#EmptyShelvesJoe Trends On Twitter Amid Supply Chain Snarls 

The hashtag #EmptyShelvesJoe was one of the hottest trends across Twitter Thursday as people en masse are waking up to the fact that international supply chains are clogged, and shortages have resulted in empty store shelves at their local retailer. 

The hashtag, number one in the US on Thursday, comes one day after President Biden issued a port directive to operate 24/7 to alleviate snarled supply chains. But the move to have Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, a point of entry for 40% of all US containerized goods, work in hyperdrive to alleviate congestion is “too little, too late” to save Christmas, said one top toymaker. 

Earlier this week, 80 container ships are at anchor and 64 at berths across the twin ports. The backlog doesn’t stop there as it takes well more than a week for entry into the port. Once the containers are unloaded, it takes another week to leave the port to warehouses.

Those tweeting the hashtag placed most of the blame on Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for their inability to normalize supply chains as congestion creates shortages of consumer goods and rapid inflation. 

An aerial visual of the backlog at the Port of Los Angeles shows tens of thousands of containers are sitting dockside. Some have said it’s the lack of truck drivers that have resulted in delays. 

LOOK: The Port of Los Angeles was jam-packed with flotillas of cargo ships and stacks of shipping containers as a deal was reached to shift to 24/7 operations to break a supply-chain logjam https://t.co/Gq0apjBd2k pic.twitter.com/elNkrVfmty

— Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) October 14, 2021

“Are f**king container yards are stuffed,” said one Twitter user. 

Great job Pete Buttigieg 👏👏👏 and #EmptyShelvesJoe pic.twitter.com/WbmFvyEupA

— Savage As Always (@ForIAmKing78) October 14, 2021

As the hashtag continued to go viral on Thursday afternoon, Twitter police decided to remove it from the list of trending topics. 

This morning #EmptyShelvesJoe was the number 1 trending hashtag in the United States thanks to @catturd2.

Sometime before 3pm Twitter had already decided that was bad, and REMOVED the hashtag from the list of tags that are auto-suggested as you type in your topic. pic.twitter.com/Rk6SYTzFdU

— Brick Suit (@Brick_Suit) October 15, 2021

“Empty store shelves” on Google trends are also surging to their highest point since the 2020 pandemic. 

Here are some tweets of people across the county complaining about empty store shelves and using the #EmptyShelvesJoe hashtag. 

TRUMP FINDS BARE SHELVES!#Trump #MAGA #BareShelvesBiden #EmptyShelvesJoe #LetsGoBrandon #STAYLOUD #LOUDMAJORITY pic.twitter.com/kpJqbhaPoB

— Shawn Farash ❌🐻 (@Shawn_Farash) October 14, 2021

@POTUS @PressSec
Building Back Better pic.twitter.com/RW2dpvrftl

— Peggy aka EFF (@DesiFlurane) October 14, 2021

This is the juice isle in my local store #EmptyShelvesJoe pic.twitter.com/jwd8pl28Dn

— Stacy Bates (@stacyflyers10) October 15, 2021

According to the latest Rasmussen poll, “62% of Americans say they’ve already noticed shortages of basic items in stores where they live.”

Broken supply chains, raging inflation in energy, food, and housing, and the overall cost of living getting more expensive – compound this all with shortages of consumer goods, the president’s job approval number continues to tumble. 

One can assume with congested supply chains unlikely to abate anytime soon, Biden will be blamed on Twitter for ruining Christmas as certain consumer goods won’t make it under the tree this year.    

Finally, just in case you wondered who was to blame for “empty shelves”, here is Joe Biden himself explaining it last year… “We don’t have a food shortage problem — we have a leadership problem.”

We don’t have a food shortage problem — we have a leadership problem. pic.twitter.com/eFpJ8PGHGM

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 21, 2020