Florida On The Road

Greg Burgess writes.... So apparently Jill and I are on a plane to China with Trump, Elon Musk, half the Cabinet, and a collection of CEOs whose combined net worth could probably refinance the moon. Totally normal day for Gen X. And I just can’t stop laughing at how the media spent YEARS telling us: - China hated Elon - Trump was “finished” - America was collapsing - capitalism was dead - and everybody important was abandoning the U.S. Meanwhile, here we are somewhere over the Pacific looking like the cast of Succession meets Top Gun: Retirement Plan Edition. Remember when China sanctioned Marco Rubio back in 2020 and everybody acted like the geopolitical chessboard had permanently shifted? Now suddenly everybody’s still showing up to the table because — shocking development — nations tend to like: - money - technology - manufacturing - trade - AI - energy - semiconductors - and not being economically irrelevant Who knew. The best part is the internet meltdown cycle never changes. Trump: “America needs stronger trade relationships.” Media: “HITLER.” Elon: “I make electric cars, rockets, satellites, AI, and robots.” Internet activists: “Yeah but we posted an angry hashtag.” Cool. I’m sure Beijing is trembling before your TikTok resistance movement. And flying with this group is exactly what you think it would be. Trump walks around the cabin narrating reality like it’s an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Geopolitical: “Great flight. Powerful people. Very high IQ. The Chinese are saying they’ve never seen anything like it.” Elon looks like he hasn’t slept since 2019 and is simultaneously calculating orbital trajectories and wondering if the beverage cart could be automated. Meanwhile Jill and I are sitting there like two exhausted Gen Xers who survived dial-up internet, chain-smoking restaurants, lawn darts, and drinking from garden hoses… wondering how in the hell we became side characters in the weirdest timeline imaginable. Honestly, at this point if Trump walked into Beijing blasting “Danger Zone” while Elon live-streamed it from orbit, I wouldn’t even blink. Because the people who told us America was over are still tweeting from iPhones, driving Teslas, using Starlink during hurricanes, and cashing checks tied to the same capitalist machine they claim to hate. Gen X translation: The world’s still running. The adults are still making deals. And the internet is still confusing hashtags for accomplishments. Carry on.