Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was ridiculed en masse Monday night after recommending Americans consider alternatives to beef amid an extraordinary spike in ground beef prices.“If [beef] is too expensive, unlike fuel, you can eat chicken, pork, salmon, eggs… there are other sources of really g...

Rollins’ claim that prices for other protein sources were “coming down” is inaccurate. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost of eggs, while lower than in 2025, has increased in recent months, increasing by 4.3% from May to June, falling by 0.5% from June to July, and then increasing again by 2.9% from July to August. Pork and chicken costs both increased by 0.4% from July to August.

Meanwhile, prices for ground beef hit a new record after reaching an average price of around $7.16 per pound as of August, an increase of 0.6% from July and 7.9% when compared with the previous year.

“If Joe Biden said anything close to this, MAGA would’ve had a total meltdown,” argued Democratic influencer Harry Sisson in a social media post on X to his more than 400,000 followers. “Now this is just part of Trump’s messaging. Hypocrisy at its finest.”

Others, like the progressive media organization MeidasTouch, jokingly argued that Rollins was “about two weeks away from telling people they can always eat bugs.”

“You will eat the bugs, you will live in the pod,” quipped Damin Toell, a New York-based attorney, in a social media post on X.

A multi-millionaire telling people to eat other protein that they also cannot afford is about as close to a “let them eat cake” moment as we’ll probably get.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    8 hours ago

    During the covid years, I had to laugh that your basic con believed all of these things and spent so much time online and IRL trying to convince others of them. Most basic cons probably still believe them:

    1. That “TechBros” (hate that term - I’m a “tech bro” and have been for virtually all of my life, but not one of these oligarchs) are pushing a progressive agenda and “censoring conservatives” and “cancelling conservatives” because cons’ posts don’t go viral or whatever.
    2. That it was all Democrats in on a pedo ring and affiliated with Epstein.
    3. That things like the WEF represents progressives.

    This last one is relevant because the cons took WEF talks as something the “elites” (in conservative head canon, another word for progressives. lol, yeah, it makes zero sense, but nothing in their cinematic universe does) were pushing and the likes of Alex Jones just fucking ran with this…any and all calls for changing your diet (veganism/vegetarianism) or addressing climate change or having walkable cities almost always had a certain type pop up to quote this stuff, saying “you will own nothing and be happy” and “THEY want us to eat bugs” or “OMG! It’s the Great Reset!!!111”

    • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
      4·
      15 hours ago

      “TechBros” (hate that term…)

      Unless you started as a frat-boy trust-fund dickhead, the “bro” part is unlikely to apply to you.

      I’ve been in tech for a very long time, 46 years so far, but have been more often called “hacker” or “dirtbag” than “bro.”

      I fully agree with the rest of your observations about the brainwashing of the rubes.

      Another observation: I now live in a (nearly) 15-minute city and walkability contributes massively to the quality of life here. I drive about once a week and am planning to retire the car in a few months. When I cycle past the city limits, conservative morons would be shocked to hear that there’s nobody at a checkpoint to turn me back. Just sheep on hillsides, ancient hedges and a few excellent country pubs. Oh, the horror!