BBQin' Biden

"Did you know that barbecue sauce is actually said to come from the US? The US is the world's biggest barbecue market and according to CNN 80 million Americans barbecued last year, the most popular time being on Labor Day."

That quote comes from a 2019 article by British professional outdoor barbecue equipment company "Cinders Barbecues", with a title that asks: "WHICH COUNTRY LOVES BARBECUES THE MOST?" Well, that's nice. But this post isn't about BBQ; it's about Biden. Biden and burgers. And about fear-mongering, polarization and the political right's strenuous relationship with reality and truth. That's a lot, but it all comes together in the conservatives' reaction to Biden's insufficient plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In reality Biden's plans are nowhere near enough to realize the goals set in the Paris Climate Agreement, which in itself is already insufficient as it leaves countries free to decide for themselves how, or how fast they make changes necessary to prevent catastrophic temperature rises. But whatever Biden does, it'll always be more and better than what would have been done by Trump or the Republicans in general. So the reality is that the Democrats under Biden don't do enough, but their political opponents will say that he does way too much. So much even that Biden's plans are "radical", and a threat to the "American way of life".

It's always the same old story. When Democrats propose to do something very small against the unchecked proliferation of guns, like better background or psychological checks, or maybe ban full automatic weapons, conservatives immediately lose it and scream "they're coming after your guns!" And now Biden "is coming after your hamburgers!" You see, the right wing media and Republicans have started a propaganda campaign against tiny bit of climate change prevention proposed by the Democrats, and they make clever use of the popularity of hamburgers and BBQing in the USA. In this clever campaign they claim that Biden is after Americans' right to consume hamburgers, thereby pitting Biden against American culture. Just one day after Joe Biden pledged to cut US greenhouse gas emissions in half, Fox News started this baseless and repeated claim that Biden's out to "ban burgers". "To meet the Biden Green New Deal targets, America has to, get this, America has to stop eating meat," said Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow, a former economic adviser to President Donald Trump, on April 23. "No burger on July 4. No steaks on the barbecue."

Equally disturbing will be the reaction from the liberals; they will praise Biden for doing better than Trump. That's a low bar though and the Democrats don't deserve that praise but instead should be criticized from the left for not doing enough. But there is no "left" in American politics or mainstream media, and so we'll see a continuation of increasing polarization between conservatives and liberals based on false right wing narratives. I'll leave it here and invite you to watch this short video by Renegade Cut; he does a way better job at explaining just how sad this development really is.

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