Tom Knighton was angered by a recent comment from a well-to-do type who is frustrated at all the “needless” worry about inflation when there are “bigger concerns” in play:
I really don’t like talking about my personal life too much, but I kind of feel like I have to. It started a couple of days when Never Trumper Tom Nichols tweeted this:
Frankly, I’m still pissed about it three days later.
You see, it must be nice for Nichols to view this as a problem of perspective, that people just aren’t seeing the forest for the trees because gas is a tad high.
I can’t be one of those people.
For the record, I think of myself as a working-class writer. I don’t make those six-figure salaries and socialize with the elite at cocktail parties. I make enough to support my family of four in what many could generously term a modest lifestyle.
And I’m OK with that. While I want more, I love the fact that my work life is what it is and I have tons more freedom to do what I want throughout the day.
These days, though, things are different.
You see, while Nichols pretends it’s just people a little grumpy about gas prices, I see the harsh reality that people like him never will.
I’m the guy looking at the time before the next paycheck and realizing that we might not have food in the house for a day or two. I’m the one trying to decide how to stretch the last $40 in our bank account to cover those couple of days and praying it will. I’m also the one who knows that two years ago, this wasn’t a problem.
Hell, a year ago, it wasn’t an issue.
And I don’t make awful money, all things considered. I can only imagine what it’s like for those whose families don’t bring in what I normally make.
For Nichols to get worked up because people don’t see any existential crisis but do see the harsh reality slapping them in the face day in, day out sounds an awful lot like “Let them eat cake” to me.
Unfortunately, that’s what folks like Nichols think.
Nichols, who seems to believe in expertise based on his previous work, is talking about stuff he knows nothing about, things he lacks the expertise to comprehend.
The current inflation isn’t just some mild inconvenience. It’s not one of those things where we all can just shrug and push through until better times. It’s real and it’s here and it’s hurting people like me.
That gives me a certain amount of expertise because this is my life and my livelihood. This is how my family suffers.
I’m very much with him on this, as rising inflation is already a pretty big concern for us and it doesn’t look like it’ll get better any time soon.
