Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Monday, November 3, 2025

The Cruelty Is The Point

 The decision to punish stores for making it easier on people to receive food assistance while Trump withholds SNAP benefits is genuinely monstrous. Yglesias lays out the many ways that SNAP is a genuinely impressive policy. OK, it's not 100% perfect, but the basic difference between the two parties can be distilled to Republicans being outraged that one person on five hundred is abusing SNAP benefits and Democrats working to make sure the other four hundred and ninety nine don't go hungry.

Meanwhile, Trump's approval among 18-29 year olds is 75% disapproval. Turns out dismantling the Great Society and New Deal isn't actually popular among people who have no memory (or historical context) for the world that existed before.

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