During a recent interview with notorious hate group leader Tony Perkins (whom no one has suggested he denounce), Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia complained about all the people complaining about inflation and the price of gas, just because they can’t afford to live.
Fully delusional, he told Perkins, “I mean, right now, you're seeing the result of reducing government regulation and letting people keep more money in their pocket.” Said result apparently does not include being able to afford things. Literally half the country says they can’t afford gas, rent, and other necessities, and this guy thinks things are looking up.
Loudermilk was, however, willing to acknowledge that there is, perhaps, a wee bit of inflation, but that this is only due to the very righteous and beautiful war we’ve got going on right now.
He said:
“But the the inflation we're seeing right now is [unintelligible] because we are in a war uh in with Iran and that is causing some upward inflation and pressure on the oil industry. However, this is temporary. This is not a long-term thing.
“And I remind people if you go back into World War II, Americans were willing to sacrifice for the greater good, for the cause of freedom and liberty. I mean, we rationed gasoline. We rationed sugar. Uh people voluntarily rationed coffee. Now, that's something that's really hard to do for a lot of people, but Americans were willing to sacrifice, right?”
Ooh! He’s got jokes for the kind of people who love painfully unfunny mugs and T-shirts about how much they love coffee or wine or whatever, like that’s a personality.
I always knew they were Republicans. In my heart … I knew.
But let’s let him continue:
“Because they knew that we were fighting for a cause of freedom, liberty, and defend our way of life as America. And this is, we are fighting against a a national threat, a security threat against the United States. And so, uh, we're seeing that we're going to have to put up with a little bit more time probably of these gas prices.”
Yeah, people were willing to sacrifice during WWII because we were fighting Nazis and Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor. They’re not so willing to sacrifice so that Trump can name the Strait of Hormuz after himself, or because Trump killed the deal that kept Iran from developing nuclear capabilities.
I do feel the need to point out that we have already learned who is unwilling to sacrifice for the common good, and that’s Republicans. It’s always been Republicans, but it was especially Republicans during the pandemic. They love to cry about how they were initially told that masks wouldn’t do anything — because they had immediately gone into full hoarding mode despite being told that we didn’t have enough Personal Protective Equipment and we needed it for first responders. (Still, yes, the powers that be should have — lol — tried to appeal to people’s goodness instead of fudging that one!) Once they were told that the masks protected other people from the wearer (who might have been infected without knowing it) and not the other way around, they went into full revolt. Because the idea of doing something for other people was anathema to them. And it just went on like that for the next two years.
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That being said, they are notoriously amenable to sacrificing for the good of the ultra-wealthy and to ensure that non-white people have a worse time of things than they do. Perhaps a better argument for Loudermilk might be to remind them that Trump will really enjoy naming the strait after himself, that the executives of US oil companies will be made even more unfathomably rich than they currently are, and that we’re attacking brown people of a different religious faith then their own.
That being said, telling people their economic concerns are bullshit is a stunningly effective and astute political move, and I sure do hope that Republicans don’t continue to go around being like this through the midterms while Dems focus in on affordability. That would just be awful.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
We’re in a war? When was that declared by Congress?
Any surprise that Republicans feel American deaths are sacrifice they're willing to make ? . . .