Oklahoma Republicans are leading the way for the rest of the party in Big Tent theory.
The Oklahoma Republican Party compared Americans receiving food stamp benefits to park animals feed by the public in a Facebook post Monday evening.
In the since-deleted post, the Oklahoma GOP offered a so-called “lesson in irony” by comparing the distribution of food stamps to 46 million Americans to a policy of the National Park Service to discourage the public from feeding animals “because the animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves”
Party Chairman Randy Brogdon offered a sort-of apology in another Facebook post today: “I offer my apologies for those who were offended – that was not my intention”:
This post was supposed to be an analogy that compared two situations illustrating the cycle of government dependency in America, not humans as animals. However I do think that it’s important to have conversations about government welfare programs since our dependency on government is at its highest level ever.
Yep, that explanation (I’m sorry you people aren’t so bright and clearly misunderstood us when we compared poor people to zoo animals) will make the perception of Republicans as mean-spirited dog-whistle racist assholes vanish completely by November 2016.
Please, promote Mr. Brogdon to the RNC. Give him the keys to your social media presence, immediately. Put him on TV as much as possible. Give him a white, conical hood to keep cool under those hot lights, too.
That’ll help. Trust me.
rollSound
Conservatives argue it isn’t discrimination when it’s against non-humans. That’s just real humans exercising dominion over the beasts of the world. Just like Jeebus said they could!
Cluttered Mind
True story:
A couple years ago I got laid off and was in a terrible situation. I had to move myself and my then-fiance from NYC to Utah because after 7 months of unemployment a low level job in the USU library was the best I could do. The brief time I was there was probably the worst of my life. (Logan, UT. Cache county. Rural. Mormon. Awful.)
Anyway, the relevant part: I went to the local DMV to get a learner’s permit (never bothered to drive as I’ve only ever lived in NYC or Boston) and the woman whose desk I ended up with had that exact same right wing meme about food stamps and wild animals printed out and on her desk. Facing outward. A public employee, openly displaying that garbage to people who come to her for basic public DMV services.
This is who they are. Who they always have been. Who they probably always will be.
I’m thankfully back in NYC now and have resumed my actual career (corporate librarian for ad agencies), my then-fiance is my now-wife, and our son is an 8 month old agent of chaos. But yeah. I’ve seen this before, and it disgusts me now as much as it did then.
Belafon
The problem with your analogy, Randy Brogdon, is that you’re not going to let a poor person come into your house foraging for food. The animals you are referencing have a way of getting food; most human’s don’t without money.
sstarr
Oh, you misunderstand the GOP point entirely. Poor people are not to be compared with caged, controlled zoo animals. They are to be compared to wild, potentially dangerous, probably disease carrying animals.
chopper
“sorry you baboons weren’t smart enough to get our point”
David Hunt
Even his non-apology apology is offensive. Next time try offering your apology to those who were offended.
Also Zandar, I don’t think he’s comparing poor people to zoo animals. There is a moral obligation to take care of animals that you’ve placed in a zoo. He’s comparing the poor to wild and feral animals. Such creatures need to have their population controlled by periodic culling, lest they overrun their shrinking habitats. If you want to help them, you charge hunters for the culling privileges and apply some small portion of the proceeds to a charity that claims to help them. /Scrooge
Doug R
A fed bear is a dead bear. However they find that organized feeding stations tend to keep them away from places where people gather, like campsites.
tbone
Obama said it best:
“Please proceed”.
David Koch
Speaking of outreach.
USA TODAY: Donald Trump (17%) and Jeb Bush (14%) are the only Republicans to hit double digits in new Suffolk poll
http://usat.ly/1K5qFVo
And here I thought this day couldn’t possibly get any better.
Frankensteinbeck
@Doug R:
Yeah. Fed bears lose their fear of people, and pretty soon you have no choice but to kill them. They become dangerous.
BGinCHI
Demonstrably not true, asshole.
Brainwashing, how does it work?
Aleta
reposted in open thread–my mistake
trollhattan
@BGinCHI:
It actually seems pretty true in the case of, say, Lockheed Martin. Now there’s a gummint welfare queen.
dedc79
@trollhattan: and pro sports teams. Something tells me that if taxpayers didn’t build stadiums for them, they’d manage to find private financing.
OzarkHillbilly
At least he’s honest. Funny how he doesn’t prescribe the same medicine for himself.
Gin & Tonic
Had a funny “you people” story just today, at my local branch of the USPS. Young female postal clerk, pretty clearly (to me) having both white and black folk in her family tree, was serving an elderly white guy with a cane. One of those garrulous guys with lots of time on his hands who makes a lame joke about just about everything, and thinks everyone is dying to chat with him. Postal clerk is friendly, but mostly business, although she tries to play foil to some of his jokes. Near the conclusion, he comments (not sure how he got on this) about how when he was working, lots of “you people” were applying to work at the local transportation authority, where I guess he’d been employed. Postal clerk’s lips tightened as she said, very politely “Hmm – ‘you people.’ What do you mean by ‘you people’?” Old guy said “postal employees”, and she visibly seemed to breathe.
