{"id":817,"date":"2026-08-11T06:33:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T06:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=817"},"modified":"2026-08-11T06:33:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T06:33:34","slug":"the-rights-new-inflation-message-let-them-eat-ramen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=817","title":{"rendered":"The Right\u2019s New Inflation Message: Let Them Eat Ramen"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If the GOP gets wiped out in the midterms this fall, the biggest cause will likely be war-induced inflation, a double betrayal of the campaign promises that brought many new voters into the Republican fold in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Centrist Democrats Are Rolling Up Their Sleeves and Punching Left<\/a><\/p>\n

After all, two of Donald Trump\u2019s chief attack lines against Kamala Harris and Joe Biden were that they had let inflation run rampant and that they had plunged the United States into endless conflict in the Middle East and Europe. But with his bungled, inflation-spiking war against Iran, Trump has done exactly what he warned voters his opponents would do\u2014and turned a wide swath of the public against him. According to a late-July poll by Marquette University Law School, 76 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump\u2019s handling of inflation, and 69 percent disapprove of his handling of the Iran War.<\/p>\n

Writing in UnHerd<\/em> last week, Sohrab Ahmari, a heterodox conservative, noted that the Iran War and the rise in inflation are deeply intertwined:<\/p>\n

\n

In June, inflation rose to 4.2%, nearly double where it stood just before Operation Epic Fury. Gas is a fungible global commodity. Thus, even though the United States is the world\u2019s chief net energy exporter, the supply squeeze in the Strait of Hormuz puts inflationary pressure on gas prices in America. And it\u2019s not just gas prices which are affected, but those in many other sectors, too\u2014from transportation to agriculture to restaurants and hospitality.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s hardly surprising that affordability is becoming a proxy front in the larger conflict between hawks and military restrainers on the right. Revealingly, the battle lines in this conflict revolve around whether concerns about war-induced inflation are even legitimate. The most militarist wing of the right is taking the position that inflation either isn\u2019t real or is something the public will just have to live with in order to pay for a necessary war.<\/p>\n

On August 3, far-right pundit Matt Walsh (best known for his rabid anti-trans rants) tweeted,<\/p>\n

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Grocery prices are insane. They\u2019re still rising. Addressing this problem should be the number one priority of every elected leader. End the stupid foreign wars and focus on this issue. It\u2019s one of the main reasons socialists are gaining power.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Andrew Kolvet of Talking Points USA responded with an anecdote indicating that Walsh\u2019s concerns were shared by some young right-wingers:<\/p>\n

Read more David Ellison\u2019s Delusional Stab at Self-Justification<\/a><\/p>\n

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One of our TPUSA college students gave me his take on affordability: \u201cA burrito shouldn\u2019t cost $20.\u201d Yeah, a lot of this is a hangover from Covid and Biden-era inflation, but the lived experience is the same: It just feels like basic things cost too much.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Kolvet\u2019s story about a costly burrito might seem innocuous enough, but it provoked a major backlash on the right, with many leading figures adopting the tone of angry old men scolding the young for being soft. Texas Republican Representative Dan Crenshaw, a loud advocate for belligerent imperialism, responded with a snide and supercilious post that called to mind the apocryphal story of Marie Antoinette advising starving peasants to eat cake:<\/p>\n

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Just hearing about this dumb $20 burrito debate so just thought I\u2019d make the losers on social media angry before going to bed. Stop whining, get a job, eat Ramen like the rest of us did in college, on a budget with 4 roommates. The market doesn\u2019t care what you think something \u201cshould\u201d cost. Only communists care (they set prices remember? Then everyone starves, remember?) Are you a communist? Or are you an American adult male capable of handling his own shit?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The message of \u201clet them eat Ramen\u201d is surely as toxic as \u201clet them eat cake.\u201d One reason Crenshaw can afford to make it is that he is leaving politics after being soundly defeated in a March primary by an even more far-right candidate. But Crenshaw\u2019s basic dismissal of inflation as a nonproblem was echoed by other hawkish Republicans, including Washington Post<\/em> columnist Marc Thiessen, who wrote, \u201cCry me a river. The burritos in the college cafeteria are included in your meal plan.\u201d Vice President JD Vance, who has been trying to shore up the anti-establishment and anti-interventionist supporters that Trump won in 2024, took a potshot at the columnist by writing, \u201cI\u2019m surprised to hear Mark say this. If you\u2019ve ever met him in person, it\u2019s quite obvious the man has never missed a burrito.\u201d Vance\u2019s cruel jibe was personal and also irrelevant, since it ignores the fact that the administration Vance serves under has been shaped by pro-war voices such as Thiessen.<\/p>\n

Two other pro-war pundits, Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin, took the same dismissive attitude as Crenshaw and Thiessen. Adopting the tone of a snotty teacher, Shapiro wrote, \u201cOkay, young people: a burrito does not cost $20. If you\u2019re paying $20 for a burrito and you\u2019re not independently wealthy, you\u2019re doing life wrong.\u201d On his radio program, Levin spoke at enormous grandfatherly length about the suffering of earlier generations of Americans during the Great Depression and World War II to underscore the point that, \u201cyoung people today do not have it as hard as young people had it 50, 60, 78 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levin\u2019s invocation of World War II underscores the weakness of his own position. In the past, Americans were willing to undergo austerity and suffering for causes they deemed just: the American Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II. These were periods of conscription and rationing, where individual happiness was sacrificed for a collective good. But the Iran War doesn\u2019t have anywhere near the popular support\u2014or the existential stakes\u2014of those earlier conflicts. If people are complaining about the price of gas and of burritos, that is not due to superficiality or softness. Rather, inflation bites even harder if it\u2019s being caused by a war that makes no sense. Lecturing people on the nobility of belt-tightening is obnoxious behavior at the best of times, but even more offensive when done for a bad cause. Trump and allies such as Thiessen and Levin haven\u2019t convinced anyone outside the hardcore MAGA cult that these sacrifices are worth it\u2014and there\u2019s no sign that that\u2019s likely to change.<\/p>\n

Otto von Bismarck once offered an unheeded warning against German meddling in other regions by saying the Balkans were \u201cnot worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.\u201d One can update the Iron Chancellor\u2019s sage advice by saying the Iran War is not worth the price of one burrito.<\/p>\n

Read more January 14, 2011: President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali Flees Tunisia, Marking the First Victory of the Arab Spring<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Right\u2019s New Inflation Message: Let Them Eat Ramen - Atlas Living Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=817\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Right\u2019s New Inflation Message: Let Them Eat Ramen - Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Nation Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=817\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-11T06:33:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=817#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=817\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f6233854b1f92a6d21147fe5d5e58abc\"},\"headline\":\"The Right\u2019s New Inflation Message: Let Them Eat Ramen\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-11T06:33:34+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=817\"},\"wordCount\":1127,\"commentCount\":0,\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=817#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=817\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=817\",\"name\":\"The Right\u2019s New Inflation Message: Let Them Eat Ramen - 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