Friday Talking Points -- Out-Of-Control Eggflation!
In just about every presidential election, the political punditry tries to frame what happened in it in the easiest possible way, sometimes pinning a win or loss on a certain demographic slice of the electorate (remember "soccer moms" and "NASCAR dads"?) and sometimes putting the focus on a single oversimplified issue. One of the big themes in this regard for the last election was the price of eggs. True to form, they even slapped a cutesy label on it: voters were angry about "eggflation."
Which is why we sincerely hope that Donald Trump is asked about it as often as possible -- say, once a week, at a minimum -- now that he is president again. Because for all his promises, eggflation is going to be a very tough problem for him to solve.
During Trump's first term, the average national price of a dozen large eggs mostly hovered around a dollar. There were two upward spikes which rose above $2.50 per dozen (but stayed below $3.00), one of which happened at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Joe Biden saw things get worse. When inflation spiked to nine percent, the price of eggs also spiked, to over $5.00 per dozen. This did fall right back down again (to once again hover around a single dollar per dozen), but then it started rising again at the end of 2023.
This month, eggs hit an all-time high. The average price of a dozen large eggs is now $6.55. And over $2 of this spike happened after Trump's election. That's where we are, at the start of his second term. And the current spike could go even higher quite soon, which would mean consumers would continue paying many multiples of the dollar-a-dozen prices they had previously been used to, for the foreseeable future. That's if they can even find eggs to buy, as it has become a rather common sight to see supermarkets with empty egg shelves and signs saying: "Sorry, no eggs today."
Democrats would do well to prod the media into asking Trump about this as often as possible: "Why haven't egg prices come down like you promised?" Because it is currently the best example of the difference between what he promised on the campaign trail and what he is actually focused on now that he's in office. For all the populist talk, Trump is much more interested in keeping his billionaire buddies happy. He really does not care how much eggs cost average Americans.
Of course, there's a reason for this spike in egg prices (and decline in availability). It's called "bird flu" (H1N1), and although it is not all that well-known to the public (as of now), it is already decimating the flocks of laying hens that produce America's eggs. It's basic economics: fewer birds laying eggs means a drop in supply, which means higher prices. And when farmers are being forced to kill their entire flocks because of infection, it doesn't seem likely to get better any time soon.
Trump has already exacerbated the problem, by bringing a halt to meetings of doctors and scientists (for no particular reason), and by naming R.F.K. Jr. to head the federal department that deals with diseases and pandemics. Sooner or later the anti-science moves of the Trump administration are going to make things harder for those fighting bird flu, which is only going to make everything worse (and make the price of eggs go up even further). The only real question is whether both Democrats and the media make a big deal of it or not, really.
So far, Democrats are pretty demoralized, which is completely understandable at this point. There are plenty of people outside Washington who are demoralized as well. The "Resistance" is exhausted, to put it bluntly. And there simply is no clear leader of the Democratic Party out there fighting back against Trump's actions. In fact, the biggest public pushback Trump has so far gotten has come from a bishop during a sermon and a federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan.
Here's how the New York Times summed things up:
Far from rising up in outrage, the opposition party's lawmakers have taken a muted wait-and-see approach as Mr. Trump tries to end birthright citizenship, halt diversity programs in the federal government, undo foreign policy alliances and seek retribution against his perceived political enemies.
In some cases, Democrats are even making a show of working with Republicans.
The article goes on to report on what the Democrats have come up with:
Representative Greg Casar, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, was the one to call the meeting. He put this message in starker language: "It's going to be really critical for Democrats to point out what Trump's real intentions are, which is to screw people over on pocketbook issues in service of the mega-rich."
Perhaps two wings of the Democratic Party can come together on this message. After all, it is merely a restatement of the old Clinton-era "It's the economy, stupid" slogan, as well as exactly what Bernie Sanders has been saying for decades now. And it can all be wrapped into one easy question, really: "Why haven't egg prices come down like Trump promised?"
As mentioned, the best news of the week came from a federal judge, who immediately put a hold on Trump's executive order to deny the birthright citizenship (to all babies born within the United States) that is actually guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. To say that the judge "laughed the Trump administration out of court" is a slight exaggeration, but not by much. Here's the story:
"Frankly," he continued, challenging Trump administration lawyers, "I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar would state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind."
. . .
To that, Judge Coughenour's decision was emphatic: "I've been on the bench for over four decades," he said. "This is a blatantly unconstitutional order. Where were the lawyers when this decision was being made?"
