The Republican Party is engaged in class warfare against poor and middle-class white Americans. It is a little-discussed fact but an ironic one worth noting, since those are the very same people who elect them.
This week, House Republicans passed a nutrition bill that eliminates $39 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, previously known as food stamps. Nearly 47 million Americans currently rely on SNAP -- roughly 15 percent of the population -- and 17.6 million U.S. households are considered food insecure, which means they aren't sure where their next meal will come from. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (pdf), nearly 17 million of these people are children, 5 million are seniors and 300,000 are elderly veterans.
And despite prevailing racial stereotypes, which first became mainstream during President Ronald Reagan's tenure and his propagation of the myth of a "welfare queen" from the South Side of Chicago, the overwhelming majority of food stamp recipients are white. And curiously, many of them are Republicans. USDA data show that in 2011, 37 percent of food stamp users (pdf) were from white, non-Hispanic households.
And of the 254 counties where the number of food stamp recipients doubled between 2007 and 2011, Republican candidate Mitt Romney won 213 in last year's presidential election. Bloomberg's John McCormick and Greg Giroux compiled research revealing that Kentucky's Owsley County -- which backed Romney with 81 percent of its vote -- had the largest proportion of food stamp recipients of all the communities where Romney won.
What is most curious is that this isn't surprising. The poorest states in the union tend to be the most reliably red, with Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas among the top 10.
You know I have heard about cognitive dissonance before, but THIS takes the cake.
The GOP has NEVER been about supporting its constituents, and ALWAYS been about pleasing their biggest political donors, who are certainly NOT the people that will be affected by this bill.
If these same red states reelect their Representatives after this then they are simply to ignorant to survive anyhow.
I guess Darwin was right.
Republicans are a strange bunch. They want our citizens starving and armed with whatever gun that citizen wants.
ReplyDeleteNo chance of a problem with that mix.
Suicide by politician. Vote for the clown that will give you a long torturous death by hunger.
ReplyDeleteOT - The good news: Only 4-1/2 hours left to wait for a new episode of Breaking Bad (PDT)!
ReplyDeleteJust in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
ReplyDeleteExcept for the extremely wealthy and/or religious maniacs I don't understand how these bastards can get ANYONE to vote for them.
Oh wait... Fox News.
PROPAGANDA WORKS
I have a very firm belief that all these states have massive voter fraud, and that is why they always trend Red.
ReplyDeleteSolve the voter fraud, and you have the solution to the conundrum.
It explains why the Republicans are always trying to control the electoral process. The results are skewed.
It's voter fraud.
ReplyDeleteIt's not entirely ignorance on the part of the voting People.
"their biggest political donors, who are certainly not the people who will be affected by this bill."
ReplyDeleteNot so, Gryphen! They will be POSITIVELY affected by this bill because it will reduce the risk of their taxes going up!
And, this is the group that professes themselves to be 'christian'!! They are horrible people and why anyone would vote for any of them is beyond me! I'm spreading this information amongst family and friends as I hope others are also doing.
ReplyDeleteMcConnell (Kentucky) and Boehner (Ohio) especially need to be brought down to their knees and made to lick the ground they walk on! They make me sick to my stomach!
God forbid that poor, white southerners would vote for their own economic interest and group themselves with poor, nonwhites.
ReplyDeleteHow Many More Times?
ReplyDeletehttp://theobamadiary.com/2013/09/22/how-many-more-times/
In about 1980, I started talking with people about the problems in this country. Most of us had heard that what was dragging everything down were welfare queens. Lacking an opposing view, I believed it. Then Bill Clinton revamped welfare, and I learned the queens never got even one percent. If you add all welfare, including Veteran benefits, it’s about ten percent. Welfare isn’t an ideal lifestyle, sure, but they don’t get much money.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, many Americans didn’t get the same message I got.
Put the word 'corporate' in front of the phrase welfare queens, and maybe change queens to kings, and you would be right.
Deletenothing says republican like starving children.
ReplyDeletenothing says pro-life like starving children.
DeleteI haven't the foggiest idea why any of the 99%ers would vote for those republican turds since they don't give a shit about any of them.
ReplyDeleteThat's why I finally saw the light and changed my voting alignment to 100% democratic party WITHOUT exception
Conservatives,Republicans,Teabaggers,whatever. All I know is that when caught,captured and cooked, they's all some tasty eatin, yassuh. Dish me up another, muthafuckah!
ReplyDeleteIn North Dakota, we have a freshman congressman that has been rejected by voters election after election until he finally got in because no one could be found to run against him that had anywhere near the name recognition. You see, after every time he was rejected by the voters, the republican party found him some useless patronage job to fill time until he could run-yet again. He has been on the public tit for his entire useless life, and he used the tired old Old Testament crap about if you don't work you don't eat; entirely out of context, showing no understanding of the scripture he was quoting.
ReplyDeleteI have some scripture for this asshole to consider: No man can serve two masters.
These cretins' masters are the Kochs and their fraudulent 'grassroots' organisations, not the people they were elected to serve.
Oh BTW: the asshole's name is Kevin Cramer.
The B.
I think if we're going to try to psychoanalyze exactly why there are numbskulls ON foodstamps, rooting on the heartless bastards they voted for, to continue to screw the poor...its because they think of themselves as only TEMPORARILY being in a position of needing government help to survive.
ReplyDeleteIts all those OTHER lazy, black people who are the strain on the economy, not themselves.
In my opinion this makes them DOUBLY stupid...not only for voting against their own interests, but in pretending they are somehow above others doing the same thing they are.