Moral Rot: Hoity-toity New Yorker writer describes stealing groceries from Whole Foods

 by Monica Showalter

Once upon a time, stealing from others was considered wrong. Punto, finis, basta. Most elementary school kids were able to master it.

Today, petty theft is not only rampant, owing to the reign of Soros district attorneys who don't prosecute crime, it's being celebrated by the rich, radical chic elites.

The New York Post presents this charmer from the breed:

A longtime staff writer for the New Yorker known for bashing capitalism bragged that she has stolen from her local Whole Foods “on several occasions” in a New York Times podcast. Jia Tolentino, 37, made the shocking admission while joining left-wing streamer Hasan Piker and Times’ opinion culture editor Nadja Spiegelman for a Wednesday episode about so-called “microlooting” from mega-corporations.

 

Examples tossed around by the trio ranged from everyday consumers sharing passwords for streaming services to brazen criminals pilfering paintings from the Louvre Museum. When Spiegelman suggested pocketing produce from Whole Foods, Tolentino confessed she already had “on several occasions.”

Anti-capitalist New Yorker writer brags she stole from Whole Foods 'on several occasions' in NYT podcast https://t.co/LjVrgaq6FE pic.twitter.com/Cv8C07khBJ

— New York Post (@nypost) April 22, 2026

Do they ... do they really want someone like that on their staff? Might she be a liability risk?

Do they need to count the silverware any time they bring her into the company dining room? Can they trust her to go into the homes of sources and not lift something pricey from one of the host's jewelry boxes? Do they watch their wallets when she's in the room?

In times past, you'd never admit to being a petty thief, to anyone, if you were, it was too disgusting, too embarassing. Wasn't Winona Ryder, once a promising Hollywood A-list starlet, pretty much ruined aftet getting caught lifting merchandise from Saks Fifth Avenue?

This person is a thief -- and she's openly sharing it to the public.

The Post points out that she justified her thievery by claiming she's a communist. Vladimir Lenin, after all, organized thievery, called 'expropriations' among his Bolsheviks, and Joe Stalin actually robbed banks. Venezuela began to go downhill, according to a Venezuelan friend who was there, the moment Hugo Chavez advised all his red-shirts that it was O.K. to rob bakeries and groceries if they were hungry, because the owners were just wreckers and hoarders. And keeping up with the tradition, Nicolas Maduro's hideous wife, Cilia Flores, robbed banks in her youth, as did Brazil's wingman to President Luiz Inacio 'Lula' da Silva, Dilma Rousseff.

Now we have this creature openly bragging about it to her crummy little friends on a podcast sponsored by the New York Times, while all the world hears about it.

This is far from the first time the elites in the media have shown their true colors.

Recall that NPR featured and promoted a book called "In Defense of Looting" by some dirtbag whose name remains mercifully obscure.

Recall that the New York Times featured prominently a Swedish academic who defended the desecration of irreplaceable fine art in museums -- throwing tomato soup, mashed potatos, and other trash all over it -- in the name of promoting the green agenda. Remember him?

And moving over to the Catholic-side elites, remember how Jesuit-publication America published an essay by some lowlife called 'The Catholic Case for Communism'? Same impulse as the others, same sickness going around.

What it shows is that the elites have not a drop of morality in them as it is normally understood, no sense of right and wrong, no respect for the values that make civilization possible. They are savages, and with savage values, their end game is a low-trust society where no one can be trusted and society can atomize into crazed fanatics loyal only to a leftist strongman.

What if everyone did that? What kind of society would we have? What if a mugger came up to her and told her he, too, was a communist? Would she hand over her purse?

👆🏾This shit is why the rest of society has to wait for staff to unlock a case to buy toothpaste

I hope Whole Foods rolls the security tape and finds some evidence of theft (but of course, Mamdani’s NYC probably wouldn’t prosecute 🙄).
Maybe post images of her theft at checkout🤣 pic.twitter.com/8ZnrdgeJuv

— David Razin (@DhRazin) April 24, 2026

It's grotesque.

When she was asked about it by a reporter, she didn't apologize, she flew into a rage:

Woke author who boasted about shoplifting from Whole Foods flies into foul-mouthed RAGE when confronted outside her $2.2m Brooklyn brownstone https://t.co/VykWbcYec7

— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) April 23, 2026

Reason magazine has a good takedown on the whole matter. The New York Post has a spectacular collection of angry locals providing good reasons why that stealing act hurts them. City Journal describes just how gross they are.

The New Yorker needs to shuck this loser for moral turpitude and try to reclaim what little credibility it has in the wake of employing this character-flawed individual who really does need a good stretch in prison just to teach her right from wrong. I hope it's concerned about reputational damage. And I hope Whole Foods bans her from all of its establishments just to protect its inventory.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/04/moral_rot_hoity_toity_new_yorker_writer_describes_stealing_groceries_from_whole_foods.html