George Santos said that the Democrats are trying to ban toilet paper without evidence

Rep. George Santos, RN.Y has confused many. Twitter users Thursday night when he posted on Twitter Democrats want to ban toilet paper.

“Republicans are working to put Americans first and lower the cost of living,” the first-person congressman wrote. “Democrats are trying to ban toilet paper and gas stoves.”

It is not clear what he meant. There has been no attempt by Congress or any state legislature to ban toilet paper. Some Twitter users mocked Santos’ claim by referring to fictitious bills such as the “Ban Toilet Paper Act of 2023.”

Other commentators have accused him of lying or noted the lack of evidence for what he said – some commentators casually refer to Santos’ report. Many lies about his life story And It’s an alleged lie about his campaign finances. – He did not respond. A few joked that he had uncovered a secret, sinister plot.

Santos’ office did not immediately respond to a request to clarify what he was referring to.

One may have fallen for an April Fools’ Day joke. On April 1, New York City Councilman Eric Boettcher, a Democrat from Manhattan, issued a false press release saying he would. Introducing a law banning single-use paper products Including toilet paper, paper towels, facial tissues, paper napkins and cardboard boxes.

Boettcher addressed Santos’ claims on Monday to Yahoo News: “He fell for this big time.”

“I don’t know about you, but I dream of people looking at toilet paper rolls and saying, ‘What’s that?’ It’s living in a world where they say. advertisement. The article included a few clues that it wasn’t square, like the fictional activist, “Scotty Cotton, CAK President (Coordinating) Handkerchief.”

A few social media users seemed to mistake Botcher’s joke for sincerity, but most seemed to get the joke just like the local News outlets – One of them took the joke to A The history of fake news It features interviews with skeptics with poetic names like “John Throne.”

The story continues

Bottcher noted Santos’ tweet, Subtle response “Our efforts to ban toilet paper may have gone too far.”

Boettcher told Yahoo News that he was surprised the press release was taken literally.

“I’ve been thinking about the best April Fools’ joke for a long time, and I picked one that I thought no reasonable person would really believe,” he said.

This is not the first time the councilor has played a joke. Last year, on April 1, he proposed to ban all vehicles in Manhattan Except for golf carts – some received it without thinking and what he said sparked a few calls from angry parties.

One reason Santos wanted to take Bottcher’s statement seriously was that conservatives were concerned that liberals would limit access to popular consumer products on environmental grounds. In February, right-wing Canadian author and professor Jordan Peterson Condemned. A sign in a public restroom that encourages people to only use as many paper towels as they want and throw the used ones in the recycling bin is a “little tyranny.”

Santos’ claim comes amid a climate of growing partisan polarization and increasingly diverging sources of information for left and right, where news consumers tend to believe the most extreme and implausible claims about their rivals’ agendas. For example, at least 20 conservative politicians Claim last year Public schools are issuing litter boxes to students who identify as cats, even though no such incident has occurred. And most of them Republicans believeIn the year Evidence that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.

On the other hand, a memo from the progressive group Occupy Democrats that has been widely circulated on social media I understand falsely A majority of congressional Republicans voted to raise the retirement age for Social Security. (The Republicans mentioned in the ad are members of the Republican Study Committee, which has proposed gradually raising the Social Security collection age, but no legislation has come up for a vote, and it’s unclear how a majority of the group’s members would vote on such legislation.)

It is true that because of all the trees cut down to make toilet paper, it has a huge environmental impact. The average American consumer will go through the equivalent of 384 trees in their lifetime for toilet paper alone. Deforestation causes the loss of wildlife habitats and contributes to climate change, because trees absorb and store carbon dioxide.

To reduce the impact of toilet paper production, environmentalists suggest Using recycled paper Instead of virgin wood – but it does not completely prevent the production.

The other half of Santos’s claim – that Democrats want to ban the sale of new gas stoves, an issue that has recently become a common Republican attack – is relatively better founded. Although neither the Biden administration nor Democrats in Congress have taken such action, cities like New York and Los Angeles are ending the sale of fossil fuel infrastructure (such as gas furnaces and boilers) in homes and some Democratic lawmakers and governors. They proposed the same at the regional level.

In January, Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. said the agency was open. Prohibition of new gas stoves It is in response to a growing body of scientific research linking indoor air pollution and related health risks. such as childhood asthma. But after a quick reaction, CPSC chairman Alexander Hohn-Sarik The commission said. He has no plans to entertain such a proposal.