As director of the National Economic Council, Gary Cohn’s job was to advise Donald Trump on policymaking for domestic and international issues, which we now know meant effectively running interference on the truly insane ideas that came across his desk. For instance: starting a trade war, a proposal White House aide Peter Navarro, a hardline protectionist who literally thinks free trade leads to infertility and abortion, strongly encouraged. Luckily for the economy, at one point last year, Navarro was put under Cohn’s supervision and required to copy him on e-mails, essentially cutting him off at the knees. But over the last few months, as the West Wing descended further into chaos, Cohn’s ability to run defense on the crazy suffered, and people like Navarro and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross were able to get through to the president. Their renewed involvement ultimately led to last Thursday’s announcement of 25 percent and 10 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and babysitter Gary’s resignation letter. And investors are more than a little freaked out about the turn of events.

On Wednesday, the Dow Jones opened 300 points lower on the news that one of the few remaining sane people in the White House would be packing his bags and getting the hell out of there, the implication being that with Cohn gone, Trump’s ill-begotten trade war would move ahead at full speed. “His departure has caught investors off guard,” Alec Young, managing director of global market research at FTSE Russell, told CNBC. “Cohn was against tariffs, so investors are assuming his departure reflects the president’s desire to forge ahead with his tariff agenda despite opposition from Republican congressional leadership.”

Putting it slightly more bluntly was Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer of Bleakley Financial Group, who told Bloomberg: “Cohn was . . . a firewall against dumb and damaging economic initiatives. Tariffs qualified as such.” More generally, Cohn’s resignation suggests an already-unglued administration is just going to descend into complete madness without any sort of voice of reason in the room. “We need a grown-up in the White House, that’s the problem, and it gets worse every day,” venture capitalist Alan Patricof said, noting the latest news indicates “more chaos.” Current staffers are not exempt from such fears, either. “The number of bad ideas that have come through this White House that were thankfully killed dead—there are too many to count,” one White House official told Politico. “With Gary gone, I just think, from a policy perspective, it means disaster.”

Meanwhile, the White House, always with its finger on the pulse of reality, is attempting to claim that Cohn’s departure is much ado about nothing: just a New Yorker being a New Yorker.