The Democrats of Wisconsin

If Oshkosh is a typical Wisconsin city, we can infer from the signage at the local office of the Democrats that Rainbow Flagism is their #1 concern. Photos from July:

What else did we find downtown? A person reduced to sleeping in a doorway:

I’m wondering if this is evidence for my theory that expressing support for 2SLGBTQQIA+ is popular because one need not reduce one’s personal standard of living in order to assist the purportedly unfortunate. See Is LGBTQIA the most popular social justice cause because it does not require giving money? (In point of fact, we did not hear anyone expressing an anti-2SLGBTQQIA+ point of view during the entire week that we were in Oshkosh.)

This is one of the many luxuries of being a Democrat, I think. One can consider oneself an advocate for the unfortunate while walking past a homeless person on the way to the rainbow flag store.

Separately, here’s an article on the new passion among young educated Democrats in Wisconsin:

Students at UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee joined the wave of protests occurring at campuses across the United States to support Palestinian liberation, speak out against Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which has killed over 30,000 people and to urge their universities to cut ties with Israel.

Dahlia Saba, a member of UW-Madison’s Students for Justice in Palestine and a first-year graduate student at UW-Madison, said the protest aims to clearly communicate student demands to UW-Madison administrators. Those demands, posted on Instagram, include divestment from Israel, disclosing all investments by the UW Foundation and cutting ties with Israeli institutions.

Saba, who is Palestinian-American, said that she has been paying attention to the “huge injustices perpetrated against the Palestinian people” for much of her life. She said that she has family members who were recently evacuated from Gaza.

Samer Alatout, UW-Madison associate professor, said he was at the protest to support students and celebrate student movements. He said the actions represent a “sea change” and students were claiming a right to have a role in managing and governing the university, including its ethics.

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Are the world’s most accomplished people doomed to disappoint us when they offer political opinions?

It is conventional among Democrats to deplore Elon Musk’s refusal to change with the times and adopt the latest progressive dogma. And, indeed, despite Musk being objectively one of the world’s most accomplished people, the opinions that he expresses or retweets are conventional Republican points of view. He doesn’t, for example, suggest that the U.S. eliminate asylum and the rest of the programs that inspire migrants to come here (he supports milquetoast measures to return undocumented migration to pre-Biden/Harris levels). Nor does Musk agree with me that voting should be restricted to those who’ve worked for at least 8 years (W-2 or 1099), a return to the system of 200 years ago (men started working at 13 and started voting at 21), albeit tweaked for gender ID neutrality (don’t want to exclude 73 of the genders recognized by Science if people who identify with those 73 genders have experience working and paying taxes).

On the other side of the political spectrum, we have Yann LeCun. He’s a Turing Award winner who has been at the forefront of the machine learning craze (bubble?). His Twitter feed is indistinguishable from that of any other committed Democrat, e.g., blaming arch villain Donald Trump for the nation’s problems after a two-year period in which Democrats controlled Congress and the White House and, therefore, could pass any legislation that they deemed necessary. Example of one of the world’s most creative person’s tweets:

In other words, one of the world’s most accomplished people accepts the Democrat idea that the commander in chief of a $1 trillion/year military does not, without some further action of Congress, have the authority or ability to prevent random foreigners from crossing the U.S. border.

Speaking of creative, let’s look at Taylor Swift, the most accomplished person in the world of music (Though maybe we should give some credit to Itzhak Perlman, still performing from his wheelchair at age 79 (he was born in “Mandatory Palestine” and is older than the war that the Arabs declared on the new state of Israel).). Here’s part of her endorsement of Kamala Harris:

“I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades,”

The specific causes that she cites are more or less the same that a Democrat who can’t carry a tune might cite, e.g., additional promotion of Rainbow Flagism and more widely available abortion care for pregnant people. As with the typical Democrat, she isn’t interested in hearing an opposing point of view (“comments on this post have been limited” (limited to none)).

Let’s finally look at J.K. Rowling, the greatest writer of the 21st century (measured by sales, at least). Her main expressed political belief is that person with XY chromosomes cannot claim to be a “woman”. While, of course, this is a denial of Science, it is also a common denial of Science. The originality of Harry Potter is not to be found in J.K. Rowling’s belief that a man cannot raise his/her hand and become a woman.

