Desperate, as usual, to talk about anything but their actual policies — much less their party's widespread corruption — Republicans spent MLK weekend pretending they believe gas stoves are in imminent danger of being banned, and also that they care. As many reporters carefully documented, the impetus behind this massive bout of feigned outrage was a comment from an official at the Consumer Product Safety Commission about the future possibility of a slow phase-out of gas stoves that would likely take decades, in response to reports that the stoves are linked to respiratory illness, especially in children. Within minutes, this banal story about a non-existent ban was turned into a lie about President Joe Biden kicking in your door to steal your precious gas stove.
"If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands," Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Tex., tweeted. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex. — essentially a chatbot that churns out culture war nonsense — falsely accused Democratic of being hypocrites for having gas stoves they never said they intended to ban. Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., tweeted out a stove-based Gadsen flag, declaring, "don't mess with gas stoves!" So on and so forth. Very predictable and very, very dumb.
