Some Washington Post readers are mocking the paper and its op-ed that suggests a link between Starbucks’ lattes, and loneliness and the destruction of society.

The op-ed’s author, professor of politics Jakub Grygiel, writes that the “atomization of society begins with your morning coffee.”

He immediately points out that 46 percent of Americans have had a specialty coffee drink in the past day, and “54 percent of U.S. adults feel isolated and half of them feel bereft of companionship ‘often or some of the time,’ according to the American Psychological Association.”

Grygiel then says that ordering a latte your way is wasting everyone else’s time, which, he surmises, makes you feel lonely.

“As specialty coffee consumption has surged (84 percent since 2011), so has the loneliness epidemic. Just a correlation? Consider what your coffee order reveals,” he suggests.

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“The salted caramel mocha latte, the iced brown sugar soy milk shaken espresso, the white chocolate macadamia cream cold brew are the triumph of hyper-individualization over communal norms,” he writes. “When you order a dirty spiced chai with oat milk, you are not only wasting the time of other customers in line but also are signaling that your personal appetites demand an elaborate, customized response. You are asserting your primacy, unique in the complexity of your desires, and stand apart from your nation’s simple rituals. No wonder you’re alone.”

Grygiel makes no mention of the fact that a significant portion of Starbucks’ business model is based on customized coffee drinks.

Some readers slammed Grygiel, with several questioning whether his work was satire.

“This is satire, people. This has to be satire. I know it’s satire. Please tell me it’s satire,” wrote one reader.

Others tried to bring the conversation back to politics, which is the author’s stock in trade.

“The atomization of society begins with you taking about coffee and not the Trump administrations efforts to destabilize our democracy,” chastised another.

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“I think the largest problem with American society is all the fascists, but that is just my opinion,” suggested a reader.

“I don’t know,” said another reader. “I think the American obsession with assault rifles and the fact that the number of guns in private hands in America far exceeds the population may be a bigger threat to our society. But that’s just me. I can’t remember the last time a salted caramel mocha latte killed someone.”

Others blasted the paper.

“Here’s some more compelling evidence that we’re confronting the end of days: WaPo is running this fluff piece while Trump is hard at work starting WWIII,” warned a reader.

And while some declared they “agree with every word,” others lamented the “absolute swill coming out of the WaPo opinion section these days.”

“This might be the thing that finally prompts me to cancel my WaPo subscription,” wrote an apparent subscriber.

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Prominent anti-Trump conservatives are speaking out, sensing a weakened president prosecuting an unpopular war as oil prices soar and markets plunge.

“You know, in the end, Trump’s name will be synonymous for the single most evil and destructive person to ever hold the Presidency, and it won’t even be close,” wrote The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson.

In a parody of President Trump, Wilson wrote: “I killed 500,000 people by botching COVID, wrecked our economy with a foolish trade war, set loose murderous domestic secret police, ripped off Americans in billion-dollar crypto scams, covered Epstein, sold out our allies, started a second Great Depression and World War III.” He then called it “a hell of a resume.”

Former Trump Homeland Security Chief of Staff Miles Taylor noted, “My former GOP colleagues are still ‘standing by their man’ — the month he starts a war, slaughters civilians, starts a global financial panic, puts Americans in the crosshairs of terrorist attacks, and is accused of raping a 13-year-old girl.”

“Good luck in the midterms,” he added.

READ MORE: White House Confirms Trump’s Shift That Pushes SAVE Act Further Right

Taylor also wrote: “The ‘American experiment’ doesn’t mean what is used to. Now it means testing what happens when you give a senile sociopath nuclear weapons.”

Wilson continued, writing, “At least when we’re paying $8 a gallon for gas, the global economy is in a shambles, World War III is raging, and the living envy the dead, Donald Trump will have a new shiny ballroom.”

Pointing out that the president wore a USA baseball cap when he attended the dignified transfer of American service members killed in Kuwait, Wilson noted, “Trump wearing a ball cap at Dover is repugnant beyond words. He is grotesque. As always, imagine what Fox et al would have done if Biden or Obama did so.”

Predicting a possible Democratic wave in November, The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol noted: “Democrats at +6 on the generic ballot among registered voters. 74% of Dems say they have high interest in the fall’s election, compared to 61% of Rs. So among likely voters probably at something like +7 or 8. On the way to a Dem wave, but not yet there.”

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor, commented, “It’s almost as if we don’t have a strategy.”

And he warned, “Don’t have a war led by people who are in over their heads.”

And on Saturday, responding to a Trump social media post, Wilson wrote: “Just so we’re quite clear, the President is insane.”

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The White House has confirmed President Donald Trump is moving to push the controversial SAVE America Act further right — which could make it even easier for the left to reject.

Many were confused or critical when President Trump claimed on Thursday that the SAVE Act — a voter ID bill that critics say will disenfranchise millions of Americans — would reshape rules for sports participation and health care access for transgender people, which the current text of the bill does not actually do.

According to Trump’s Truth Social post, the bill requires voter ID and proof of citizenship to vote, and no mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military, or travel. It also bans “men in women’s sports,” and “transgender mutilation surgery for children, without the express written approval of the parents.”

The president, after uproar from the right, dropped the parental approval portion and called to ban all transgender surgery for children.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked on Friday about Trump’s additions to the legislation.

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After declaring that he wants the SAVE Act passed “as soon as possible,” Leavitt acknowledged that Trump “has added on some priorities” to the bill in recent days, “namely no transgender transition surgeries for minors. We are not gonna tolerate the mutilation of young children in this country. No men in women’s sports. The president putting all of these priorities together, it speaks to how common sense they are.”

“These are all common sense priorities of this president that are backed by the vast majority of Americans and he wants Republicans to act on them as quickly as possible,” she claimed.

According to Democracy Docket, Leavitt’s comments “mark the first time the White House has publicly confirmed that Trump is pushing to attach anti-transgender policies to the SAVE America Act.”

Noting that even if the Senate were to pass the legislation with Trump’s latest priorities in it, the bill would have to head back to the House, Democracy Docket reported, “for another vote — a potentially difficult hurdle given the narrow margin by which it passed initially.”

But, even “without those additions, the bill faces long odds in the Senate, where most legislation requires 60 votes to pass and where Democrats have vowed to block it.”

Republican Majority Leader John Thune has said he opposes changing the Senate’s filibuster rules to help the bill’s passage.

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