#BareShelvesBiden was a hot trending topic yesterday, despite the best efforts of liberals trying to shield Joe Biden and his administration from criticism over the supply chain crisis.
Call him crazy, but National Review’s Jim Geraghty feels like people might have a reason to be dissatisfied with how the Biden administration’s policies are affecting consumers.
Empty Shelves Disprove Biden's Supply-Chain Boasts https://t.co/9fxUQGQOww
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) January 11, 2022
Geraghty’s put together a thread featuring highlights from today’s “Morning Jolt” examining how we got to the place where so many of us currently find ourselves.
A bit before Christmas, President Biden boasted that he had averted the supply-chain crisis: “The much-predicted crisis didn’t occur. Packages are moving. Gifts are being delivered. Shelves are not empty.”https://t.co/StBaYkGVsE
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) January 11, 2022
Back on December 22, White House chief of staff Ron Klain shared a New York Times article and declared that supply-chain problems were “an over-hyped narrative.”https://t.co/StBaYkGVsE
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) January 11, 2022
And yet, you may have also noticed that your local store shelves still aren’t restocked to their usual levels, or you may well be finding empty shelves.https://t.co/StBaYkGVsE
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) January 11, 2022
You know where you’ll find a lot of coverage of empty shelves and supply chain problems? Local TV news affiliates.https://t.co/StBaYkGVsE pic.twitter.com/vlfXRa3dgS
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) January 11, 2022
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And it’s not just one region beset by particular labor shortages or bad weather – Richmond, Atlanta, Portland, Daytona Beach, Houston, Dallas, Honolulu, Cape Cod…https://t.co/StBaYkGVsE
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) January 11, 2022
And it’s not just groceries. Auto parts, housing supplies, cold medicines…https://t.co/StBaYkGVsE pic.twitter.com/dejRuMNeOc
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) January 11, 2022
No doubt, bad weather can slow shipments and block roads, exacerbating the supply-chain crisis. But in some places, there’s something of a vicious cycle, in that supply-chain problems are exacerbating the ability to respond to bad weather.https://t.co/StBaYkGVsE pic.twitter.com/xoiVyshASj
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) January 11, 2022
When you add up all of these reports, it seems like a lot of genuine and glaring problems for the White House chief of staff to dismiss as just “an overhyped narrative”!https://t.co/StBaYkGVsE
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) January 11, 2022
You can find Biden defenders who insisting the Twitter hashtag “#BareShelvesBiden” is “artificially amplified by far-right users to manipulate the trending section.” Fine, maybe they are, but consumers and local news aren’t _hallucinating_ empty shelves.https://t.co/StBaYkGVsE
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) January 11, 2022
Businesses aren’t _imagining_ this inability to get the supplies and parts they need. Supply chain complaints are not a national mass hysteria driven by a hashtag.https://t.co/StBaYkGVsE
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) January 11, 2022
The Biden team’s reflex is that reports of problems are just right-wing propaganda. As with the border, inflation, Afghanistan, Covid-19, and the shortage of tests, we have to waste time convincing the Biden administration that the country’s problems are actually real problems.
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) January 11, 2022
Or perhaps someone like Klain will tell us to be appreciative because we have “high class problems.”https://t.co/StBaYkGVsE pic.twitter.com/zir8eLn4OA
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) January 11, 2022
Great thread. This was the chicken section of my local supermarket in the DC suburbs yesterday. A few days ago the milk section was empty. https://t.co/8ZBWXLHNgN pic.twitter.com/xiTadgCdVp
— Carl Gottlieb (@c_cgottlieb) January 11, 2022
YOU’RE JUST BEING BRAINWASHED BY A HASHTAG, THE SHELVES ARE FULL
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) January 11, 2022
The Biden administration is just a victim of Fox News propagandists!!1!
Oh, by the way, none of the local TV news affiliates I linked to in today’s Morning Jolt are local Fox affiliates. Lot of CBS News. https://t.co/u2ZRjKrl0c
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) January 11, 2022
Oh. Well. In that case, it would appear that Joe Biden and Co. have some explaining to do. And blaming Republicans probably isn’t going to cut it for too much longer.
Biden took credit for 'fixing' the problem.
Now that its broken – again – do we get to blame him? Or nah? https://t.co/CZprHwqkZ9
— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) January 11, 2022
How much longer does Joe Biden think he can dodge responsibility?
Nothing that can’t be solved with more snarky Ron Klain tweets national journalists will approvingly retweet denying that any of this is happening https://t.co/9KuHi5lp6q
— Sunny McSunnyface (@sunnyright) January 11, 2022
We have no doubt that many in the national media will allow themselves to be contented by Ron Klain’s “don’t believe your lying eyes” schtick and that Klain will gladly retweet their retweets of him. But at some point even a Ron Klain tweet isn’t enough to make people ignore what they’re seeing.
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