Not much of a point to this, just that even the phrase, used, I am sure, completely obliviously and with no malign intent by an old white guy can mean something very different to someone different.
john fremont
These GOP guys are always bringing up how welfare programs are inducing dependency among an increasing portion of the American public, yet I remember how the GOP took victory laps in the1990’s about the Welfare Reform Act and how their policies broke the cycle of dependency. GW Bush built his Compassionate Conservative platform to continue on with the reforms from the Contract With America. I remind the right wingers at work of this all of the time. The conversations come to a screeching halt.
donnah
This is the Republican mindset. They worked hard for their money, after all, why should they give it to a bunch of lazy, ignorant bums? There are food banks and church charities, right? “Those people” should be pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, wearing plastic bread bags on their feet…it never ends.
I’m ashamed of the Republicans, and disgusted. They’re the problem in this country. Trump represents them quite well.
BGinCHI
@trollhattan: Or Scott Walker and Paul Ryan who have never done anything except work for the government.
Poorly, I might add.
catclub
@David Koch: I bet Sanders beats them both handily in polling.
Gin & Tonic
@BGinCHI: The monthly AFDC/TANF benefit, commonly referred to as “welfare”, has been declining in adjusted dollars for about the last 35 years. That’s easy to find out.
The Moar You Know
“Apologies to the oversensitive hippies with sand in their vaginas, guess you can’t handle the truth”
Of all the things I hate about American society today, the non-apology apology is in the top five.
Germy Shoemangler
Do they think the citizens of Israel are dependent animals? Because Israel has a rather robust health care system. Obamacare on steroids.
Gin & Tonic
Huh. My comment disappeared, don’t know why. Merely pointing out that the monthly AFDC/TANF benefit has been declining (in constant dollars) for about 35 years now.
Germy Shoemangler
@The Moar You Know: These non-apologies always remind me of classic Steve Martin: “Well, excuuuuuuse me!”
trollhattan
@BGinCHI:
Good point. In their case scare quotes are needed: “work” for the government.
Mike J
@BGinCHI: I like the xkcd idea of carrying around wikipedia style
[citation needed] signs.
Germy Shoemangler
@BGinCHI:
The government actually worked for them.
? Martin
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yep, I think that sizes up the GOP mindset pretty well.
Ernest Pikeman
Apropos gopsters, just saw a Ford Extinction (or Excess, always get those mixed up) with a bigger-than-bumper “I’m a conservative. DEAL WITH IT” sticker. In San Francisco. Kind of a perfect in your face, barely-passive-aggressive resentment, suck it libs raging id distilled. Props for the copy writer. Nice to have the assholes self-tag themselves (we don’t see That Flag so much here).
I am still proud that I managed to stop my already half out of the window arm to stop flipping the bird. Coexist, bitches!
BGinCHI
@Mike J: Perfect. If they popped up from the FCC on all Fox News programming you wouldn’t be able to see the actors.
Tree With Water
“Dog whistles” did not arrive from Krypton with Cal-El (i.e. Clark Kent). They do not require a red sun to misfire. Spoken words will suffice to eviscerate most of their power. To limit their range to the ever present percentile of the haters-among-us, requires only a simple, “turkey talking” response in kind. Paul Krugman’s remarks making the rounds today about the republican party is a textbook example of how it is done. Hillary doesn’t have it in her, but Sanders should unleash his inner Chang and incorporate Krugman’s simple-simon insight into his next speech, word for good word.
trollhattan
O/T NASA has published the last pre-flyby Pluto photo. Based on the available detail, reminds me of our moon. The next pics will paint a completely different story, I’ll guess.
jl
@Germy Shoemangler: And, of course ‘Letttttssss get smaaaaaaal……’
Steve in the ATL
That’s probably the saddest thing I’ve heard all week, and I had a death in the family
Mike in NC
Something like this happened a few years ago in SC, where I think it was the lieutenant governor or another high official complaining about how poor people were like stray animals that shouldn’t be fed lest they become dependent. Part of conservative DNA to look down on the less fortunate.
Brachiator
@Germy Shoemangler:
Better yet, what would these hard hearts say about this 2013 news story:
Do these conservatives who hate welfare want to cut Israel loose?
http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/one-in-three-israeli-families-receive-welfare-aid-statistics-show.premium-1.502058
RaflW
Well, for starters, you hateful buffoon, you are flat wrong. So, can we start our conversation with the falsity of your premise?