This isn't the only case challenging the order either -- 18 other states have sued in a different lawsuit and other lawsuits have also been filed, so there's plenty of time for other judges to weigh in as well. After all, they have a previous Supreme Court decision and over 100 years of precedent to back them up.
Sadly, there's no guarantee as to what the current Supreme Court will do when one of these cases winds up before them (which seems pretty inevitable, at this point). They have shown a remarkable ability to just flat-out ignore parts of the Constitution they don't approve of, after all.
That's about it for the positive news for Democrats, really. Just for this week, though, we're not even going to attempt to cover the firehose of negative events from the past week -- we're just as exhausted as everyone else, sorry.
We will close by pointing out one sterling example of journalism from HuffPost this week, who ran their inauguration story under the headline: "Trump Makes History: First Convicted Felon To Take Oath As President." Here are the first three and the final paragraphs of the article, which pulls no punches:
Administering the oath was Chief Justice John Roberts, whose Supreme Court conservative majority paved the way for Trump's return by sidetracking a criminal prosecution based on his Jan. 6, 2021, attempt to remain in power.
The ceremony took place in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, where four years and two weeks earlier, a mob of Trump's supporters -- inflamed by his lies that the 2020 election had been stolen from him -- rampaged through the building, searching for and threatening to murder Trump's own vice president at the time, Mike Pence, for refusing his demand to award him a second term.
. . .
Trump is only the second president in U.S. history to have won two nonconsecutive terms. The first was Grover Cleveland, who won the elections in 1884 and 1892. Cleveland, however, did not try to overturn democracy after losing to Benjamin Harrison in 1888. Nor was he a convicted criminal.
We have to give at least an Honorable Mention for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for taking Elon Musk to task for giving what clearly appears to be a Nazi salute during a speech in the midst of all the inauguration frenzy. Musk denied this, and went on to crack some Nazi-infused jokes on social media, showing how clueless he truly can be at times.
A.O.C. wasn't having any of it. She shot back:
Of course, she's right. Condemning Nazis and anything associated with them used to be a "foundational, defining thing" in this country.
But our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week goes out to all 22 of the state-level attorneys general who immediately challenged Trump trying to change the U.S. Constitution's clear text with an executive order. We wrote earlier this week at length on the subject of birthright citizenship (and the idiocy of interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment in any other way), but suffice it to say that the judge who has already put a hold on the order got it right -- it is "blatantly unconstitutional" on the face of it.
Here's how just one of those attorneys general put it, after filing a lawsuit:
"Presidents are powerful," he said, "but he is not a king. He cannot rewrite the Constitution with a stroke of the pen."
For the next four years, these same state attorneys general are going to be the Democrats' front line of defense against Trump's reign. It'll be up to them to sue the Trump administration to prevent clearly unconstitutional orders and actions from taking effect.
Of course, many (if not most) of these cases will wind up before the Supreme Court, which is not exactly a comforting thought, but perhaps they'll surprise everyone by not going along with Trump's worst impulses. Trump actually had a historically-terrible record during his first term, when it came to Supreme Court decisions on his policies. So perhaps (just perhaps...) the same thing might be true now. It's impossible to say, really.
But no matter what the outcome, at least the state attorneys general can (at the very least) delay things, to some extent or another. So for entering the fray almost immediately (the order was signed on Monday, the 22 states sued, and by the end of the week the order was put on hold -- which is lightning speed, when it comes to federal courts), and for clearly winning the first round, the Democratic state attorneys general who filed the various suits are all our Most Impressive Democrats Of The Week.
[There are too many state attorneys general to list contact information for each of them, but this PBS article (at the very bottom) has a handy list of them all, if you'd like to let them know you appreciate their efforts.]
We understand the bind President Joe Biden was in. We really do. If he had decided not to issue pre-emptive pardons to many of those on Trump's "enemies list," it could have resulted in them being harassed by the very thing Trump is facetiously promising to end (while in reality, putting it on steroids): the "weaponization" of the Justice Department.
So Biden went ahead and issued the pardons. But by doing so, he set a rather horrible precedent which is undoubtedly going to be copied by other presidents leaving office as well. It will give all the "whataboutism" enthusiasts in the Republican Party cover for when Trump does exactly the same thing at the end of his term, in fact.
Which is why we have to give Biden one last Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award. As we stated, we do sympathize with the impossible position Trump put Biden in, with his talk of second-term "retribution" on his perceived enemies. But it is going to tarnish Biden's legacy nonetheless, and it is now a precedent which others will use for far less understandable reasons.
[Joe Biden is now merely a private citizen, and it is our blanket policy not to provide contact information for such persons, sorry.]
