President Donald Trump on Thursday once again proved how out of touch he is with just about every person living in the entire world, when he indicated that he’s never been to a modern-day grocery store. Not to be outdone by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s clueless assessment of the financial struggles of over a million victims of the seemingly endless partial government shutdown that Trump himself engineered, Individual 1 spoke to reporters about the simple solutions awaiting the estimated 1.2 million federal workers and contractors losing money every single day this large-scale temper tantrum continues.
After denying that he had seen Ross’s asinine statement about unpaid workers taking out bank loans, Trump (who once said people need photo ID to buy groceries) then proceeded to critique it, before using a stream of nonsense befitting a stable genius, all along the way to confirming it.
REPORTER: Mr. President, did you see that Wilbur Ross said that he couldn’t understand why federal workers would need help getting food? Can you understand?
TRUMP: No, I haven’t heard the statement, but I do understand that perhaps he should have said it differently. Local people know who they are when they go for groceries and everything else, and I think what Wilbur was probably trying to say is that they will work along. I know banks are working along, if you have mortgages, the mortgagees, the mortgage, the folks collecting the interest and all of those things, they work along. And that’s what happens in times like this. They know the people, they’ve been dealing with them for years, and they work along, the grocery store … and I think that’s probably what Wilbur Ross meant, but I haven’t seen his statement, no ...but he’s doing a great job, I can tell you that.
Actually, that’s not how any of this works. While many folks are regulars at their local grocery store, and, as decent people do, befriend the clerks and other employees who care for us, the vast majority of Americans do not get the food that sustains both themselves and their families at some old-timey market owned by a neighbor, where one can extend a line of credit with a simple notation in Old Man Wilson’s ledger. Mama can’t send her children to the store to barter for a loaf of bread with some free mending services.
That’s not how any of this works. ANY OF IT.
Independent grocers accounted for just 11 percent of all grocery sales in 2015. And even those aren’t the mom-and-pop shops from the days of yore; those are just stores that aren’t owned by the massive conglomerates like Kroger and Safeway. Even for those indie stores that keep fighting, such as Tops, founded by an Italian immigrant in 1962, the fight for their lives is just unwinnable.
Tops was cutting prices even though it had filed for bankruptcy last month, responding to pressure from behemoths like Amazon and Walmart — which are lowering prices and targeting new markets — and from discount stores like Dollar General. The food war that is raging across the country is weeding out the weakest links, leaving small and medium-size grocery companies struggling to stay afloat.
It wasn’t long before another wobbly chain followed Tops into bankruptcy. The parent company of the Southern stores Winn-Dixie and Bi-Lo said it would file for Chapter 11 protection by the end of this month, and close 94 stores.
Quite frankly, Mr. President, you’re full of covfefe and are utterly clueless when it comes to the realities the American people face.