The leftist Atlantic actually victim-blamed Americans for the crushing high prices they’re experiencing. In the same breath, the outlet billed President Joe Biden’s ridiculously bad economy as the cat’s pajamas.
“Inflation Is Your Fault,” read the condescending headline by Atlantic staff writer Annie Lowrey. She opted for just talking down to the plebeians by simply chalking up Americans’ misery to consumer overspending.
Lowrey, doing damage control for Biden, proceeded to scold Americans: “People hate inflation, just not enough to spend less: This is one of the central tensions of today’s economy, in which things are going great yet everyone is miserable. And in some ways, Americans have nobody to blame but themselves.” Yikes. [Emphasis added.]
She didn’t bother mentioning Biden’s name at all in her piece until the last paragraph, and it was only to make excuses for his administration’s outrageous, inflation-stimulating spending policies. She appeared to hinge her entire argument on consumer spending rising 0.2 percent in October, glossing over the fact that this was a significant 0.5 percentage-point slowdown from the 0.7 percent increase in September and was the “slowest increase since May,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
If “everyone is miserable,” how could things be “going great”? CBS News reported based on analysis by the Joint Economic Committee Republicans that Americans need an extra $11,400 today “just to afford the basics.” CNBC also recently analyzed that the increases in consumer expenditures constitute “doom spending” as a coping mechanism to deal with the increasingly insurmountable high cost of living, even if it is detrimental to them.
But Lowrey attempted to have her cake and eat it too. She attempted to make Biden’s economy seem stellar by pointing to things like wage increases while simultaneously shaming Americans for their persistent economic struggles. In one paragraph, she bleated that “[y]ou would think, with prices as high as they are, that Americans would have tempered their enthusiasm for shopping of late.” But she proceeded to talk out of both sides of her mouth by making it seem like Americans are living the good life:
It should be good news that Americans are better off than they were pre-pandemic. It should be good news that people can afford more, even if prices are high. But then why is everyone so mad about prices?
Lowrey can’t have it both ways. Either Biden’s economy is great in her mind or it isn’t, and reality clearly proves the latter. She even had the audacity to claim that “Average wages have risen faster than average prices.”
This is a blatant falsehood. Bloomberg News conceded that while Americans did see pay raises since 2020, “much of those gains have been gobbled up by inflation. Some of the fastest wage increases in decades have left the average American largely no better off than before.” [Emphasis added.] Bloomberg News also pointed out Nov. 27 that housing affordability is currently at its “worst on record,” something Lowrey didn’t bother to mention. In addition, credit card debt is also over $1 trillion, another disaster “record” that Lowrey didn’t disclose. “Better off,” eh Lowrey?
Lowrey concluded her screed by injecting Americans with an overdose of gaslighting:
People want to blame Joe Biden for their bills. They want to accuse stores of gouging them (though the evidence for “greedflation” is scant). The strange truth is that most people really are in a more comfortable position, even if they’re not happy about it. It’s not like a weak economy, stagnant wages, crummy consumer spending, and cheaper stuff would be better, after all.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact The Atlantic at (202) 266-6000 and demand it denounce Lowry’s anti-American, economic-illiterate screed.
