I grew up in a poor town next to a reservation, and I can’t tell you how many times people complained about the use of food stamps. It’s very easy, and very common, for older white people to judge younger brown people who use SNAP or WIC in the grocery line. So, when Trump cuts food stamps (SNAP), he knows what he’s doing and who he’s appealing to. Doing it right before Christmas is just a little bit of shit frosting on the turd cake, the only kind of dessert that a Trump supporter thinks that the poor or brown deserve.
There are plenty of Trump voters on SNAP and Medicaid. As Adam noted in his post last night, of the 43% of Americans who get their news from Facebook, 62% are white, and 61% are women. If some billionaire would put a few million bucks on ads targeting poor whites in swing districts (in fact poor whites on SNAP – they probably know who they are), I think you could move some votes. The news media will dutifully report it and move on–can’t blame them, because in this media market, a click from a poor is pretty worthless. So when SNAP gets withdrawn, it’s pretty likely that a low information Trump voter might just blame it on the evil government in general (especially since Republicans in government have been running against the government they helped build – and getting away with it – for a long time).
I realize that ads putting money directly into Zuckerberg’s pocket, but there might be a way to leverage Facebook without paying Zuckerberg directly. This ratfucking operation targeting Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib used Facebook news pages to increase shares on anti-Islam fake news. Since I’ve done searches on Omar in particular, I get “news” articles pushed to me from pseudo-authentic right wing sites.
If Facebook and purpose-built news sites are the weapons of this war, we need to use them. Democrats have a hard time doing it because ratfucking isn’t part of our DNA, but we don’t need to be spreading fake news to get more views on our real news.
schrodingers_cat
Aren’t most SNAP recepients white?
randy khan
This is an important point. Facebook is a fact of life, so we need to use it to our advantage as much as possible.
In my own, minor way, I’ve been trying to do that since the middle of 2016. We all can contribute by making posts that our friends can see and pass along (which means making them public, which isn’t great, but is the only real choice) and by pushing back – politely, but firmly – when people post misinformation. (This largely isn’t for the people who have posted it, but for others who might see the wrong information and need to know it’s wrong.) It’s not exactly fun, but every little bit matters.
mistermix loves your ass
@schrodingers_cat: I’m sure they are, I’m just talking about the perception in my small town.
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat:
White people are largest group getting food stamps if you divide the recepients by ethnicity
36.2%
TomatoQueen
According to demographic data, 39.8% of SNAP participants are white, 25.5% are African-American, 10.9% are Hispanic, 2.4% are Asian, and 1% are Native American. Much more at this site:
https://www.snaptohealth.org/snap/snap-frequently-asked-questions/
glory b
I don’t think ads will change any minds. I’m reminded of an editorial comic I saw some time ago (can’t find it anymore) from the post civil War Reconstruction era if I’m not mistaken. It showed a white man being swept away down a raging river, refusing to accept the hand of a black man on shore who is begging him to grab his hand and save himself.
The problem here is about 150 years old.
Jay
Add in how much of SNAP benifits are a welfare hand out to Big Ag/Farmers, ( by propping up surpluses),…..
And yeah, SNAP benificaries are mostly whipple,….
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.desmoinesregister.com/amp/1613132002
Jay
@glory b:
the purpose of the ads would be to break through the Wingnut Bubble’s walls.
jonas
Oh, I’ve heard MAGA-types sneer at the “lazy” white people on food stamps, too. Never stop to think that it may be a disabled vet or someone on disability (which they would probably also call being a lazy moocher). Your average Trump voter is a 50+ year-old white male asshole making over $75k a year, so yeah, they’re not going to give a sh*t. Like tearing poor refugee kids away from their parents, it’s the making poor people suffer part that they get off on. If they’re POC, it’s just gravy.
Brachiator
@TomatoQueen:
Great link. There is also this:
SNAP is an essential safety net for people who do not earn enough money from the jobs available to them.
catclub
@Jay: SNAP was always an agreement to match the Farm subsidies with subsidies elsewhere. Take away the agreement and the Farm subsidies might suffer.