I’m wondering if hyper-accomplished people need to keep quiet on the subject of politics. It is tough to come up with a political idea that isn’t already held by a lot of mediocre people and, therefore, expressing a political idea will always reduce public awe of the hyper-accomplished person. (And it would be even worse if the hyper-accomplished celebrity uttered an original idea! Imagine the uproar if Elon Musk, for example, were to say that voting should be restricted to Americans who’ve paid at least $1 of income tax at some point in their lives. Or if Taylor Swift were to take progressive love for Palestine to its logical conclusion and say that Americans who identify as “women” should be forced to wear hijab, long skirts, and long sleeves because otherwise immigrants from Gaza will feel uncomfortable.)

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The nation’s smartest voters (New Yorkers)

We are informed by New York-based media that New Yorkers are highly intelligent Followers of Science and that voters in Arkansas, for example, are stupid. Let’s check out their respective politicians. Arkansans have sent Tom Cotton to the House and now Senate in three elections. Here’s part of Cotton’s Wikipedia biography:

Cotton was accepted to Harvard College after graduating from high school in 1995. At Harvard, he majored in government and was a member of the editorial board of The Harvard Crimson, often dissenting from the liberal majority. In articles, Cotton addressed what he saw as “sacred cows” such as affirmative action [He was an antiracist even in the 1990s!]. He graduated with an A.B. magna cum laude in 1998 after only three years of study. Cotton’s senior thesis focused on The Federalist Papers.

After graduating from Harvard Law School, Cotton spent one year as a law clerk for Judge Jerry Edwin Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

On January 11, 2005, Cotton enlisted in the United States Army. He entered Officer Candidate School (OCS) in March 2005 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in June. He completed the U.S. Army Ranger Course, a 62-day small unit tactics and leadership program that earned him the Ranger tab, and Airborne School to earn the Parachutist Badge.

In May 2006, Cotton was deployed to Baghdad as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) as a platoon leader with the 101st Airborne Division. In Iraq, he led a 41-man air assault infantry platoon in the 506th Infantry Regiment, and planned and performed daily combat patrols.

From October 2008 to July 2009, Cotton was deployed to eastern Afghanistan. He was assigned within the Train Advise Assist Command – East at its Gamberi forward operating base (FOB) in Laghman Province as the operations officer of a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), where he planned daily counter-insurgency and reconstruction operations.

Cotton was honorably discharged in September 2009. During his time in the service, he completed two combat deployments overseas, was awarded a Bronze Star, two Army Commendation Medals, a Combat Infantryman Badge, a Ranger tab, an Afghanistan Campaign Medal, and an Iraq Campaign Medal.

Digression: What are the Iraqis doing now that Americans spent $trillions and tens of thousands of lives (in combat and back at home due to having spent all of that wealth; poverty kills just as surely as war) on “Operation Iraqi Freedom”? Chanting “Death to America”:

Let’s compare to the biographies and activities of the politicians and bureaucrats selected by the nation’s most intelligent people. First, there’s the New York City Lock Doc:

In conversations caught on hidden camera, New York City’s former COVID czar said that he’d organized a pair of sex parties in the second half of 2020, as New Yorkers coped with peak pandemic social isolation. “The only way I could do this job for the city was if I had some way to blow off steam every now and then,” Jay Varma told an undercover reporter with whom he thought he was on a date. In a video compiled from several recordings taken this summer, the onetime senior public-health adviser to city hall describes the two events that took place in August and November of 2020. He also talked about his work promoting vaccination in the city by making it “very uncomfortable” for those who wanted to avoid the shots.

And we also have Eric Adams:

Wikipedia says that Adams started his career as a gang member and collaborated with Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam (“Farrakhan has accused Jews of controlling large sections of the media, the US government and the global economy, regularly referring to these Jews as “Satanic”. He has repeatedly described Adolf Hitler as a ‘great man'”).

