A term in pop culture analysis, now a bit passé, is worth reviving: “jump the shark.”
The term refers to the moment in the nostalgic TV show Happy Days when, running out of ideas, the writers cooked up something so out-there and silly that it’s cringe. (To use a more recent faddish term, now also passé.) An episode in the fifth season of the sitcom where the Fonz “jumped a shark” — in water skis.
A spectacle so goofy that it can serve as a marker for any great moment when something really goes into steep decline.
The second Trump Administration has had many such moments, but are any as odd and stupid as the president’s recent remark about the Consumer Price Index?
Asked about the CPI having “jumped 4.2% over the last year,” according to Josh Boak’s June 10 AP article, the president replied, “You know what I really love? I love the inflation.”
The AP article quoted some Democratic politicians making hay of Trump’s quip, but then went on to Rep. Emilia Sykes (D-Ohio) pressing, in a hearing, Energy Secretary Chris Wright “whether he, too, loved inflation.”
‘I love ending Iran’s ability to have a nuclear weapon,’ Wright answered. He only conceded after being pressed: ‘No, I would prefer lower inflation.’”
What is Trump trying to communicate? The idea that when crude oil prices come down, inflation rate increases will level off too. And that’ll be good.
But that all depends on a cessation of the Iran conflict, which keeps dragging on with no end in sight.
Trump’s said dumb things. And funny things. But we who have been living in the Age of Inflation are . . . not amused. This response wasn’t funny and it wasn’t insightful. Or clever. Or worthy of the president’s past hits.
Donald Trump has jumped the shark.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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One reply on “Jump the Inflation”
Probably for the most part, Trump is employing the odd tactic of powering-through a situation of embarrassment by pretending that it is a manifestation of good fortune or of virtue. But other things are happening that Trump cannot openly acknowledge.
The previous state that he attacked was that of Venezuela, which nation has very significant oil reserves. Then he undertook the war on Iran, itself a significant petroleum producer and with the war more generally affecting Middle Eastern production.
Now, one purpose in attacking both Venezuela and Iran was to put the PRC on the wrong foot. But, also, Trump wants to redirect buyers from Middle Eastern sources to America, now a significant exporter of fossil fuels. And, entangled in both projects is defense of the monetary order of the petrodollar. Trump may imagine that the present elevation of petroleum prices is somehow helpful to the second project; he surely sees the price-hikes as helpful to the first project. And perhaps he sees the price-hikes as compelling would-be purchasers of petroleum to scramble for even more dollars.