I do the cooking in the family, so I’m also the guy who shops for the groceries.
Truth is, I like doing both just fine, because sitting down for a good meal is one of life’s underrated treats.
When I was done this morning corralling the goods at the local market that I hoped would get us through a few day’s worth of semi-fine dining, I aimed my shopping cart into an empty checkout line and started offloading my supplies.
Experienced shoppers will know that there’s nothing like the privilege of scooting into an empty line at the grocery store. Better yet, this welcoming aisle was being staffed by one of my favorite cashiers, Betty.
All signs were pointing to a better-than-average day.
As I greeted Betty, and put the last of my stuff — the breakable items — on the conveyor belt, she asked with a smile if I’d found everything OK. Salty grocery-store navigator that I am, I told her I had, but with things so slow in the place, decided to make the opportunity for some small talk while driving toward a larger point.
“No offense, Betty,” I said politely, “But I found everything to be too dang expensive, if I’m being honest here. I mean, $13.72 for this little pouch of coffee? $5.45 for three apples? $6.75 for a box of cereal? I’m wondering just how long we are supposed to put up with this.”
She hardly batted an eye, and said, “No offense taken, honey, that’s why I have to work here at 72, so I can afford to eat what we’re sellin’. I figured I’d be long retired by now, but I just don’t see that happening anytime soon.”
“Well, that’s one nasty riddle,” I said. “I’m sorry about that, Betty.”
“Could be worse, I suppose,” she said with rueful resignation.
“I guess,” I said, before pushing my cart and my point forward, as a manager nudged closer, “I thought everything was supposed to get cheaper on Day 1 of Trump’s presidency. I mean, that’s what he told us.”
That’s when she laughed out loud, handed me my receipt, and we both decided that we’d struck a sad but fitting end to our interaction.
Truth is, America is a very bad joke right now courtesy of a very bad man, and a ruthless party and lawless court system, which are hell bent on making things great for themselves, and just as hard as possible on everybody else like my friend, Betty.
If high food prices were the only thing ailing America, it would be bad enough, but they are but one sore subject on a Republican report card that’s so bad right now, even a hungry junkyard dog wouldn’t eat it.
Mathematically, things just don’t add up anymore.
Gas prices are soaring and inflation and interest rates are back on the rise thanks to Trump’s idiotic tariffs and greedy billionaires and corporate raiders who won’t stop tapping people’s wallets until they have picked them dry. Oh, there’s still plenty of money to go around in America, but these days most of it stays in the fat little hands of the One Percent, who are getting richer by the minute standing on the tired backs of the Ninety-Nine Percent.
If Republicans had any sense of history — another subject on that report card that they are failing miserably — they’d understand that’s exactly how things work in monarchies, one of which we fought and defeated 250 years ago for our freedom.
They’d also learn from hard lessons of the recent past, that burning American treasure and countless lives in a region of the world where oil is worth more than human rights is a fool’s errand, and will end in no good.
And it’s no wonder the American experiment has gone so poorly when the subject of science is the enemy of the people, and is no longer even a part of the curriculum of the political party in charge. Our planet is heating toward the point of extinction, and we are but one serious virus away from total catastrophe.
And what is Republicans’ answer to that?
Tapping a whacko anti-vaxxer with zero training in medicine, academia, or scientific research to lead the response to our next medical emergency. Let’s face it, RFK Jr. is a ghoul, who lacking his famous family’s credentials, would just be some roided out, chestnut-colored freak leering at women at the local gym. Instead, he is in charge of our Department of Health and Human Services and that continues to be just too absurd to imagine.
Meanwhile, the smarmy Lee Zeldin is heading the Environmental “Protection” Agency, by attacking it and Mother Nature. It’s like putting an arsonist in charge of the fire department.
The emphasis on the subjects of English, literature and the languages couldn’t be a lower priority in America, because have you heard what comes out of Trump’s dirty mouth each day?
America is at the back of the world’s class and failing catastrophically right now, because we have the dumbest, most destructive people ever at the head of our government. They are from a privileged, unsympathetic upper class, who are so out of touch with what ails regular folks like Betty, it has gone past low-class ignorance and right to highly insulting.
The American dream has gone off to die on the patio of Mar-a-Lago, where billionaires muster their pompous asses to pick away at shrimp cocktail and the bones of the people they are eating alive, while kissing the ample ass of the man who is making all of it possible.
They’re not thinking about people like Betty, they’re thinking about themselves first, and Americans second.
Our elections are coming fast, and if these lawless buffoons aren’t careful our vote could get in the way of their good times. Used to be when a president and his political party got everything wrong like these Republicans have, the American voters would give ‘em a failing grade at the voting booth, and demand they start flying straight or else.
Except these arrogant losers are making it clear they aren’t much interested in receiving, or even making the grade. So they are busy leaning on our crooked courts to rig the test by making sure as few of us as possible can hold them accountable for their ongoing theft of our democracy.
Rather than fight on principle, they are cutting and running and avoiding the subject altogether. They are taking the coward’s way out, and we simply cannot let them get away with it.
It is on every single one of us then to ensure that we do everything in our power to take these anti-American low-class clowns to school in November.
D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.