The self-proclaimed “Socialists” of the coastal cities want it all for free. Free housing. Free education. Free health care. Free abortions (not health care). Free transportation. Free food.

They live and write and podcast from their lofty rafters, their multi-million dollar brownstones and they fantasize about this “utopia”. If only (sigh), the “rich” were made to pay MORE for the basic necessities than they do! Their cognitive dissonance knows no bounds. From complaining about housing affordability on Instagram while sipping red wine and eating bougie cheese, to attending exclusive multi-million-dollar galas with elites and donning a “Tax the Rich” couture dress:

We know AOC is only one of these hypocritical types. We knew this for years. But this is where Jia Tolentino comes in. Tolentino is NOT a pauper by any stretch of the imagination. She is an established writer and published author, featured in The New York Times and Slate, (go figure). She is married to an architect and they reside with their two children in a $2.5 million-dollar brownstone. She shops and, apparently, shoplifts from Whole Foods.

On the New York Times opinion podcast, New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino describes the ‘several’ times she swiped items such as lemons from Whole Foods — adding that she ‘didn’t feel bad” because it’s a big corporation.'”-The New York Post

The term is not “shoplifting”, it’s “microlooting”. That makes all the difference, doesn’t it?

Tolentino was joined by Opinion Culture Editor, Nadja Spiegelman and none other than Hasan Piker in a recent podcast for The New York Times entitled, “The Rich Don’t Play By The Rules, Why Should I?”

I will say, I think that stealing from a big box store — I’ll just state my platform — it’s neither very significant as a moral wrong, nor is it significant in any way as protest or direct action. But I did steal from Whole Foods on several occasions.

I’ve been involved in a neighborhood mutual aid group since 2021. And so every week I would go get groceries for Miss Nancy, my now family friend who lived nearby, and she wanted to go to Whole Foods. She wanted food from Whole Foods. And I was like, OK, great. And so I’d be getting Miss Nancy all of her groceries, and then I would finish, and I’d be like, oh my God, four lemons, I forgot four lemons. And on several occasions I was like, I’m just going to go back, grab those four lemons and get the hell out.”-Jia Tolentino

An anti-capitalist writer who wears designer clothes, dines at expensive restaurants, and walks the red carpet at movie premieres.

Is there a leftist who isn't full of 💩?

— Nathaniel Hawthorne's Ghost (@Hawthorne_Ghost) April 23, 2026

A neighborhood mutual-aid group. Jia Tolentino is such a do-gooder.But she stole for Miss Nancy. Why? Because Whole Foods is a “big box store”. Thank God, she won’t steal from a corner bodega! It’s cool, though. Why? Because “shrinkage is roughly equal internally as externally” and “companies expect it from their employees”.

Tolentino does have morals, though (snicker). For instance, she won’t dine and dash or not leave a tip for a server. She won’t steal a book from the public library. She’ll shove a potato in her pocket, though. Why? Jeff Bezos. We know the burning question: Would she steal from a Mamdani-run “free” grocery store?

I think that hypothetical is interesting, right? Because if you look at it from a categorical imperative type thing, what if everybody did this? The converse is, oh, what if every major grocery chain stole from workers and consumers? And that is basically true, right? It speaks to the thing where harm committed by the individual, strangely, continually draws more ire than the same harm being committed by a structure. And so I kind of am inclined toward this. Everyone, try it. See what happens.”-Jia Tolentino

Words, Jia. Pretentious, sanctimonious, elitist WORDS dripping from your mouth.

of course it’s @jiatolentino the peak of millennial excess introspection and smarmy self righteous indignation that a 2.2 million townhouse owner is stealing from whole foods and fashions herself a chic socialist robin hood

— Jewish American Pirate (@JAmericanPirate) April 24, 2026

Blah, blah, blah. More words…

I think it’s great that the valence of property is on the table as something to be toyed with, in terms of direct action. We’ve forgotten that there is a long and storied history of sabotage and engagement with property destruction, even, which is abhorrent to people.

You remember in 2020, the Gucci, Chanel stuff in SoHo, when that was looted. That looms so much larger in many Bloomberg liberals’ imaginations as profoundly more violent in some ways than the original action being protested, right? And I find that really interesting.”-Jia Tolentino

Shoplifting is great! Oh, 2020, The Summer of Love. Fighting the oppression one looted Louis Vuitton at a time. Speaking of oppression, let’s talk about Tolentino’s parents. You know, the sweet, Filipino-Canadian couple who faced human trafficking violations?

Capitalism is bad…unless is making your family hundreds of thousands of dollars from scheming immigrants and the government into H1B visas….

— Paisa (@svjoonX) April 24, 2026

She steals for a need and a purpose. Her parents also had a “need and a purpose” here. Apples? Trees? Meh. She probably shoplifts apples from Whole Foods, too.

She says microlooting (AKA shoplifting), is “akin to posting about something. As an atomized individual action, it’s useless. It’s much harder to get a job and accept $17.50 an hour and then to organize your colleagues, a process that takes years and is often unsuccessful.” Ergo:

We are also lazy as humans; we’re also selfish.”-Jia Tolentino

At least she admitted that part out loud. Miss Nancy needed bread and lemons. Miss Jia does not want to pay for said bread and lemons while being a “good human”, so she steals for her neighbor.

Their fiction has become their truth:

One difference between movies and life is that is it cheaper to make a fictional world than a real one.”–Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror

Shoplifting, champagne socialists think stealing helps facilitate conversations. They think it makes a statement. They feel entitled and feel it is their right to make these statements. Meanwhile, those of us who live in the real world, pay real world prices for their privilege.

Photo Credit: FASTILY, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons/Cropped