Jay
Duane
It’s particularly galling that food benefits are cut while we’re bailing out farmers because of Trumpov’s stupid trade policies. Congress soundly rejected these proposals, but this evil administration actively tries to hurt people. Thanks for posting this Mistermix. It’s hard to keep up with all the bad things Trumpov does.
schrodingers_cat
Will this be challenged in the courts?
Mr pigg
This is an excellent suggestion. GOP is getting free pass on a lot of issues because we don’t even try to counter where it could help.
An awful lot of people just blame “Washington “ or “the government” rather than the GOP. Make em own everything and reach the reachables. There’s low hanging fruit in places where people don’t think the ACA is Obamacare. Nibble at their margins with those voters for cheap. FB is made for that kind of microtargeting of the low information set.
We shouldn’t write off any voters anywhere, there’s a big difference in losing rural counties 60-40 vs 80-20, etc etc
BethanyAnne
I was on SNAP just last month. Any cut to it would have been a real hardship. Hell, being *on* it was a sign of real hardship. Best news I’ve had in a year is that I got a job at Walmart. And after just a month of pushing myself, now I can stand for a few hours, which vastly opens my opportunities.
Jay
@catclub:
SNAP was/is a program that in addition to providing food aid to people who need it, diverts 32.5% of the federal expenditures on the program towards buying agricultural surplus, “propping up” agricultural commodities pricing.
while in a just world there would be no connection between the differing goals of the program, in the world some of us live in, welfare for the poor must be matched to welfare for the rich and Corporations, in order to exist at all.
Jay
Thread,…….
Cheryl Rofer
Back to an earlier topic –
Jay
Jay
catclub
@Jay: wow
Gin & Tonic
@Jay: As Khodorkovsky says: “The Kremlin is no longer ashamed of reasonable suspicions that it carries out murders in Western Europe.”
Steve in the ATL
Jay
Remind me again on how Billionaires are smarter, harder working and more deserving than the rest of us again,……
catclub
@Cheryl Rofer: Cheers for Pelosi. The catholic teaching of hate the sin, but love the Sinner, seems to have stuck.
pat
So it’s Sunny Perdue at it again. Has there been any news about the forced move of the ag dept to Kansas City?
Jay
@Steve in the ATL:
#1. Hire Tony Jay as an independent contractor to write about this issue for you,….
Jay
Gin & Tonic
@Steve in the ATL: Re: 2 – at any age. Beats headphones are crap.
LuciaMia
Just saw the Republican rebuttal to Pelosis’s statement. I guess their strategy now is “Oh, so sad. Sad for our country, sad for the people over what these mean old Democrats are doing. Sooooo sad.” Are they going thru all the five stages of grief? Denial and Anger (screaming at witnesses) hasn’t worked so I guess now its on to Sad.
Fair Economist
The SNAP changes will have nasty side effects on economically depressed areas. Poor people getting less money to eat will mean less money for grocery stores, as well as other businesses the poor will have to give up to save more to eat. That means more job losses and even more people needing assistance but not getting it, leading to even more job losses, and so on. The hardest hit will be the rural communities where there’s no nearby areas to look for work.
bemused
@Cheryl Rofer:
Love this. She’s a fantastic role model for american women and men. She doesn’t suffer fools nor assholes.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Jay: The whole program is an indirect subsidy to farmers. Yes, there’s the 32% that goes to propping up commodity prices but the rest of it goes as follows: poor person who can’t afford enough food uses food stamps to buy more food from the local grocery store. The federal government converts those food stamps into cash that the local grocery store uses to buy more food from food wholesalers.
Food wholesalers then use that cash to buy more food from food processors (Kraft, General Mills, Kellogs, bakeries of various kinds) or directly from farmers (fruits and vegetables). The food processors then buy more food from farmers – grain, milk, etc. from which they make their products. All the money essentially works its way back to farmers. Without food stamps those poor people buy less food, and that hurts farmers by reducing the amount of food they can sell.
Basically this is another punch in the nads to farmers.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: Exactly how I was going to respond. Crap headphones.
Gin & Tonic
@LuciaMia:
That’s what I don’t get. I have watched precious little of the coverage, but my dear wife is at home a lot, and — even though she’s not as politically engaged as we are here — she likes to have CNN on during the day as background noise (please don’t judge, she is wonderful in so many ways.) Yesterday when the Judiciary hearing was wrapping up, she asked “why are the Republicans always shouting?”
