The Revolution Will Not Be DoorDashed
You'll Never Guess The Latest Moral Cause From The Online Left
I regret to inform you that the Leftists are at it again.
The people who brought us such brain-wormed takes as traveling is colonialism, restaurants embrace master-servant mentality and socialism means no more bananas gave us another bizarre justice argument this weekend: Delivery apps are Disability Justice, and their high prices are ableist.
The take stemmed from a discussion about the price of ordering from apps like DoorDash and Grubhub in recent years. As with a lot of things during the post-pandemic inflationary period, the cost of ordering from the apps has gone up substantially.
There’s a logical reason for this which I’ll get to, but the response to the complaints on social media was that instead of ordering from DoorDash and other delivery apps, people should cook more at home to be more economical. Seems like a legitimate response, no?
Apparently not. That suggestion triggered a lot of weirdos.
The discussion spiraled into absurdity. Several people stepped in to suggest that not reducing the prices of delivery apps is ableist because disabled people rely on them for food. One person even suggested that he had a disability that made it hard for him to tolerate frozen foods, while another person said microwaving stuff is difficult because of problems with coordination and brain fog caused by “Long COVID.” Another poster brought up “histamine intolerance” as to why they could reheat leftovers or heat up frozen food, and thus needs to order from restaurants….where the food is often frozen.
Any normal person can see this as wholly ridiculous for a variety of reasons, the least of which is that if you’re physically or mentally unable to microwave food, you’re probably also unable to browse menus and order food on an app and then go outside to pick it up when it arrives. The argument that DoorDash and other apps are necessary for disabled people is insane, and yet has become another clarion call for some social justice advocates as of late. One regular poster who said as much received a rambling series of messages through direct messaging calling him “spineless” and suggesting he wanted disabled people to die. Absolute insanity.
The question that has come up since this discourse arrived on the scene is “Why?”
Why are leftists so desperate to make this about Disability Justice? What is the reason behind it?
Let me explain:
The activist Left are too idealistic to admit they do not like the inconvenience of delivery apps being too expensive. We know the anger over the price of DoorDash and other apps is about being mad at having to shell out more money for a convenience you got used to. I feel you. I have ordered from delivery apps less because of the cost compared to three to four years ago. It’s ok to feel angry about this for purely selfish reasons.
Modern progressivism however has become a fundamentalist religion. Any act of self-interest is a mortal sin, so if you hold a position – like delivery is too expensive – it cannot be because of self-interest. There has to be some moral collectivist cause behind it. Appealing to the idea that cheap delivery apps are a moral cause to help people with disabilities offers a remedy to that.
It is a complete failure of social justice politics. Somewhere along the line social justice became like joining a convent where you have to put your entire self-interest aside for the “cause.” The problem is we’re all human beings and human beings cannot ever completely excise themselves from their self-interest. It just isn’t biologically possible.
The reason delivery apps have become expensive is because of policies progressives support, some of which I support myself.
First, the price to eat out in general has gone up. We pay food workers more than we used to, as we should. The cost of labor is going to be priced into the cost of a product, as is the cost of maintaining and buying the equipment to prepare the food and the ingredients themselves, both of which have gotten more expensive due to post-pandemic supply restraints and increased labor costs for food production and manufacturing. The cost of maintaining brick-and-mortar restaurants has also gotten more expensive.
Once you add a delivery app to the equation, the costs go up more, because now you've added a middleman. For years, that middleman was undervalued too, and progressives demanded fair pay for them as well, especially after they became vital to our needs during the pandemic.
So we gave them a raise, and now that labor cost is factored into the price, as is the cost of that delivery worker's mode of transportation. Few delivery workers walk to make their deliveries; why would we want them to? Our food would get cold. They have to pay for cars or bikes.
As a result, those costs are not passed onto the consumer: Us.
Some of us, myself included, recognized all this as the consequence of supporting pro-labor policies and we adapted. Some, however, especially younger leftists who are used to getting everything they want, have never been taught to adapt. They do not understand that society does not operate like their bitterly divorced parents desperate to one-up the other, pampering their spoiled child’s every whim. Sometimes you aren’t the most important person in the world and society isn’t going to cater to your wishes.
I don't know what these people expected. Did they think the increased costs would be eaten by someone else? Progressives are not exactly the sharpest of tools when it comes to money management, as evidenced by how their political organizations are facing financial catastrophes.
Certainly though, they can understand why the costs to order sushi on DoorDash have gone up, and that is ok to be angry about it for personal reasons and not turn it into a mockingly stupid social justice cause and use disabled people as a shield to hide their blatant self-interest. Right?
RIGHT?!