Elizabeth Warren is having what we in the business call a “receipts moment.” Back when the Biden DOJ blocked the JetBlue-Spirit merger, Warren took to social media like a kid who just got a participation trophy, celebrating the decision as some great victory for consumers. Fast forward to today, and Spirit Airlines is a smoldering crater — bankrupt, grounded, and leaving thousands of passengers stranded at airports across America. Congratulations, Senator. You won.

Nothing says “I care about the little guy” quite like nuking the budget airline that working families actually used to afford a vacation. Warren’s celebratory tweet is now circulating like a mugshot, and honestly, it should be framed and hung in whatever museum they eventually build to house the dumbest government decisions of the 2020s. Right between the “transitory inflation” memo and Pete Buttigieg’s paternity leave during the supply chain crisis.

Here’s what happened for those of you who were busy living your lives instead of monitoring Elizabeth Warren’s Twitter feed. JetBlue wanted to buy Spirit Airlines. The merger would have created a stronger competitor to the big carriers — Delta, United, American — the ones that charge you forty-seven dollars for a bag of pretzels and act like they’re doing you a favor. Spirit was the no-frills option. Cheap seats. No pretense. The airline equivalent of buying store-brand cereal because you’re not paying five bucks for the toucan on the box.

But Warren and the Biden DOJ decided this merger was somehow bad for consumers. Their argument? Fewer airlines means less competition. Which sounds reasonable if you’ve never actually thought about it for more than three seconds. Because what actually happened was Spirit — already struggling — lost its lifeline. Without the merger, Spirit had no path forward. The airline bled cash, couldn’t compete with the big boys on its own, and eventually collapsed like a folding chair at a family reunion.

Now we have FEWER airlines anyway. Except instead of Spirit being absorbed into JetBlue and continuing to fly people around, Spirit just… died. Those routes? Gone. Those cheap fares? Gone. Those jobs? Gone. The competition Warren claimed to be protecting? Also gone.

It’s almost poetic in its stupidity.

And let’s not forget Pete Buttigieg’s role in all this. Mayor Pete was running the Department of Transportation while this disaster was brewing. The same guy who couldn’t figure out how to keep trains on tracks or planes in the air was supposedly overseeing an aviation policy that just eliminated an entire airline. Warren and Buttigieg are now locked in a competition for who looks dumber — and frankly, it’s too close to call. It’s like watching two people race to the bottom of a pool neither one should have jumped into.

For retirees on fixed incomes, this isn’t just political theater. Spirit was how a lot of folks on tight budgets flew to see their grandkids. It was the airline that said “yeah, the seats are small and you’re not getting a free Coke, but you’re getting from Tampa to Newark for eighty-nine bucks.” That option is now gone because Elizabeth Warren wanted a photo op.

The broader lesson here is one we keep learning and Washington keeps ignoring: when the government decides to “protect” you from a business deal, what they’re really doing is protecting you from having options. They blocked the merger that would have saved Spirit, patted themselves on the back, and then acted shocked — SHOCKED — when Spirit went under.

Warren hasn’t apologized. Of course she hasn’t. She’s probably drafting a bill right now to investigate why Spirit failed, completely ignoring that she’s the reason it failed. That’s how Washington works. Break something, then form a committee to study why it’s broken, then ask for more money to fix what you broke.

The internet, at least, is doing its job. Warren’s old tweets are getting ratio’d into oblivion. People are posting screenshots of her celebration alongside photos of stranded passengers sleeping on airport floors. It’s the kind of accountability that used to require investigative journalism but now just requires a halfway decent memory and a screenshot button.

So the next time Elizabeth Warren tells you she’s fighting for consumers, remember Spirit Airlines. Remember the thousands of stranded passengers. Remember the budget fares that no longer exist. And remember that smug tweet she posted when she thought she’d won.

She won alright. The rest of us lost.