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic:
A1 — Because they do not understand the concept of electronic amplification.
A2 — Because Trump shouts and they are fanbois.
I’ve shouted down opponents and sometimes raised my voice at interrupting Judges, but I have never ever had to raise my voice at a witness. That’s because there are so many other ways to take them apart that do not make one look like an ass.
rikyrah
SNAP is a positive for the community, because those dollars go back immediately out into the community.
We’re giving WELFARE to farmers, while people who are already on hard times, will have food taken from them.
Never forget…
THE CRUELTY IS THE POINT.
oatler.
Dem belly full but we hungry
A hungry man is a angry man
FlipYrWhig
Yup. And this is quite a racket: large numbers of white people who lose benefits will presume that either black and brown people are still getting them, or that they’d have been fine if not for the black and brown moochers who depleted the funding and made these cuts necessary. And hence the only solution is to vote for Republicans who will crack down on the lazy moochers. It’s a loathsome party filled with despicable people who like being that way, and they’re not going to be reached with ads, so let’s stop fantasizing about the One Weird Trick “messaging” strategy that’s going to be totally killer.
ET
Republicans lying to their people about only “those” people being on SNAP as that dog whistle signaling, has meant that they have no idea about who really is on SNAP – including their own people. A part of me just want to say go ahead do it, but you can’t target who among the SNAP recipients doesn’t gets less (unless you target by race or maybe location if they use city to equal “those” people).
Jay
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Partially my point, and more Big Ag than “family farms”.
But rural Trumpist’s don’t care.
Davis X. Machina, Balloon Juice, 2009
The ugly reality is that roughly 50% of all the food grown and/or processed, winds up plowed under, in the dump, composted or turned from waste into biofuels or animal feeds.
Globally there is no food shortage, just a combination of capitalism and distribution.
Nobody should go hungry.
TomatoQueen
@pat: WaPo and a digital site called Federal News cover this issue of gutting agencies but not continuously. USDA is a huge umbrella agency with many moving parts, and a favorite on the Hill, so it’s not so easy to up and move, Perdue notwithstanding. The method that has had results so far is to gut agencies bit by bit, by making people move or lose their jobs, and the last agency hurt this way was BLM (Bureau of Land Management, Interior) last summer. The next target nonsensical move is the combination of GSA with OPM, both of which have administrative roles but one is buildings and grounds and the physical plant, and the other is personnel, so it’s not a popular idea. Who knows how it’ll play out tho; the issue of the replacement of the FBI headquarters building has been a long standing issue for nearly twenty years (it’s ugly and a health hazard), and just as it was getting close to being solved, the trumpies shut the process down in a day. Met with a long sigh, and status quo.
laura
This enrages me. I worked in the grocery industry from 1976 to 1996. Saw firsthand those who relied on Food Stamps and those mothers and children who qualified for WIC. Few may have made some less nutritious choices with their food stamps. None with WIC as the commodities were specific and aimed at providing enough nutrition for brain development to reduce the dependency on government services that malnourished babies, children and mothers would otherwise need.
And yes, customers would often piss and moan as I tried my best to be of service and offer dignity and courtesy to these shoppers as they stood they on the receiving end of public shaming as their children watched.
These are the people who would pay and stand in line to nail jesus to the cross. The point is cruelty and the results should shame us all.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Steve in the ATL:
It’s ad nauseam, you unlettered bumpkin, so your whole argument falls apart. Zing!
Just Chuck
Physical food stamps haven’t been a thing for a long time. SNAP is on a card nowadays, so you’d have to be spying pretty close to notice they’re using a snap card or which button they hit on the payment terminal. But of course it’s the petty and spiteful thought that counts. Only oil companies and agricultural conglomerates should benefit from government largesse after all.
Duane
@Fair Economist: The free school lunch program will be adversely effected, too. Snap beneficiaries are automatically eligible. Without that, and the lose of SNAP kids go double-plus hungry. FFDT.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Just Chuck:
Haven’t seen you around lately, but I wanted to thank you for some bit of FYWP help you gave me recently. Can’t even remember exactly what it was now. Maybe caching?
Anyway, I usually circle back on old threads to achieve closure, and I did see your comment. Thanks again.
