On the left, a packet of Heinz ketchup is displayed with Chick-fil-A hash browns on April 12, 2021 in Novato, California. (Photo Illustration by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) On the right, President Joe Biden gives an update on his administration’s COVID-19 response and vaccination program on May 17, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here.Republicans are pinning the blame on President Joe Biden for the gravest crisis currently facing the U.S.: The Great Chick-fil-A Sauce Shortage of 2021.Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, who is up for re-election next year, sent an email to supporters Monday pointing the finger at Biden over the chicken restaurant’s supply chain issues, which the company said earlier this month were a result of “industrywide supply chain shortages.”"Chick-fil-A has a sauce shortage. And you want to know why?" Stitt wrote. "Because of Joe Biden's radical liberal policies."The shortages are limiting not only zesty buffalo, honey mustard, and ranch dips. Essentially every aspect of the global economy—from ketchup packets to computer chips—has been affected as consumer demands and international supplies were thrown out of whack from the pandemic. And while Biden has pushed for more U.S. companies to manufacture chips in America, there’s no word yet on what he’s doing about our national condiment emergency.That’s where Stitt and other like-minded Republicans come in, apparently. "Conservative governors are the absolute last line of defense,” Stitt wrote in his email to supporters. “We're fighting to block liberal policies and promote commonsense policies to bring down the price of gas, to lower the cost of groceries, and to make sure Chick-fil-A never has another sauce shortage."Stitt isn’t the first conservative to blame Biden for the sauce paucity, though he might be the first to directly fundraise off of condiment grievances. Last week, Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted a Breitbart article about Chick-fil-A’s sauce shortage and added: “Joe Biden is destroying America.”
Advertisement
Advertisement
“Is there no limit to how awful Biden’s America can get?” tweeted Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert.
Stitt, however, might actually need the little bit of help that might come from starting a Chicken Sandwich War. While a recent poll showed that Stitt was more popular than either of Oklahoma’s U.S. senators, a different poll in March found that more than half of voters thought he shouldn’t run for re-election.Talk about taking a dip.