Now that we are officially in the letdown showdown of the shutdown meltdown, let’s take a step back.
Sleepy Don started an epic food fight spanning six weeks and still leaving a sticky mess. That’s right: The leader of the free world thought starving fellow Americans was the way to go. Wrong!
When I was in high school, I volunteered at the soup kitchen in New Haven, Conn. I did so on Thanksgiving and Christmas as well as non-holidays. Many of the people who showed up were also homeless, jobless, and, back then, definitely uninsured.
I also went to Appalachian Kentucky one summer to build and repair homes belonging to some of the poorest people in the United States. This was pre-SNAP, when the program was called “food stamps.” Again, the visible poverty was hard to miss.
The chaos surrounding SNAP benefits right now is a manufactured crisis, full stop. Of course it did not have to be this way. Unfortunately, a confused 79-year-old lame duck had no better ideas. He is intellectually bankrupt as well as morally broke. Quack quack.
No wonder most Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction. Who among us wants to see our neighbors go hungry?
Feeding another person is one of the most instinctive things people do for each other. It goes without saying that the saying “food is love” is universally understood.
So, ask yourself: Why would anyone politicize nutrition? The president’s manifest obesity seemingly correlates with his constant gluttony, sure. But no one needs to suffer malnourishment just because his “art of the deal” is such a sick joke.
When he and his ilk seethed at Rev. Mariann Budde’s words earlier this year at the Washington National Cathedral, I guess we should have seen the SNAP lapse coming. But having mercy and showing mercy are always options, at least to real Christians.
Newsflash: The only way sleepy Don has any chance of getting into heaven is if the Lord Jesus Christ has mercy on him.
The shutdown was nothing but a masterclass in Republican antipathy toward government. But there are notable exceptions, as always.
Take Kim Davis, for example, the woman who just wants to nuke gay marriage and eradicate rainbow wedding cakes. Ten years a homophobe, you would think she would be tired of losing.
A generation ago, then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush sought to have a feeding tube re-inserted into Terri Schiavo’s persistently vegetative body. He lost the state’s case, too, and no one hears much about him anymore.
Still, 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP do not need the administration engaging in a cynical food fight. Recipients qualify for nutritional assistance through a process that collects detailed personal information.
The same is true for other food programs like the National School Lunch Program for children and Meals on Wheels for homebound older adults.
With the current shutdown’s end in sight, Project 2025 will no doubt resume even though it probably never stopped. And yet I feel a glimmer of hope after last week’s Democratic wins.
Democracy projects are flourishing. If anything, POTUS’s epic food fight was nourishing, in a miscalculated way.