Steve in the ATL
@Gin & Tonic: this is the correct answer
Steve in the ATL
@Steeplejack (phone):
Another stolen catch phrase. D’oh!
Just Chuck
@Steeplejack (phone): I can’t remember what I helped with either, but glad I could help with … something :)
Laura Koerber
low income whites are just as prone to believing in the myth of nonwhite welfare cheaters as any other white people. if they hear about the cuts, they will just assume that some other person on welfare–not them==will be affected, so they wont care. look at Kentucky. poor whites there are hardcore wing nuts even as they sign up for Obamacare and vote for politicians who bash the poor.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Steve in the ATL:
The snarker snarked.
gvg
Non poor people look down on poor people even if they are white. Actually poor people on assistance are not immune either. People judge a lot and there is a lot of meanness going around. They think they know everything just from little clues that they mostly misread. I have mentioned before that I was a foster mom. The youngest qualified for WIC automatically no matter what the foster families income. We also aren’t supposed to draw unnecessary attention to their being in foster care because that also caries an unfair stigma. It save the state of Florida money and I think it was perfectly justified. Most foster families were actually losing money because they usually tried to treat the fosters exactly the same as their own kids which costs more that the state gave, but it was done for the kids not the pay.
The rules as to what WIC covered were kind of complicated and it was easy to be at the cashiers and find out you had the wrong thing which delayed the line and made you noticeable.
I would bet this administration doesn’t actually know how either program works, didn’t study, didn’t check and will get some surprises at the results.
jl
IIRC, we have the commie GW Bush to blame for much of the rise in food stamp program spending due to his initiative to expand of the program. And wrong headed GOP economic policies that never work (except to further enrich the already very rich) for wage stagnation for another big chunk.
So, of course, the rational thing to do is to punish food stamp recipients, blame Democrats for run away social spending, and end up with more low income people struggling to put food in their families’ mouths.
gratuitous
I’m an old white guy, and I’ve stood in many a checkout line at various markets. I’ve been behind people who’ve used food stamps and SNAP cards to buy groceries. I’ve waited (mostly) patiently when there’s a snafu and something didn’t ring up properly. I’ve pulled a few dollars out of my pocket to help make up the difference for someone who didn’t have enough when the total rang up.
I’m not unusual. I’m not some kind of unicorn. I’m not a saint.
I’ve been in those lines when someone else starts grumbling about the time all this is taking, and what are my tax dollars going for. I have usually (not on every occasion) said, “I’d rather my tax dollars go to help feed my neighbors and fellow citizens than to pay for weapons that blow up people halfway around the world.” I’ve never got any pushback.
Just Chuck
@gratuitous: The way I like to phrase it is “I’d rather waste some taxpayer dollars helping people who might not deserve it instead of it going to billion-dollar corporations who definitely don’t.”
Ramalama
My family, for a time, lived off of food stamps (not the electronic debit card kind), and holiday food donations from the Sheriff’s Office. My mother was treated like absolute dirt when she was at the local Jewel food store, buying groceries with them. She knew the rules. Knew what she could buy and not buy with them. And kept within those rules And yet every single time, the cashier and people around her (other customers) made sure to highlight the fact that she was using food stamps and wanted to grind her in the dirt. I was young but I remember.
I hate people sometimes.
randy khan
@LuciaMia:
The bargaining stage should be epic.
WaterGirl
@Ramalama: You were marked as spam but I fished you out. You should be good now.
Amir Khalid
@Steve in the ATL:
As soon as one is old enough to wear headphones, one should be taught to avoid Beats products. They look stylish, but are expensive and sound mediocre.
Ramalama
@WaterGirl: Huh. I steered clear of expletives. But I just noticed the duplication of the word “dirt.” Thanks for the save.
Quaker in a Basement
It needs to be repeated: Food stamps are a program of the US Department of Agriculture. They’re a mechanism to support food prices paid to farmers. When poor people can afford food, they buy more of it. Poor people get food–farmers and food suppliers get the money.
JAFD
My sympathy.
Spent one December working in big-box discount department store. Feel I have heard enough ‘Xmas music’ to last me through this life and my next reincarnation.
Now, if someone would like to explain to this old geezer the meaning of ‘beats headphones’ ???