why they can't be as clear eyed about their politicians. Why, like,
you know this notion, I mean, I feel like they're
(10:57):
on track again to nominate Kamala Harre and that it's
going to be some kind of emotion fueled thing of
that black women.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
How who are you to deny a black woman?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And blah blah blah blah blah, Because I mean, you
look at the prospective field of candidates on the Democrats side,
she's still doing about as good, if not better, than
anyone else.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Her chief competition is Pete Boodhagig. This was a hilarious poll.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
It was this poll looking ahead to the twenty twenty
eight Democratic nominee to the twenty twenty eight Democrat presidential primary,
and it lists out a bunch of different names, Tim Walls,
Kamala Harris, Pete Bootagige several other people, and it did
a breakdown also based on race, the race of the
(11:48):
survey respondents, and what individual racial groups thought of different candidates.
And Kamala Harris did very well, certainly among Black voters
and overall did very well. I think she was either
first or second. She was neck and neck with Pete Bootajidge.
The problem was that Pete Buotajidge had exactly zero percent
(12:09):
support from the African American respondents to the poll, zero percent,
which guess what, that is bad news for a Democrat
presidential candidate.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
If you don't get Black people to vote for you,
good luck.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
But I think even I mean even after the election,
there's a decent number of Democrats who are still really
have had bought this idea of Kamala Harris as your
fun aunt, Mama La, like the joy, all these sort
of personal character traits that were always phony baloney. When
(12:55):
I was younger, I used to believe some of these
kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I thought George W. Bush was a great, wonderful, good
sincere guy, And in retrospect, I think probably a more
accurate assessment is there are probably certain aspects of his
life and personal conduct whatever, where George W.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Bush is a very good guy, and I also think
he's a ruthless politician. He was a ruthless politician in
various other ways who had certain kinds of things that
he prioritized that I did not. But I'm not going
to continue living as a child. As far as my
(13:35):
political enthusiasms for people, I recognize, all these people are fallible,
all these people are human, all these people make mistakes.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
And I'm not going to have any canonized saints.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
It's very rare that you're going to find any canonized
saints in American politics. I would say, for me, the
closest we can get to that, the closest people I
can think of to that in American politics.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Maybe my ideal politician.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Right now on the American political scene is Jade Vance,
But even that I'm not sure. I mean, even with him,
I recognize this very ambitious guy who's trying to get
stuff done. It just amazes me how this mindset was
so huge for the Zoron Mumdani election. Now, in fairness,
(14:27):
Mumdanni had the advantage of running against Andrew Cuomo, who's
a slime ball. Like pretty much by any metric, Cuomo
was a slimeball. He was sexually harassing ladies, he was
a bad governor. He's power hungry, he's not exactly an
(14:48):
attractive fellow. And younger voters had the choice between him
and this fresh faced young guy who kept talking about affordability,
and guess what, Living in New York is extremely unaffordable.
And here he is promising the moon and the stars
about this is how we can help address affordability, if
(15:09):
we could do blah blah blah blah. But now all
of his solutions to the problem were wrong. The solution
that people need to think about is more supply. They
need more housing in New York. They don't build enough housing. Fundamentally,
That's what drives on affordability in New York. The cost
of rent, because everyone pays rent, filters into the cost
(15:31):
of literally everything else in society, food, clothing, everything else.
But that is my I guess it's my frustration is
that I think there is something deep seated in human
nature that wants to admire our leaders. I think there's
(15:58):
something in human nature that very naturally fits in you know, as.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
I read like you know, read Lord of the Rings
or something.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Like that, that wants to honor or even not even
reading Lord of the Rings, just looking across the pond.
The filial affection that the British public has.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
For the monarch.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Is a beautiful thing, I think, and inspiring, and we
don't really have that in America.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
And so.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Whereas in England they give that affection to King Charles
and he doesn't really do anything with politics, whereas over
here we have nobody and thus he's almost as the
head of state but not the head of government. Charles
can kind of be a personalized.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Sort of.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Representing the country in the form of a person in
a way that's good and decent, Whereas in America, I
think we give that love to a concept a country,
and that's good and wonderful and beautiful. And as we
celebrate this Fourth of July, it's I think it's a
(17:14):
fitting thing to love your country, to reverence your country,
to reverence the good ideals that it stands for. But
I think there's also something that people want that to
be sometimes in the form of a person, and we
do that sometimes with dead people. Were honoring George Washington,
the greatest, I would say, the greatest American, honoring Abraham Lincoln,
(17:36):
honoring our heroes.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
I would say, though, don't have that.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Extend to these people who work for you, who depend
on your vote. They're pretty much all trying to sell
you an idealized version of themselves. All right, audio essay done?
