Kamala Harris’s recent ad on social media tries — and fails — to explain how she would stop inflation. Harris would somehow fight big corporations that “rip us off.” We are to believe that these unexplained rip-offs somehow cause inflation instead of the federal government printing trillions of dollars. Democrat Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania uses the same phrase in his ads, thus indicating that the references to rip-offs have been conceived, vetted, approved, and coordinated at the highest Democrat levels. “Rip-off” threatens to overtake “joy” as the leading coordinated Democrat buzzword. “Rip-off” has apparently overtaken COVID, Putin, the “supply chain,” “greed,” and cereal box tampering as the leading cause of inflation.

Calling something a “rip-off” amounts to an accusation of actual criminal conduct. Yet the Justice Department of the Biden/Harris administration has failed to prosecute any such crimes.

The phrase is slang, originating in prisons decades ago. That the Democrats would script such slang as a phony explanation for inflation reveals their contempt for their own voting base. The Democrats have a vested interest in keeping their own base ignorant of the cause of inflation.

Ronald Reagan lamented that we tend to blame the man who places the price tag on the final product on the store shelf, forgetting that he too is a victim of inflation. The Democrats are not content merely to blame the store owner. They must accuse these sellers of some crime in order to stoke the Democrat base. Reagan used his pulpit in the White House to educate us on the cause of inflation. Today’s Democrats create inflation and then enflame their followers by blaming their opponents. Ignorance and rage are necessary in order for the Democrats to retain power.

The Casey ads do not even bother to tie the alleged rip-offs to inflation or anything else. They simply say that Casey’s Republican opponent will help corporations “rip you off.” They do not say how or in what context. The viewer must assume that corporations are committing unknown crimes and accept, without evidence, that the Republicans are guilty too.

These commercials rely upon a toxic belief system that has festered for decades. The Democrats’ allies in the media and education system promote class warfare from cradle to grave. Democrat ads thus need only include a few buzzwords that will tap into everything we have been “taught” since childhood.

Undoubtedly, the Democrats have used focus groups and internal polling to discover that inflation has left even their own voting base devastated. The Democrats understand the difficulty they face in overcoming the consequences of their own policies. Despite the Democrats’ use of silly slang like “rip-off,” the ruse is actually quite elaborate. It takes a long period of repetition and indoctrination to deny the obvious. The actual cause of inflation is simple — the government printing press. That printing press has been most active during the Biden administration — driving up prices of every good and creating desperation among consumers. These facts are inescapable. They should be obvious with the Biden administration’s fingerprints all over that printing press for the past 3.5 years. A large amount of nonsense is required to overcome these facts. So the Democrats have coordinated the repetition of the phrase “rip-off” to an audience made gullible by decades of government education and pliant media. They are counting on this nonsense to make a large voting bloc forget what really causes inflation.

That a political party would intentionally mislead its voters as to the cause of inflation should be a major scandal. While we tend to excuse such actions as mere election-year politics, these ads and the strategy behind them transcend any one election. Inflation has raged in alternating cycles of boom and bust since before the Great Depression. It robs us of our savings and transfers wealth without the victims’ understanding or even knowledge. This travesty can happen only because the truth about inflation is drowned in the steady drip of misleading ads and political statements. Contrary to the claims of politicians, inflation is not something that the government must “fight.” The government does not “bring down costs.” The government need only stop inflating. There is nothing to fight except the government’s own printing press. There is no need for legislation — especially an Inflation Reduction Act. The government need only stop creating new dollars. That every Democrat utterance calls for fighting and legislating tells us why so many people understand neither inflation nor how to stop it.

The Democrats have reduced every issue to mere symbolism. They print dollars while passing an “Inflation Reduction Act” that pumps more dollars into the economy instead of “reducing” inflation. Harris’s commercials propose to fight inflation by “going after bad actors.” She does not name these “bad actors” — although she presumably does not mean any of the Hollywood actors that contribute to her campaign. Her Justice Department could presumably “go after” these “bad actors” now — even though the case against them might be even flimsier than the myriad cases against Donald Trump.

Harris completes her symbolism by accusing Trump of proposing tax cuts for the “super rich.” Democrats have always attacked every tax cut as a “tax cut for the rich.” Now they need to add the word “super” because Americans have become desensitized to the propaganda. Symbolism works only for so long before one needs to pile on even more sophomoric language. How long before the Democrats label all tax cuts as being for the “super duper rich?”

Everyone, including the Republicans, must remember that inflation is not about “rip-offs” and that symbolism does not solve problems. If the Republicans regain power, they cannot make the same mistake of printing trillions of dollars — even as part of some deal with congressional Democrats. Republicans will not be immune from the consequences of such a decision merely because they do not giggle/cackle or stammer incoherently like the current administration. The government printing press causes inflation no matter which party might use it.