ARMIES: Army of Gutfeld feigns a discussion!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2024

Here's how democracy dies: Why are grocery prices still high? Inquiring minds want to know.

In this recent analysis, the AP reports that egg prices are creeping back up due to a new wave of avian flu. Also, we think we've read that orange juice prices may still be high as a result of weather-related crop losses in Florida.

Such occurrences would qualify as "acts of God." That said, could price-gouging possibly be another part of the story?

Last Friday, President Biden made that allegation in a speech in South Carolina. That evening, a 59-year-old man, joined by an army of low-grade comedians along with a former professional wrestler, played a video clip of what President Biden had said.

The man then proceeded to savage the allegedly ludicrous statements made by "President Poopy Pants," a public servant who was also described, on this Gutfeld! program, as "the vegetable in chief."

Executives at the Fox News Channel are now putting this new variety of manifest garbage on their "cable news" air through much of their network's prime time. In this new post, Kevin Drum linked to our latest report about that evening's Gutfeld! program. 

Kevin wasn't impressed with Greg Gutfeld's army of God. His headline said this:

Yes, Fox News has gotten even worse

Fox News "has gotten even worse," Kevin said, as it continues to build a new pseudo-journalistic culture around the musings of groups of "sophomoric jokesters." 

In principle, we agree with that assessment, but we'll offer one word of caution:

We assume that Fox is moving its primetime programming in this direction because the network has learned, through market research, that this represents a more successful way to advance tribal propaganda.

To be clear, we don't know that any such research has been conducted. But we'll offer a solid guess in which that's a part of the deal.

Greg Gutfeld's panels will constitute one of the armies in the field during this year's political war in our country—during the ongoing siege of the Biden White House. Just as the traveling poets who composed The Iliad listed all the armies in the field during the lengthy siege of Troy, so too here:

This site will be reviewing the various armies determining our nation's fate as we approach the presidential election scheduled for this November.

The angry and irrational Gutfeld sits at the head of one such army. Last Friday night, he and his troupers savaged President Poopy Pants in a way which lets us know that the basic building blocks of a sane democracy are already slipping away, with very few armies within our blue tribe recording what those red tribe armies are doing or offering words of complaint.

At any rate, the vegetable-in-chief had made an allegation. For those still wedded to reality, is there any actual merit to what the vegetable said?

For ourselves, we thought the video clip of President Biden's statement was underwhelming, basically unimpressive. That said, in last Saturday's print editions, the New York Times offered a detailed news a report on the question at hand.

Gambling was spotted in Rick's casino. Is price gouging present in our grocery stores?

Inquiring minds might want to know! Headline included, the report in the Times began in the manner shown:

Biden Takes Aim at Grocery Chains Over Food Prices

President Biden, whose approval rating has suffered amid high inflation, is beginning to pressure large grocery chains to slash food prices for American consumers, accusing the stores of reaping excess profits and ripping off shoppers.

“There are still too many corporations in America ripping people off: price gouging, junk fees, greedflation, shrinkflation,” Mr. Biden said last week in South Carolina. Aides say those comments are a preview of more pressure to come against grocery chains and other companies that are maintaining higher-than-usual profit margins after a period of rapid price growth.

Jim Tankersley's report appeared on page B1—the front page of the Business section. Already, in his second graf, Tankersley had reported that "grocery chains and other companies" are maintaining "higher-than-usual profit margins" at the present time.

Does that mean that "price gouging" is involved? We employ no experts on such questions. As such, we have no real idea at the present time.

That said, we did read on. As Tankersley's report continued, he also reported such findings as these:

A new analysis from the White House Council of Economic Advisers suggests that elevated profit margins among large grocery retailers could be contributing to the stubbornly high price of food on store shelves. The analysis, which relies on Quarterly Financial Reports data from the Census Bureau, found that food and beverage stores had increased their margins by about two percentage points since the eve of the pandemic, reaching their highest level in two decades.

Much of that increase came in 2021 and 2022, around the time that other retailers—like clothing and sporting goods stores—also saw profit margins jump. Grocery-store margins have stayed elevated, the analysis finds, even as other retailers’ margins have fallen back to more normal levels based on recent history.

[...]

But the White House analysis also implies that increased grocery profit margins do not come close to accounting for the price spikes that grocery shoppers have experienced under Mr. Biden’s tenure.

Other research suggests additional forces—like consumer demand and supply-chain disruptions—are a much bigger factor in the price increases. A bout of avian flu caused egg prices to spike last year, for example. And food producers, like soft-drink manufacturers, have continued to raise prices even as their costs have declined, leading to heady profit margins.

On its face, we're prepared to score Tankersley's report as admirably fair and balanced. 

Tankersley seems to report that price-gouging can't account for the bulk of the grocery store price increases. On the other hand, he also seems to report that grocery stores are enjoying unusually high profit margins at the present time.

Also, food producers are experiencing "heady" profit margins—and they've continued to raise their prices even as costs have declined.

Is some degree of price-gouging some part of the picture concerning grocery prices? We still have no finished idea. But Tankersley was describing the basic field of play for anyone who wanted to explore this question in a traditional, rational way. 

His report appeared on the front page of the Business section of Saturday's New York Times. One night before, an angry 59-year-old man, joined by a panel of Fox-style experts, had pretended to conduct a discussion of this very topic.

It would have been extremely hard to conduct a dumber "discussion" than the one this army of Gutfeld conducted last Friday night. In this case, their imitation of an adult discussion was conducted in primetime, on our nation's most-watched network for "cable news," as millions of voters watched.

Tankersley is an experienced economic reporter. The angry 59-year-old man was joined by a low-grade comedian, a former professional wrestler and by a timid, name-calling novelist, but also by a pompous peacock dragged in from Fox & Friends First..

As we noted yesterday, the angry 59-year-old man spewed a stream of juvenile insults. Quite plainly, the people with whom he conducted his imitation of a discussion showed no sign of having the slightest idea what they were talking about.

This kind of sophomoric pseudo-discussion is now a staple of three (3) hour-long, primetime weeknight programs on the Fox News Channel. The 59-year-old man commands one of the armies which will be out in the field, waging its war on the red tribe's side, during this year's siege of the White House.

Blue tribe armies have stood down from any attempt to report or critique this peculiar state of affairs. All in all, and simply put, no one wants to tangle with Fox. Among the higher-class armies of the blue tribe, it simply isn't done.

Democracy dies in darkness, we're now repeatedly told. The major newspaper which broadcasts that warning clear of the Fox News Channel, as does everyone else.

For today, let us say this:

We've shown you the way a serious journalist starts to conduct a serious examination of a serious policy question. Tomorrow, we'll give you a look at what occurred when Greg Gutfeld's ersatz army pretended to discuss the claim made by the person they derided as President Poopy Pants—the claim that some amount of current food prices results from some type of price-gouging.

We'll also visit a second Fox News show, a Fox News program from last weekend. On that program, Fox & Friends cohost Brian Kilmeade interviewed John Walsh about the return of Walsh's long-running crime-stopper program, America's Most Wanted.

It was Few Misstatements Left Behind as the pair pretended to discuss the current state of crime in our struggling nation. To appearances, basic facts died a thousand deaths in the course of their conversation. 

As in in the day when armies gathered on the plains outside the towering walls of Troy, so too here and now and today:

Various armies of the red tribe will be fighting in this manner as the siege of the White House unfolds. Major blue armies will fail to resist—have politely agreed to avert their gaze from generals like Gutfeld, have politely agreed to stand down.

Tomorrow: Democracy dies like this!