When we return Zora Mom Donnie eats rice with his
hands next on the John Girardi Show. One of the
(18:08):
moments from the zoron Mum Donnie campaign that people kept
commenting on in fawning terms about, Oh, he's just one
of us, is he has some interview and he's trying
to like pretend like he's casually eating while he's being interviewed.
This is a great politician thing, pretend like you're doing
(18:29):
something like normal people when it's supposed to be something
that's sort of more formal. And he's eating like some
kind of dish with rice, and he's eating it just
with his hands. And obviously, for most people we'd be like, okay, gross,
(18:50):
where have your hands been?
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Did you wash your hands? But it was turned into
this whole Oh my.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Gosh, he's just Oh, there's so many ethnic groups from
the Middle East and the Global South, what are the
the whatever areas that that's how they eat rice? As
they and so he's one of us. He's one of
the people. It's like, are you insane? This guy grew
up with millionaire parents in New York.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
He is not some off the.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Boat immediate immigrant who's showing his solidarity. It's a stunt.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Stop it. That's ridiculous. But that's part of this fawning
thing that people have for mom. Doney. Oh he's so nice,
he's so personable. Look at him. He's just like one
of the people. Oh, he's a dufus.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
He's a thirty three year old dufus who's never held
a real job in his life. His parents are multi millionaires.
He's never had someone Someone posed a picture of him,
He's always smiling, and then someone on Twitter reposted it
with the caption, well, yeah, he's smiling. He knows that
(20:05):
his parents he was raised as a multi millionaire. He
knows he never has to work a day in his life. Yeah,
I'd be smiling too if I knew I had millions
of dollars to fall back on.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
No matter how much I screwed up.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
We're gonna make this man the mayor of the biggest
city in the United States of America on the basis
of he's nice.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Oh he's nice.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
He's so nice.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Oh he's eating rice with his hands. He's like one
of us.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Or not one of us, one of the imagined poors
from the global South that we don't interact with. Oh,
he's just one of the people. It's like catnip for millennial,
barely college educated liberals who have a useless degree.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
It's unbelievable. Again, I'm not like.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Again, I'm not saying conservatives are immune to ridiculous hero
worship of their politicians. Like it's been funny to me
how there's certain like members of Congress, like between Thomas Massey,
Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boeber's certain members of Congress who
like are either heroes or villainous goats, depending on if
(21:25):
that week they agree with Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Well, are these good people or bad? Are you?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Are they superheroes or are they devils? Like you gotta
decide like anyway anyway. In short, I am not big
on this hero worshiping of politicians.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
And it's so patently blogoney with this Mom Donnie campaign.
I just thought it was funny, all right.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
When we return, Elon Musk is blathering about electric vehicles,
and why I kind of fundamentally still don't care about them.
Some thoughts on California's electric vehicle mandate now off the books,
energy costs, gas prices, and electric vehicles. Next on the
John Juardy Show, Elon Musk was tweeting out the other day.
(22:09):
It's weird the sort of space he's in now that
he's kind of out of the Trump orbit, and he
keeps blathering about I guess him and Thomas Massey wanting
to start some America Party or something like that, a
new political party basically to cut spending. It's called libertarianism.
It has no political cachet. Elon just heads up there.
(22:32):
He was tweeting about electric vehicles. I mean, it makes sense.
He's Elon Musk, and he retweeted this note that in Norway,
ninety seven percent of all cars sold in June were
electric vehicles. As goes Norway, so goes the rest of
the world, rights Elon Musk. It seems like a factually
(22:56):
dubious claim, but I'll let it pass. Combustion engine cars
will be like the steam engine, quaint but primitive. All right,
So let me talk about this. Certainly, if you could
make a car that didn't need expensive gas at the pump.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
That'd be great.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
If you had a car that didn't need the expensive
supply chain, heavy supply chain dependent, Middle East dependent system
that we have in place right now for automobiles, that
would be great. If people could save money and not
have to pay for gasoline, that'd be great. If we
(23:43):
could have cars that didn't produce any emissions, that would
be great.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
All of it would be great.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
And certainly I think we are looking we are staring
down the barrel in California, most especially of a disaster
US situation with gas and energy prices, so California committed
itself to various forms of energy disaster. California desperately wants
(24:15):
one hundred percent of all new cars sold in the
state by twenty thirty five to be electric. Now, the
Trump administration has taken action to sort of get rid
of that California vehicle mandate, but god knows, in twenty
twenty eight, Kamala Harris could be elected and that mandate
comes right back. Everyone on the left wants this big
(24:40):
uptick in electric vehicles on the grounds that electric vehicles
produce less, fewer emissions. All right, fine, I guess that
makes sense. That's that's a thing. We want fewer emissions.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Now.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
The problem is that there are a bunch of problems
with this, and California is about to face.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Some huge challenges.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
First, California does not have the energy infrastructure ready to
have fourteen million new electric cars all plugging into the grid.