The use of what one surmises he means as welfare (TANF, unemployment insurance, etc) has been declining for several years as our anemic recovery plods along, and as people reach the end of several time-limited benefits.
Do press reports of this malingering sucker on the belly of Republicanism bother to refute his bogus fact, however? I suspect most don’t – thus his stealth objective is still reached even as we scorn him: he virally reproduces the bullshit meme of worstest evah welfare spending!
Dammit.
Iowa Old Lady
@trollhattan: My favorite Pluto pics are the ones of the thrilled scientists and engineers.
Germy Shoemangler
“Default viewers”
What does that mean? Can’t reach the remote and don’t want to get up?
Frankensteinbeck
@? Martin:
…yes. I agree.
cmorenc
@Steve in the ATL:
So long as it’s the Salt Lake City area we’re talking about. please please PLEASE don’t throw me in that briar patch, next to all those mountains, snow, and skiing. And all the hippies, rock climbers and urban hipsters who are into keeping themselves uber-fit for outdoor activities. Gosh, I would just hate for someone to throw me in that briar patch…
Now, if you’re talking instead about more remote small-town Utah, such as Price, Utah and the meal in the local Mexican restaurant I once ate on the way from Moab to SLC with a pair of guys in the next booth having an extended, incredibly arcane discussion about some of the fine points of Mormon theology, complete with ability to recite extended quotes from memory from the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants….well, then I’m all-in for that.
:=)
OzarkHillbilly
@Iowa Old Lady: My favorite Pluto pics are at Disney.com
Kay
They should raise the minimum wage. Food stamp usage will go down.
Not that I object to food stamps. They’re as much a subsidy to agriculture and related food industries as they are to poor people. We could just cut out the middleman voucher though if we raised wages and then poor people can buy their food with wages.
Which Republicans are with me on this? Let’s start valuing labor again!
catclub
@Tree With Water: I bet you meant this.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/paul-krugman-donald-trump-racist
Mike J
@Germy Shoemangler:
My parents have had cable TV for decades and still default to watching the “real channels”, not those other “weird channels.” If there’s a show they’re seeking out, they’ll go find TNT or Bravo, but if they’re just flipping around they always start with the broadcast nets.
SiubhanDuinne
There is nothing at all new about the GOP’s comparing animals and people who need or receive government assistance. Former SC Lieutenant Governor André Bauer, during his unsuccessful 2010 primary run (against Nikki Haley) to succeed Mark Sanford as Governor, said publicly that you shouldn’t feed either poor people or stray animals, because they breed.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sc-lt-gov-andre-bauer-compares-helping-poor-to-feeding-stray-animals/
Germy Shoemangler
@Mike J: I thought it meant that people saw Trump’s beauty pageant on tv, and didn’t bother changing the channel even though they didn’t care to watch it.
Mike J
@Kay:
What we tax shows what we value and what we wish to punish. That’s why we have low taxes on investments and high taxes on cigarettes and labor.
Tree With Water
@cmorenc: Utah is a beautiful, mystical ground, and I haven’t even seen that much of it. I’ve crisscrossed its north, but have yet to travel its south. So throw me into that briar patch, too. Home is where the heart is, but I could see settling down in Utah for a spell. Maybe run for office on the Peace and Freedom ticket..
Jparente
@Steve in the ATL: I sympathize. I’m relocating to Fla., West Coast, from L.I./NYC. Although, come to think of it, Fla. has better fishing, SCUBA, nature viewing, birding, aquariums and some wonderful museums and botanical gardens. Utah has….?
OzarkHillbilly
@cmorenc: @Tree With Water: Moab.
Jparente
@Jparente: And an active colony of ‘Juicers I’m told.
? Martin
@Tree With Water: Be careful where in Utah: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/polygamist-towns-force-family-refusing-water-supply-lawsuit-article-1.1730639
RaflW
Care to guess which particular poor people the GOP tends to be thinking of when they say they are like wild animals?
Last night on one of the BJ threads, one of our regular commenters said they grew tired of Ta-Nehisi Coates relentless negativity. But the white supremacy is still relentless in this country. There are days when I think TNC is correct to wonder if it will ever be fixable.
Germy Shoemangler
@Jparente:
That would be a nice destination. A community of balloon-juicers; a walkable community where everyone has well-behaved dogs (well, almost everyone) and friendly, affectionate cats. Wine, beer, intelligent conversation, laughter and merriment.
OzarkHillbilly
@Germy Shoemangler: Well behaved cops too?
russ
Putting up a post opposing whatever it is that you feel goes against your beliefs is easy. Working doing something to help those with less requires effort, more than putting a sign on your desk to show everyone that they are one of the betters. Kinda like “where’s the VIP entrance, we’re VIP”.
