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A Path to Losing

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Clarissa

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This kind of attitude is why we’re going to lose the next election:

I know how to cook. My husband and I make a very good living. What I am not is blind and clueless. Grocery costs have indeed gone extremely high since COVID. The market for used cars is downright insane. Rents have skyrocketed. My entire promotion of 2021 has been completely eaten by rising costs. For people who make less, this must be an absolute bloodbath.

This is not an issue of individuals making bad choices. There are some things that can be solved on the level of individual choices. There are others that can’t. That’s why politics exists. It allows people to seek solutions to collective problems together. Offering “biographical solutions to societally begotten problems” is the definition of neoliberalism. You can’t choose your way out of a dysfunctional economy.

We’re rightfully annoyed that young people get snared in the gimmicky promises of dishonest socialists. But what can we expect if we superciliously dismiss their very real concerns with these silly neoliberal slogans?

Yes, learn to cook. I’ve learned. I cook better than the absolute majority of people, and I’m still horrified every time I hit checkout at the grocery store.

Just move, just learn to code, just learn to cook. Okay, but why does anybody need to vote for the party that offers nothing except these inane suggestions? Because it will guarantee me the “freedom to learn to cook”? I already have it.

15 responses to “A Path to Losing”

  1. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Yeah.

    We have been cooking every meal at home for 10+ years.

    I am sick of being informed that “it’s not food prices: it’s that you’re eating out too much”

    I can’t figure out if these people are really that clueless, or if this is an organized propaganda gaslighting effort to make wage-class families feel like a tiny forgotten minority.

    ethyl

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Avatar
      Anonymous

      PS: a quick X search for “Joel Berry” suggests he’s just an engagement farmer. Nothing rakes in engagement points like saying stupid sh*t that every actual person on the internet feels immediately driven to correct.

      ethyl

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      1. Clarissa Avatar
        Clarissa

        Yes, he’s making a packet off this. And he’s too stupid to understand that he’s helping the Dems win after which they’ll shut him up forever.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply
    2. Avatar
      Anonymous

      Ethyl, I keep hearing that there are huge numbers of bots floating about the internet. It could be that a number of these idiots saying that are in fact bots of one sort or another.

      That is not to say the so called elites are not clueless. I am sure a number of them are. Take Trump for instance. He has been saying for the last six years that the price of groceries had gone down. When they most certainly had not.

      I don’t think he has been in a store to buy food once in the last fifty plus years. Most of congress is in the same boat. There is a very reasonable chance that they might actually not know that what they are saying is lunacy.

      Well that or they just hate us. I mean either is a viable option at this point.

      • – W

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      1. Clarissa Avatar
        Clarissa

        We need a political party that has an economic philosophy which goes beyond the endless repetitions that socialism is bad and free markets are good. I very much agree that socialism is terrible, but what are we offering instead of it?

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      2. Avatar
        Anonymous

        No reason it can’t be both.

        But this particular account…

        https://x.com/JoelWBerry

        Definitely making a living sh*tposting on X. I don’t disrespect anybody for making a living, particularly if it’s letting them be there for their kids. But let’s not treat this account like it’s an honest person posting honest opinions. This guy is optimizing for engagement bux. So, at least he doesn’t have to deal with the hazards of johns and STDs in that branch of the industry.

        ethyl

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          Here is Ben Shapiro, right on cue.

          https://x.com/i/status/2085041868362994075

          Clueless is as clueless does.

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          1. Avatar
            Anonymous

            It’s really too bad Republicans aren’t interested in winning elections anymore.

            ethyl

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            1. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              Clearly. They couldn’t be more tone-deaf and out of touch if they tried. I listened to the first 15 minutes of Ben Shapiro’s show on purpose, and he literally said that foreigners are better than Americans because they come from slums and don’t complain about economic conditions here. This is not a show from 20 years ago. It’s from today. It’s very hard not to get discouraged with the kind of talking heads and champions we get.

              Liked by 1 person

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  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    A comedian was saying the other day that she couldn’t loose weight not because of having an eating issue, but a budget one. That dieting included all kinds of expensive items like eggs, fish and vegetables. It was meant to be funny but it’s also very true.

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  3. Avatar
    Anonymous

    my husband doubled his salary in the past 4 years and somehow it feels like we are worse off than 6+ years ago. Even though we have no debt other than our mortgage. We did have 2 kids since 2020 (1 in 2020& 1 in 2022) but we don’t pay for daycare (grandma watches them) so those types of costs are not even that large. I get upset every time I go to the grocery store thinking about how much more things are than just a few years ago.

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Congratulations on the two children. This is wonderful.

      And yes, this is exactly how I feel. My promotion was a big promotion. It’s the last serious promotion I can possibly get as a college professor. But it’s all being eaten up by the rising costs and then some.

      I hate it when people try to gaslight me into making me think that I’m imagining this because I’m a spoiled drama queen who refuses to learn how to cook.

      Liked by 2 people

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    2. Avatar
      Anonymous

      You, me, and everybody else living in the real world instead of the giant credit card debt bubble. Sometimes it feels like there is an internet conspiracy to muffle people who mention it.

      ethyl

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  4. Demotrash Avatar
    Demotrash

    “Offering ‘biographical solutions to societally begotten problems’ is the definition of neoliberalism.” This is one of the worst things about the right, and they do it constantly. Schools are bad? You should homeschool or send them to a private Christian school. Never mind that your child will have to live in a world where most people went to public school. And so on down the line for almost any given systemic problem. Their suggestions aren’t even necessarily bad (private schools and home cooking are great), but they aren’t actually a solution to the problem at hand, they’re individual copes. It’s like saying the solution to crime is everyone buying a security system, as opposed to arresting and imprisoning criminals.

    The left goes too far the other way and acts like you have no power to change your own life for the better. But considering politicians’ entire job is to improve systemic problems, this is a better direction to overshoot in. If I want a lecture about personal responsibility I can call my dad.

    Liked by 1 person

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  5. ed Avatar
    ed

    We’re ruled by out of touch billionaires, then wonder why they don’t care about the price of our groceries.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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