The infrastructure shift that's going to have to happen to
transition California, let alone the rest of the country to
(25:27):
electric cars rather than gas powered cars. It's something that
we are just not prepared for, nor have we even
begun to kind of start the infrastructure that would be necessary.
In part, it's because of our own are the artificial
(25:48):
structures we've placed on our own ability to produce energy
in California. If Governor Newsom had on day one of
his governorship said we're going nuclear, the state of California
is going nuclear. We want zero emission cars on our roads,
and the only way we're going to produce enough electricity
for our electrical grid to sustain fourteen million new electric
(26:09):
cars on California roads, the only way we're gonna do it.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Is if we go nuclear.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Baby nuke power will build nuclear power plants all up
and down the state, keep them away from any fault lines.
Put them all in the San Joaquin Valley, Okay, put
them in Pixley whatever, and we'll we'll just supercharge this state. Now,
(26:36):
if Newsom had done that, all right, that's a plan.
That's a great plan. Nuclear power is safe. The nuclear
waste that's produced as a byproduct is no more than
the byproduct that's produced from electric solar panels. Cause, guess
what this is the absurd thing about electrics that the
(27:00):
solar energy being deemed green but nuclear energy being deemed
not green.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Why.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Well, because nuclear energy produces nuclear waste, so you have
to do something with Well, solar energy produces a bunch
of battery cells made with rare earth minerals that you
got to do something with. You can't recycle them, You
can't just throw them in the gar You could just
throw them in the garbage, I guess, but it's these
rare earth minerals with all kinds of bad, harmful effects
with the environment. So the idea of solar energy as green.
(27:30):
We sort of have decided that solar energy is green,
but not nuclear energy.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
I don't know, it's not very green.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
For the African mines that you need to maintain with
you know, to get all the solar panels out, to
get all the raw materials that are necessary for making
the solar panels.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
The mining that has to happen is not particularly green.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I guess we're just offloading our you know, environmental harms
to the third world.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Anyway, if Newsom had done that, we'd be ready.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
But he didn't do that, and he has instead insisted
on this system of energy production that is focused on
wind and solar, not even focused on hydropower, which hydropower
is like the one legit zero emissions form of energy
production that actually can produce a lot of energy. Okay,
(28:28):
the Pacific Northwest is largely powered through hydropower, but the
liberals environmentalists in California, they don't want to do that
because it hinders the fishies. So they don't even want
to do more hydropower. They're like, they're okay with existing hydropower,
but they don't want to do anymore, so they restricted
(28:52):
us to wind and solar, which are like the most
inefficient forms of energy production. Solar energy reduction is only
producing energy during the daytime. Wind energy production is only
producing energy when it's windy. You know, when nuclear power
plants work all day, every day, twenty four hours a day,
(29:14):
churning and burning baby, hopefully not burning, just churning all
right now, So we're.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
We're not really equipped for this big change.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
But at the same time, California has set up this
crisis like situation with energy costs. It is going to
cost so much to power your gas car that we're
gonna start it's gonna get to a point where we're
gonna be desperate to buy at least hybrid cars, if
(29:49):
not evs. And maybe that's a deliberate part of newsom
strategy was to drive up the price of gas so
unsustainably as to force our hands into buying e So
not only do we have the sixty that the estimated
could cost as much as sixty five cents a gallon
(30:11):
sort of cap and trade regulations that are coming into
effect July first, and gas taxes going up, but we
also have the specter of a year or two from now,
several oil gas refineries in California are gonna shut down.
That's going to massively lessen the supply of gasoline that's
(30:33):
available in the state, and that's going to massively jack
up costs. I mean, we could be looking at six
dollars a gallon gas, So what are we supposed to
do then, I mean, at the very least, hybrid cars
at the very least.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
But that's the thing. It's weird. The shift on the
part of.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
State regulators has not been to encourage hybrid cars. That
that was certainly what they were promoting ten years ago,
it's not really what they're promoting now. It's just electric vehicles,
just all electric vehicles, no gas, not a hybrid system,
just electric vehicles. The California standard that the federal government
(31:22):
overran was by twenty thirty five for one hundred percent
of vehicles to be EV's, not you know, fifty percent
hybrid and fifty percent evs one hundred percent evs. They
don't even seem to really like hybrid cars anymore, even
though this is one of the fascinating things. Hybrid cars
have pretty much caught up as far as affordability goes
(31:45):
with normal gas powered cars. They're not that much more
expensive anymore so, and that I've always sort of thought
that I I have no objection to buying an EVY
or a hybrid car as opposed to a normal gas guzzler.
