The Final Defeat of Neoliberalism
By 
In Trump’s final days, the last nails in the neoliberal coffin are being hammered in.
BREAKING. NEW PROPOSED RULE: Thanks to the hard work of my FDA team in 2018, the Federal government will no longer be regulating the contents of frozen cherry pie. The American people are free add extra fruit, sugar, and make the crust especially thick. https://t.co/8iibxK3miN pic.twitter.com/NuIUc5d64F
— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) December 17, 2020
Yes, that’s right. In the middle of the COVID crisis, the FDA is making sure that Big Frozen Pie can put even more shit in their very bad pies. Actual context on this:
First of all, there is nothing in the current rule that prevents the addition of extra cherries, as the 25 percent is a minimum, not a maximum. Mrs. Smith literally markets a frozen cherry pie that boasts “25% more cherries,” although you have to check the side panel to see more than what.
Gottlieb skirts that by artfully touting “extra fruit,” meaning he apparently thinks that people want cherry pies that contain fruits other than cherries, but without knowing there are non-cherries in the pie.
And since the rule only governs manufacturers of frozen cherry pies, “the American people” can add whatever the frick they want to it after they buy it.
The current rule also does not limit the amount of sugar in the pies at all, and in fact, strictly prohibits the use of artificial sweeteners.
Finally, the current rule is also completely silent on the issue of crust thickness, although you can extrapolate that a cherry pie can’t have a crust thicker than 75% of the pie’s total weight. That’s not a crust, that’s a loaf of cherry bread.
Now, rules on all sorts of things exist. This is why we have an FDA. We need to keep our products safe. And arguably, to be what they claim they are. While I don’t think anyone buying frozen cherry pies probably actually does care what is in them, this is how actual functional government operates. It regulates frozen cherry pies. And Big Frozen Pie hates it. Why Gottlieb felt the need to pull a regulatory change that almost no one would notice out of the ether and brag about it is a whole other question. But it’s a good entrypoint into the utter mendacity of the Republican Party and the corporate bastards behind it.