Six Levels of Trump and Bacon

Donald Trump regularly warns that wind generators are killing birds. Final night time in Wisconsin, he raised a brand new and reverse concern: They’re resulting in fewer hogs being killed.

At a town-hall occasion, a younger man requested the previous president about the price of meat, and he replied with a meandering reply that in some way linked wind farms to a lower in bacon consumption. As with a number of Trump quotations, it’s important to learn or watch it at full size to even try and observe it.

“Groceries, meals has gone up at ranges that no one’s ever seen earlier than. We’ve by no means seen something prefer it—50, 60, 70 p.c,” he stated. “You check out bacon and a few of these merchandise and a few individuals don’t eat bacon anymore. We’re going to get the vitality costs down. Once we get vitality down, you understand, this was brought on by their horrible vitality—wind, they need wind everywhere. However when it doesn’t blow we’ve got slightly downside. This was brought on by vitality. This was actually brought on by vitality, and likewise their unbelievable spending. They’re spending us out of wealth, really, they’re taking our wealth away, however it was brought on by vitality.”

Learn: Trump suggests planes can’t fly when it’s not sunny

When you break it down into element elements, it’s not fairly as erratic, however it’s nonetheless nonsensical. Trump is saying that the Biden administration has pushed for an enlargement of wind energy. That has, in his view, pushed inflation, which has made grocery costs increased and compelled cost-conscious customers to chop down on consuming bacon.

That’s considerably coherent, as a principle. The issue is that almost none of it’s true.

Right here’s what’s proper: Biden has pushed to broaden wind energy. In truth, U.S. manufacturing of each vitality class besides coal is at a file excessive. Bacon costs have additionally risen because the begin of the Biden administration, a part of broader inflation over the previous few years.

However little proof connects this stuff. Better wind manufacturing ought to drive down general vitality prices—increased gasoline costs, which customers observe intently, however. (Trump is correct that generators don’t flip when the wind doesn’t blow, although different vitality sources live on.) Biden’s massive push for wind got here within the Inflation Discount Act, and though that regulation was improperly (and cynically) named, it additionally doesn’t appear to have produced inflation. Specifically, bacon costs are decrease than they had been when it was handed.

Annie Lowrey: Individuals are mad about all of the unsuitable prices

Who is aware of the place Trump got here up with the bacon instance, which he has talked about within the context of inflation earlier than. He provides no specifics, and it has the ring of his doubtful “sir” tales. Economists have noticed that bacon is sufficiently beloved that demand for it stays pretty secure, even when costs rise. Grocery costs have risen nowhere close to 50 p.c general.

(One irony is that many environmentalists who again renewable vitality may nicely cheer if wind energy did produce a discount in bacon consumption. Meat manufacturing, and particularly the large farms that produce a lot of the pork that Individuals eat, is soiled and extremely polluting.)

Trump’s riff is an instance of the remarkably convoluted approach that he phrases many statements. You may normally kind of observe the place he’s going, however determining the small print requires painstaking parsing—particularly when the underlying claims are off base. For a person who hates wind energy a lot, Trump positive produces a number of scorching air.