OzarkHillbilly
@Germy Shoemangler: Wait a minute… Did you say ‘intelligent conversation’ in referral to ‘balloon juicers’? (looks left, looks right) Who you talkin’ ’bout?
James E Powell
If Republicans don’t run as mean-spirited dog-whistle racist assholes, who besides the top 10% will ever vote for them?
Sherparick
Hard to remember that Senator Robert Dole was one of the principle creators of the Food Stamp program. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0_OWueb_8Y
1. Most of the people benefiting from the program are children under 18 and senior adults over 65.
2. Majority of recipients of white.
3. About 50 to 60 percent of non-disabled SNAP recipients between the ages of 18 and 64 are working.
4. Republicans = assholes
boatboy_srq
@john fremont: Of course ‘welfare’ promotes ‘dependence.’ Just look at what’s happened to Northrup, Lockheed, Raytheon, SAIC and General Dynamics.
Brachiator
@boatboy_srq:
Did somebody eliminate farm subsidies when I wasn’t looking?
RSA
Remember Steve King comparing immigrants to dogs?
There’s a long history of people who compare humans to animals in vivid analogies, and that history is pretty dark.
Tree With Water
@RSA: My aversion to likening republicans to vermin (political or otherwise) is a direct consequence of Nazi propaganda about Jews. There are any number of better ways to get essentially the same point across about republicans without resorting to that ugliness, I think.
shell
Because humans cut off from food stamps can just go foraging in the wild, like the animals. Or I suppose the urban equivalent would be dumpster diving.
Hal
That’s actually an old internet meme that’s been around for some time now. So clever.
Had a white friend post something similar on Facebook yesterday, only this lovely little ditty was about our nation’s beloved confederate flag. “Offended by the confederate flag? Well I’m offended my tax dollars go to pay for your food and rent” or something along those lines. I gave him 4 stars for the barely hidden racist dog whistle.
Jparente
@OzarkHillbilly: Agreed.
john fremont
@boatboy_srq: I’ve worked aviation maintenance most of my adult life and if you see some dependency, some of the guys that worked contracts with those companies, do they know to milk a cost plus contract!
cmorenc
@Tree With Water:
If you want the closest thing to a pleasantly thrilling, heart-pounding psychadelic trip without need to take any drugs to put your mind in that state, take the trip starting at Bryce National Park (about 25 miles off I-15 in southern Utah) and proceeding eastward along Utah 12 through Escalante, Boulder (Ut) and Torrey (overnight in Torrey – there’s a fabulous restaurant there I can’t recall the name of, but you’ll have no trouble finding it by asking) and then along Utah 24 through Capital Reef National Park and then turning south at Hanksville along Utah 95 across the desert down to where it crosses Lake Powell at Hite, and then by Natural Bridges National Monument and then at Blanding turn north up to Canyonlands National Park (be sure to take the side trip into the Needles section) and then on to Moab – is one of the handful of most excellent road-trip adventures there are in North America. You’ll be convinced for long stretches that you’ve somehow wandered into a real-life version of the lurid scenery in a Road Runner cartoon, only much better and more colorful. The few miles along Devil’s Backbone along route 12 goes along the spine of a ridge that drops off incredibly steeply on both sides of the road – leaving you to wonder how in the hell they managed to put a paved road maintained in good shape along the thin top of it. The drop down to the Escalante River going east is one of the most sublime panoramas of slickrock country there is, and if you want an even bigger thrilling surprise than the Devil’s backbone portion of route 12 – when you get just past Natural Bridges National monument (worth seeing in its own right) – take route 261 down toward Mexican Hat and Monument Valley – the country will seem totally unremarkable sagebrush atop low rolling mesa for just over 20 miles until, with little warning – you come to a point where the road literally goes down what seems a near-sheer thousand foot cliff-face, in tight switchbacks, and you at first can’t believe they actually built a road down it (don’t worry, it’s safely driveable in an ordinary car). But just before that, take the short side road to Goosenecks State park, where there is an overlook looking down nearly a thousand feet into where you can see at once a series of six tight oxbow-loops in the river, forming a serpentine canyon.
Kyle
Dollars to donuts the tool who posted that to Facebook is living off some combination of Social Security, Medicare or VA benefits.
Which if you dare call it welfare he will loudly insist he “earned”, unlike “those people”.
tybee
@cmorenc:
i never wanted to visit utah until i read that. thanks.
Original Lee
@Frankensteinbeck: Which is actually kind of scary when you look at some of the big news stories of the last few years.
Another Holocene Human
@Gin & Tonic: I call bullshit, since when are transit workers paid better than USPS employees? Can’t think of anywhere except maybe a few major cities in the last 10 years.
Theodore Wirth
Not surprising since not-OKers owe their existence to either growing animal feed or raising animals for food on the land that was given to them by the Feds.