This is the outrage economy, where everything the Republican Party does requires two parts screaming, one part sneer. But the outrage economy doesn’t just run on Jewish space lasers and subterranean tunnels where gourmands tap out the code for the latest child-flavored pizza. It also demands smaller, more bite-sized slivers of outrage. Outrage amuse-gueule, as it were.
Those can come in the form of the occasional tan suit or a bottle of the wrong kind of hoity-toity mustard. There’s even the never-ending smorgasbord of turpitude that is Hunter Biden’s laptop.
But the best of these follow a simple formula: Liberals are trying to take something away from you. That something can be the fancy gas stove that Fox watchers didn’t own and didn’t know they wanted until it became the subject of a frothing shout-fest from their favorite pundits. Or, as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas now insists, it can be something even more sacred—the right to drink too much beer.
In a Newsmax segment so mechanically scripted and played out that it might be a parody of local used-car ads, Cruz insists that this time those darn liberals are coming for our good American beer.
The pacing of the Cruz segment is so stiff that it’s easy to believe they practiced this bit only, say, a dozen or so times. Cruz stands in front of a group of old guys whose form of outrage seems to be extreme boredom. Once the Newsmax anchor gives him his cue, Cruz goes into his spiel about Biden this, Biden that. Gas stoves. Why does Biden have Czars! And those dastardly liberals are trying to apply new safety and efficiency standards to ceiling fans.
Cruz doesn’t even mention that these new ceiling fan rules were published in 2018. Because how does that help the case against Biden? Anyway, that was probably the deep state.
Finally, it’s time for Cruz to reach for his stunt beer and deliver his killer “kiss my ass” closing line. Because he definitely is not some rich Harvard Law School graduate following a script. Nope, he’s just a regular guy expressing his regular gut anger. Everybody drink!
The source of the latest manufactured mini-outrage was a Fox News segment earlier this week in which a pundit asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre if President Joe Biden was trying to limit how many beers Americans drink.
When Jean-Pierre was understandably confused and refused to provide the statement they wanted, Fox’s Peter Doocy did it for her. According to Doocy, Dr. George Koob, the director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, had said the U.S. might follow Canada’s lead and recommend no more than two beers a week. Jean-Pierre opted out of a response.
Doocy’s claim was apparently a paraphrase of a statement in right-wing British tabloid Daily Mail, where an article said that Koob was watching the results of revised health recommendations in Canada with interest and hoped that people might see the benefits of reducing alcohol consumption if there turned out to be health benefits. Which isn’t exactly a shocking statement from the guy whose job it is to consider the health risks generated by alcohol abuse.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing. That’s all there is to Biden’s “alcohol czar” (also not a real thing) coming for American beers.
Still, don’t be surprised if this shows up as a reason to impeach Biden. Sure, it’s completely fake, but it’s better than any of the other reasons given by Republicans.
Besides, Fox News spends so much time talking about the Second Amendment that they should have no problem persuading their audience that unlimited brewskis is the subject of the Third Amendment. The Fourth? The right to drink as many beers as you want while shooting as many guns as you want, of course. And if you don’t like it, kiss my Cruz.
Republished with permission from Daily Kos.