Finally, New Yorkers chose Yusef Salaam as a lawmaker on the New York City Council. He was accused of attacking the Central Park Jogger and eventually found to be innocent of rape. WSJ story by the prosecutor:

Although none of the others admitted joining in the rape of Trisha Meili, they admitted attacking male victims and a couple on a tandem bike, and each of them named some or all of the five as joining them. … Mr. Salaam took the stand at his trial, represented by a lawyer chosen and paid for by his mother, and testified that he had gone into the park carrying a 14-inch metal pipe—the same type of weapon that was used to bludgeon both a male schoolteacher and Ms. Meili. Mr. Reyes’s confession changed none of this. He admitted being the man whose DNA had been left in the jogger’s body and on her clothing, but the two juries that heard those facts knew the main assailant in the rape had not been caught. The five were charged as accomplices, as persons “acting in concert” with each other and with the then-unknown man who raped the jogger, not as those who actually performed the act. In their original confessions—later recanted—they admitted to grabbing her breasts and legs, and two of them admitted to climbing on top of her and simulating intercourse. Semen was found on the inside of their clothing, corroborating those confessions.

Mr. Reyes’s confession, DNA match and claim that he acted alone required that the rape charges against the five be vacated. I agreed with that decision, and still do. But the other charges, for crimes against other victims, should not have been vacated. Nothing Mr. Reyes said exonerated these five of those attacks. And there was certainly more than enough evidence to support those convictions of first-degree assault, robbery, riot and other charges.

Americans are supposed to follow their NY-based intellectual leaders when voting. But are the above gentlemen the kinds of people whom the average American wants to give authority to? (Especially important now that government is bigger and far more powerful than ever.)

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What do Democrats dream about now that vaccine passports are passé?

The big Democrat dream in 2021 was a segregated society in which Deplorables who refused to vaccinate their 8-year-olds against a virus that kills 82-year-olds would be excluded. See, for example, Vaccine papers checks in the Cradle of Liberty (December 2021, regarding Boston’s order that 5-year-olds be imprisoned at home if they weren’t injected with a non-FDA proved medicine (“emergency authorized” only)).

What’s the dream now? Excluding people who refuse to vote from public entertainment. Here’s a Facebook post from a San Franciscan who was previously an advocate for lockdowns, more severe lockdowns, vaccine requirements to hold jobs, and masks:

While Taylor Swift’s endorsement should be quite pleasing for its targets, she should also state that there’s no admission to her next tour without an “I Voted” sticker. Get one from an adult voter if you’re too young to vote or not a citizen. Her fan demographic doesn’t have great voter turnout, and even though most won’t be able to get tickets to see her, all will not want to cut off the chance. Sure, some will get fake ones, and some will lose theirs and need a way to resolve that, but most of them will vote or encourage their adult friends to. Other rock stars could do the same. Even Kid Rock if he wants, it would generally be a good thing.

It’s great that jet owner Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris. It is the perfect illustration of the divide between working class and elite Americans’ interests (2016 economic analysis). Low-skill immigration lowers wages for the working class, including all of the people who set up and clean up after her concerts, so she’ll keep a higher percentage of ticket revenue as profit. Low-skill immigrants aren’t going to move into any of the neighborhoods where Taylor Swift lives or get through her security bubble. If population growth via low-skill immigration clogs the highways, Taylor Swift is unlikely to be inconvenienced because she’ll have police escorts, helicopters, and private jets to get her to the next destination. If a low-skill immigrant does eventually rise into the middle class, that’s another customer for a concert ticket. A pop star can make more money in a larger country even as the daily experience of the typical citizen is degraded by overcrowding.

The original Facebook post as an image:

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How are Brazilians doing now that they’ve eliminated the biggest threat to their democracy?

Here’s Jair Bolsonaro, characterized by media elites as “far right”, “authoritarian”, and “a threat to democracy”, in 2023 (from “Exiled Bolsonaro lives it up in Florida as legal woes grow back home” (Guardian)):

The Brazilian masses responded to elite advice and voted to preserve their democracy (50.9:49.1), but the threat wasn’t completely extinguished. “The Big Lie Is Going Global. We Saw It in Brazil.” (New York Times, November 14, 2022), for example:

Donald Trump’s playbook of poisoning the polity with misinformation … is being exported and deployed beyond the United States and becoming a transnational threat to democracy.