Volume 780 (1/24/25)
As always, we present these offerings to all Democrats to use in order to focus people on the man behind the curtain rather than the explosions and fire and smoke that is center stage right now. It's only Day Five of a very long four years, so we're going to assume we'll have time to get to every bit of Trumpian idiocy eventually, but for now here's what we've got.
Out-of-control eggflation
Lean on this one. It is easy for people to understand, and it's not likely to get better any time soon.
"We were all told that Donald Trump got elected because the price of eggs was too high. But since the week he got elected, the price of a dozen eggs has gone up another fifty percent! It is now at an all-time high of $6.55 per dozen. This is nothing short of out-of-control 'eggflation.' And that's when you can even find them in the grocery stores. So when is Trump going to solve this problem -- the same problem that he supposedly got elected to fix? Well, I'm not exactly holding my breath, because it's pretty obvious that Trump is only interested in standing up for his billionaire buddies -- he does not care what the price of eggs is for you."
Inject the hens with bleach, maybe?
If anyone brings up the fact that egg prices are high because of the growing spread of bird flu, then answer them back thusly:
"OK, so then what is Trump's plan to combat and defeat bird flu? Because as we've seen, when it comes to fighting pandemics, Trump is absolutely clueless and ineffective -- and that's when the disease was killing thousands upon thousands of Americans. And putting R.F.K. Jr. and a bunch of anti-science people in charge of running the federal government's response doesn't exactly fill me with confidence that Trump has any sort of plan to combat bird flu. Unless maybe you count 'inject all the hens with bleach,' of course. Because that was the only answer he had for COVID."
How many? And what did they offer her?
This is from a bombshell story the Washington Post published yesterday (which we wrote about as well).
"So exactly how many Republican House members tried to have sex with Cassidy Hutchinson? We already know it was more than one, from the report which exposed this sordid fact. When did these attempts to get 'sexual favors' from Hutchinson begin? Before she testified to the January 6th Committee about what Trump was doing that day? Or after? And what exactly were all these Republican House members offering Hutchinson in exchange for these sexual favors? Because inquiring minds want to know."
I am woman, hear me roar!
This one's from Helen Reddy.
"Donald Trump signed an executive order which mandated that all babies born in the United States be considered one sex or the other, quote, 'at conception.' Actual biologists are pretty confused by this designation, since 'at conception' everyone is essentially just a single cell - the 'reproductive cells' the order talks about don't develop until far later in the process. And at the earliest stage of this process, everyone is female. So did Donald Trump just classify every person in this country as female? I guess everyone should start learning the words to Helen Reddy's classic song 'I Am Woman,' huh? She even included a verse that seems particularly appropriate right about now:"
See me standing toe to toe
As I spread my lovin' arms across the land
But I'm still a little embryo
With such a long, long way to go
Until I make my brother understand
Have these people ever actually read any of it?
This one never ceases to amaze.
"At a prayer service Donald Trump attended, the bishop giving the sermon called on Trump to show some 'mercy' to the least-powerful among us. Trump, true to form, later called her a 'Radical Left hard line Trump hater,' and ripped into her for supposedly bringing politics into church. Some Fox News personalities had an absolute meltdown on-air, calling the sermon 'the rantings of a lunatic,' and 'discarded propaganda,' while singling out the bishop as a 'heretic.' These are all self-professed Christians, one assumes. They are all shocked to hear such sentiments -- because it's not like anyone else in history spoke in defense of the helpless, right? I mean... have any of these so-called Christians ever actually read the words of Jesus in the Bible?!? If they ever manage to do so, one assumes they will be equally as shocked! Might I suggest the Sermon on the Mount, to begin with? Just trying to be helpful...."
Ratings way down
Just threw this one in to taunt him, because we all know it means so much to him.
"Did you see that the ratings for Trump's inauguration were way, way down? In fact, over nine million fewer people tuned in to see it than tuned in to watch Joe Biden getting sworn in. The numbers were even far worse than Trump's first inauguration, which drew six million more viewers. And for Trump, you just know that's gotta hurt."
How long? Any bets?
To us, this seems almost inevitable.
"Anyone want to bet on how long it'll take before Elon Musk totally pisses off Trump and gets thrown under the MAGA bus? Vivek Ramaswamy didn't even last a full seven Scaramuccis before he was chucked out. And Musk is even more offensive (which, considering Ramaswamy in general, is pretty hard to do). I have no idea what will be the cause of it, but I'd be willing to bet that Musk won't make it more than a few months, tops. Sooner or later, he's going to eclipse Trump in the media, which to Trump is the one unforgivable sin. So any takers? Let's say 'by June'... anyone want to take that bet?"
Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
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