(32:07):
I mean, I'm not like doctrinally committed to using gasoline
and burning gasoline.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
It's always just been a question of cost.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Like if I can afford an a hybrid car, if
you can advance the technology to such a point that
hybrid cars can be as an expensive as a normal car.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Then great, I'll jump for it.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
I really want to get you know, my car is
working fine, so I don't really have any reason to
do this.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
I would love to get one of those little Ford Mavericks.
It's as little.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
It's basically it's a Chevy al Camino on steroids, not
even on steroids, but it's kind of like a Chevyl Camino.
It's a tiny pickup truck basically, and it's a hybrid.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Looks it looks great.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I'd love to get one of those. It'd be perfect
for me. But the push is constantly towards electric vehicles.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
And this is the thing.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
We're still not there with electric vehicles as far as affordability,
and that's the key thing. Cars are becoming way too
unsustainably expensive for especially young people to afford. Other than
even the used car market is absurd, and forget about it.
(33:27):
When you're talking about electric vehicles. The only way electric
vehicles are even close to sustainably affordable is because of
the various subsidies that these companies get for producing them.
So I think Elon Musk can kind of blather all
he wants that, oh, the future is electric cars, all right, Well, Elon,
(33:51):
if you want the future to be electric cars, here's
the electric car market right now. It's Tesla's, which are
still like kind of luxury status symbols and are priced
that way. Tesla's are not cars for the everyman, all right,
they aren't. The cyber truck is not a worker's pickup truck.
(34:17):
The various Tesla Sedans, et cetera. The people I know
who have them, at least new versions of it, they're
all like doctors and lawyers and stuff. It's not middle
class people getting those cars because they can't afford it,
because they're too expensive even with subsidies. And you look
at the list of electric vehicles that the state of
(34:37):
California will give rebates for give subsidies for the vast
majority of majority of them are super high end brands Portia, Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, Volkswagen, Volkswagen.
(34:58):
Like it's all spensive cars, really expensive car brands. A
Porsche SUV that's an electric vehicle is not helping me.
So I think that's really the challenge here that California is.
California is staring down a real crisis where electric vehicles
(35:22):
are just not affordable yet and the cost of gas
is getting absurd. We're going to be pushed towards electric
vehicles before electric vehicles are really ready for a mass market.
Electric vehicles won't be ready for a mass market until
without subsidies, they can produce a small sedan that's about
(35:45):
the same size as a normal Toyota Corolla, Until they
can produce a minivan that's about the same price as
a Dodge Caravan, until they can produce a normal pickup
truck that's about the same price as a Ford F
one fifty or a Ford Ranger. Until they can do that,
I kind of don't want to hear about it. I
(36:06):
don't want to hear about how everyone needs to get
electric cars, not if you can't make them affordable, not
if you can't make them accessible to normal human beings.
All right, when we return, one quick fourth of July,
thought on George Washington, The greatest American Next on the
John Gerardi Ship. Just one quick thought on George Washington,
(36:30):
the greatest American. Washington was thought of as the Cincinnatus
of his time. Cincinnatus was a figure from the early
Roman Republic, possibly legendary. He was a Roman senator, prominent
figure who was called upon to be the dictator. Basically,
the Roman Republican constitution had this function of a dictator,
(36:52):
a guy who was asked temporarily to be the one
guy in charge of the state. All Roman magistracies had
at least two occupants who could veto each other. So
when you had a military invasion, maybe you need just
one guy to be in charge. They would call someone
up to be a dictator Temporarily. He was elected, he
was chosen to be the dictator. He led Rome's armies
(37:13):
to victory, and he didn't keep his power. He set
his power down, went back to the plow, back to
his farm.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
And that's George Washington.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
He was the decisive figure of the American Revolution, the
figure who probably could have made himself king if he
had pushed for it, The decisive figure in winning the
revolutionary war, the decisive figure, the commander in chief, the
decisive figure in the fledgling Republic who was able to
(37:47):
get the Constitutional Congress to write the Constitution and get
that passed. The first president who decided to not keep
running for reelection stopped after two terms, which set the
standard for the rest of American history. Only opened by FDR.
Truly set the country on its path, and in many senses,
(38:09):
I think it's hard to say anything.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Other than he was the greatest American.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Happy Fourth of July, everybody, We'll see you next time
on The John Girardi Show.
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