- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmings.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmings.world
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Why is he so against feeding the poor?
Republicans want a hopeless electorate as someone who is facing desperation more likely to compromise against their own best interests to meet short term needs
Also authoritarians can’t stand any challenge to their absolute authority.
It’s this. A rational person would be fine with the court order, because Trump’s argument was that it wasn’t legal to continue funding SNAP.
But Trump and Republicans aren’t rational. They “lost” the court battle and now must appeal to save face. The subject of the court order is irrelevant - fascist ideology does not permit the autocracy to admit defeat or allow their absolute rule to be challenged.
It’s so simple and yet so damn infuriating. Why are people still under this spell even after everything that has happened?
Still waiting for them to do their own night of long knives and kill or arrest their opponents, the more pushback he gets from the GOP in congress and conservatives on the Supreme Court the more likely it becomes
Kinda hard to make that happen when all his actions are all public knowledge.
You’d think that…!
Maybe that’s what they think but it can also lead to galvanization, which I think is what’s actually happening.
No, that’s when you dip the poor in molten zinc. That’s only scheduled for next year.
But if even the short term needs aren’t met, over and over again, anything becomes a weapon.
Pitchforks.
I have to credit a random Redditor from 10 years back or so that had some excellent analysis I haven’t seen elsewhere or since. This Redditor’s thesis was that the GOP have two core concepts:
- Society is zero-sum. For someone to gain something, someone else must lose something.
- Each person has a certain class level in society and that each person should stay in their class. If you are poor, you should stay poor. If you are rich you should stay rich. Attempting to move up into a higher level class should be restricted by any means of government possible.
Looking at these two together explain nearly every GOP initiative or position. So lets apply it to your question:
Why is he so against feeding the poor?
Applying the first concept: For the poor to be fed (gain), those that are not poor have to pay (loss). The GOP in power are largely rich, so they see the poor being able to eat through SNAP as a personal loss to the GOP.
Applying the second concept: SNAP may allow someone to spend what little other non-SNAP money they have on things that would advance them into a higher social class such as:
- more education to be able to earn more for higher skilled work
- more efficient transportation allowing them to access higher paying jobs either farther away or at more available hours
- specialized tools that could be used to earn higher income
So the GOP don’t want the poor to be fed because they believe the poor should be poor and stuck there forever.
So what you’re saying is they’re sociopathic monsters?
I can’t even tell if I’m being sarcastic. One question: what did they say about the poor also seemingly voting to remain poor?
To quote Trump: “We won with the poorly educated, I love the poorly educated”.
Also that LBJ quote: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
That conversation didn’t go that way, but I think the answer to why the poor voting would vote for the GOP is addressed by the (possibly misattribution) Ronald Write quote:
“John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” ― Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress
Identity politics also plays into it. Pass the blame on to another demographic and promise to do something about it.
That cartoon is just a variation on zero-sum, isn’t it? The wealthy man in the middle is trying to convince the man in the helmet on the right that he must lose if the immigrant on the left is to gain.
I’ve always thought of the man in the middle in that pic as Rupert Murdoch, founder and owner of Fox News
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Lyndon B. Johnson
I agree completely. Realising that zero-sum thinking is a core component of conservative thought made a lot of things click into place for me, including the rise of the Alt-Right.
I first heard this perspective in Innuendo Studios’ video series “The alt right Playbook” — I think this video in particular
It’s not GOP led, it’s just Trump being a little bitch and you give him too much credit.
That would actually require Trump to be smart, which he is anything but. He is simply a cruel sick fuck who doesn’t think or give any fucks about anyone but himself. If he does appear to give any fucks, it’s only because in his mind it will benefit him. Literally anything he does is because he thinks it’s good for him.
how do you think he got so rich in the first place
Something to do with bootstraps idk
Because he knows this is the only way he “wins” the shutdown.
The Democrats will eventually cave because… they know their base cares about not killing people. Right now we are all getting our lib on and relying on states to pick up the slack but people are gonna get REAL hungry REAL fast and the Democrats will have no choice but to just give up healthcare as harm mitigation.
Actually feeding people removes that pressure and just makes trump et al look even stupider for refusing “very reasonable” deals (that are actually poison pills meant to restart all of this right before the 2026 elections…).
He hopes that he can direct the blame on his political enemies.
They don’t like him and can’t give him money. So they need to die.
No, they do, both. They need to be kept poor and desperate.
He’s worried there won’t be enough hamberders left for him.
I’m formally requesting that the trump administration not be given food until the shutdown is over.
What’s good for the goose…
I think they should all be given extra holes to enjoy more oxygen flow through thier systems.
agrees in a way that keeps me off a watchlist
If you’re NOT on a government watch list by now, you should be ashamed of yourself.
“To ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it."
Martin Luther King Jr
In surveilance capitalism, there is no “list”. Everyone, everywhere is surveiled.
I got blown out of Reddit in the post-Inauguration bloodbath, after 12 years, and a million Karma. I’m DEFINITELY on a list.
Badge of honor.
o7
If im not on a watch list somewhere then people are not doing thier jobs. It may be a low priority list, but I definitely should be on one somewhere.
I’m a queer librarian. I’m on a list somewhere.
I know an Italian plumber
But why after? You have good ideas, but lack the confidence to see them through.
Wow, they really just want people to starve, huh?
Starving people have no choice but to turn to crime to survive. Gives the GOP more fodder for increasing law enforcement and doubling down on authoritarianism. If theyre lucky it’ll even escalate to violence and he can have the military crack down on it.
Yes. Republicans are the party of hate and suffering.
Are you religious? Then these “people” can be described as demons.
Not religious? These “people” can still be described as demons.
America First in action!
40% of SNAP recipients are children. I guess it’s par for course that a pedophile would want to abuse kids in one way or another.
34% elderly, 16% disabled, and the rest caretakers for the other 90% (mostly women.) Cost of any type of care in America is so expensive that many people have to take low income jobs just to have time to take care of their kids, parents, or family members with disabilities.
My elderly, disabled, cancer stricken mother who lives on $1050 monthly social security has just lost her access to food.
Great country we have here. Fuck you to anyone who voted for this shit.
“If we can’t molest them, nobody else can, either.”
“Mr. Trump, where is the SNAP money?” “I’m keeping that pile for myself and adding it to my other piles.”
It was given to Argentina, to uphold the illusion that completely deregulated capitalism works.
Most empires start to collapse when they can’t or refuse to feed the poor.
Breadand circuses, at least the clowns are still around.
Donald Trump fights to keep you hungry
Appeals court
Be metal
How to win the midterms 101: ask SCotUS to issue a same-day stay allowing you to starve your own constituents as leverage in a shutdown that’s only happening because you won’t budge on making people’s health insurance more expensive. The art of the deal baby.
“Trump says Fuck You and Your Hungry Kids.”
Fixed that title.
We want to starve poor people and kids lol.
– this fucking “government”
Spending taxpayer money to force the courts to obey his decision to starve Americans in need.
Totally patriotic!
This is what America wanted … to hurt the people they don’t like.
Only problem is, the government they allowed to take power hates them all
No.
