American conservatives are outraged at the latest ‘threat’ to their burger-loving way of life. But let’s face it: it’s unsustainable
It looks as if the right are giving themselves heartburn to own the libs. Over the weekend, some prominent US conservatives shared pictures of themselves eating enormous slabs of meat in response to fabricated claims that president Joe Biden is planning to limit red meat consumption. Despite the fact that Biden’s imaginary meat quotas exist only in these people’s heads, rightwingers have spent the last few days frothing at the mouth over them. Several Fox News hosts have repeated this baseless claim and a number of Republican politicians, including the governor of Texas, have tweeted their opposition to this fictional policy. Larry Kudlow, the former economic adviser to Donald Trump, even complained that Biden wants Americans to drink “plant-based beer”. You know, as opposed to the flesh-based beer that real Americans enjoy.
What on earth sparked this carnivorous conservative fever-dream? MailOnline. On Thursday it published a highly misleading article claiming: “Biden’s climate plan could limit you to eat just one burger a MONTH.” The word “could” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there: Biden has said nothing of the sort. The assertion stems from a 2020 academic paper that has no connections to Biden; this study noted that if Americans made a 90% cut to their beef consumption, there would be a 51% reduction in diet-related US greenhouse gas emissions between 2016 and 2030.