The Price of Eggs

What "affordability" tells us about our immortal souls.

America

Turns out, shockingly, that tariffs have vandalized the consumer economy. Whoda thunk? Now, with good, old fashioned “cost of living” concerns suddenly rebranded as “the affordability crisis,” Trump is losing the confidence of his base.

“Everything is climbing,” a MAGA Pennsylvanian told The New York Times. “Utility bills are going up. The electric bill has gone up. Water bill has gone up. Rents and home prices are way too high. We don’t see any break. For someone who campaigned on bringing down prices on day one, that obviously hasn’t happened.”

The poor dope — who voted for this calamity — didn’t even mention healthcare insurance, which Trump and his rubber-stamp Congress have booby trapped into a fast-approaching national catastrophe. As MAGA Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Hades) told Politico, “It’s a disaster. Health care, as it currently is, is too expensive for everybody.”

The status quo horrifies GOP leaders, which would almost suggest a late-onset case of conscience or simple humanity, but fear not. This has zero to do with empathy, much less culpability. They’re just freaking out that they’ll be pummeled at the polls in 11 months. The public can’t afford medical care, rent and groceries, and Republican members of Congress can’t afford the consequences.

Pay close attention to what is happening. It explains, all too tragically, what is the matter with America.

Not that criminals, cowards and liars have brought us to economic extremis. No, it’s that what’s finally undermining the lawless, corrupt, brutal sociopathy of the Trump regime is pocketbook issues. As opposed to the countless crimes, blackmail, personal destruction, illegal mass deportations, revenge prosecutions, flouting of court orders and, with total GOP support, coverups of the most brazen kind.

This week alone, Trump has demanded that courts block the release of 4,100 documents in a lawsuit aiming to prove his role in inciting, with malice of forethought, the January 6 insurrection that tried to prevent Congress from validating Joe Biden’s 2016 election. Assuming there is an armory of smoking guns among those emails and memos, Trump is trying to suppress them under a claim of executive privilege.

This is classic Watergate behavior, but … crickets.

Trump also has reneged on his agreement to release the deleted portions of the so-called Venezuela drug-boat video, which documents the “double-tap” ordinance strike against (probable) drug runners in international waters on a course away from US territory with a (probable) cargo of cocaine — not fentanyl, as alleged. It’s a last-ditch attempt to cover up the administration’s easily disproven lies. The extra-judicial murder of (probable) helpless fleeing felons under the pretext of a “war” against drug cartels suddenly branded as “narco-terrorists” (no such thing) is at best a war crime and more likely first-degree homicide by a military repurposed as a vigilante mafia. Trump, of course, claims that each such strike saves 25,000 American lives, though the actual (dismal) opioid death toll is 72,000 a year. Satisfied by Trump’s bargain, the House GOP has announced plans to investigate the massacre no further.

Street protests? Impeachment articles? Arrests? Nah.

None of the depraved criminality that we’ve experienced for 5 years of Trump’s two presidencies seems to much bother the 100 million Americans who support him. The existential threats they feel have nothing to do with the dismantling of democracy, the endless assaults on the rule of law, the welding of the Christian church to the State, the sacrifice of public health, the shredding of the Constitution and the 10 Commandments or the intentional disregard for safeguarding our planet.

No, it’s the price of eggs. The price of fucking eggs. Thus the stupid in “It’s the economy stupid.” Thus the selfishness. Thus the ignorance. Thus the indifference. Thus the implicit approval of all the sordid, bigoted, mindless immorality that is MAGA’s fossil fuel. Let’s discuss Cinnabon.

Last week, an Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin Cinnabon employee was caught on video in a racist tirade against Somali-immigrant customers, who — apparently wanting a break from eating pet cats — decided to treat themselves to a shopping-mall fat-and-sugar bomb. The clerk, Crystal Wilsey, refused the order and instead served up N-word slurs and a general recap of Trump’s own Somali-“garbage” attacks. “I am a racist,” she confessed, “and I declare that to the entire world.”

This outburst evidently violated company policy, and Cinnabon cashiered her immediately. Of course, whenever some bigoted moron gets fired for a racist tirade, the employer’s public statement unfailingly asserts that the episode was an outlier. Cinnabon, like countless companies before it, assured its customers that Crystal Wilsey does “not represent the values of our company …” blah blah blah. This is America, after all, and we do not tolerate such intolerance. This is not who we are.

Isn’t it, though?

About five minutes later, a Good Samaritan calling himself Tom Hennessey took to GiveSendGo (a “Christian” knockoff of GoFundMe) and mounted a campaign.

Stand With Crystal

Meet Crystal: hardworking White mom doing her job at Cinnabon. Two Somali customers decide to make her shift hell with intimidation.

Instead of banning the offenders and backing their employee, Cinnabon fires Crystal to keep the nons happy.

We’re not letting this slide. Funds go to making sure Crystal lands on her feet after this betrayal. No White person should lose their job for refusing to be harassed by Somalians.

Three days in, as of this writing Wednesday morning, the effort had raised $143,417. The comments were simply heartwarming.

Not who we are? This is exactly who we are.