Mr. Trump’s methods were energetically adopted in Brazil by his authoritarian, right-wing friend Jair Bolsonaro, who pushed misinformation during his presidency, seeded distrust in the electoral system for years and, eventually, tried to discredit the electoral process in Brazil after losing the presidential election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva last month.

It’s bad enough when a threat to democracy speaks and even worse when he/she/ze/they doesn’t speak:

For more than 44 hours after his electoral defeat, Mr. Bolsonaro maintained a dangerous silence

So long as the government does not control all media and social media, democracy is unsafe:

The attempts of Mr. Bolsonaro and his supporters to create uncertainty about Brazil’s future could be the new global norm as would-be autocrats are embracing the Big Lie as a legitimate political strategy.

NYT, today, “How Brazil’s Experiment Fighting Fake News Led to a Ban on X”:

To combat disinformation, Brazil gave one judge broad power to police the internet.

That justice, Alexandre de Moraes, has since carried out an aggressive campaign to clean up his country’s internet, forcing social networks to pull down thousands of posts, often giving them a deadline of just hours to comply.

It has been one of the most comprehensive — and, in some ways, most effective — efforts to combat the scourge of internet falsehoods.

When his online crackdown helped stifle far-right efforts to overturn Brazil’s election, academics and commentators wondered whether the nation had found a possible solution to one of the most vexing problems of modern democracy.

Then, on Friday, Justice Moraes blocked the social network X across Brazil because its owner, Elon Musk, had ignored his court orders to remove accounts. As part of the blackout order, the judge said internet users who tried to circumvent his measure in order to keep using X could be fined nearly $9,000 a day, or more than what the average Brazilian makes a year.

Justice Moraes has continued to use the threat to democracy as a justification for his actions. In his order on Friday, he said Mr. Musk’s refusal to comply with orders to suspend accounts “represents an extremely serious risk to the municipal elections in October” in Brazil.

How else are Brazilians being protected from threats to their democracy? The current government has the opposition leader more or less under house arrest: “Brazil’s Bolsonaro must hand in his passport for coup investigation” (state-sponsored NPR, February 2024). Brazil is on the right side of history, according to the best minds of Harvard, Columbia, and Berkeley: “Brazil president withdraws his ambassador to Israel after criticizing the war in Gaza” (state-sponsored PBS, May 2024; “Lula has been a frequent critic of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which he compared to the Holocaust earlier this year.”). [Note that the “Holocaust” is being exacerbated by a population explosion.]

Some additional warnings that Brazilian voters heeded:

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Jewish Democrats in Illinois

Who’s been following the Democrats’ convention in Illinois? What have you learned? Here’s my favorite part:

I think the tweet to which I am responding is inaccurate, incidentally. The Obamas have at least four houses, not three, though one of them is a house in Chicago that might not qualify as a “mansion”. So my response:

“What do I have three mansions?” asked the expert on not consuming more than she needs, “Because I couldn’t afford four.”

perhaps should be

“What do I have four mansions?” asked [Michelle Obama,] the expert on not consuming more than she needs, “Because I couldn’t afford five.”

Related… On the way out of Oshkosh in July, I stopped to visit cousins who live in the northern suburbs of Chicago. They consider their biggest enemies to be white American Republicans, with Donald Trump as the worst of the worst. They spontaneously expressed disappointment that Trump hadn’t been killed earlier in July in Pennsylvania and certainly agreed with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris that Trump was an existential threat to America, Americans, and American democracy. They were afraid to go into Chicago due to crime (see Keeping the faith in Chicago for my report on the 2023 visit), but don’t blame the Democrats who run the state and city for what they perceive as a decline. They refuse to go to a Democrat-run city in Texas where a grandchild lives because they’re afraid of encountering a Republican there. The synagogue around the corner from their house has the following sign on the front lawn:

They had been all-in for the not-senile-at-all Joe Biden a week prior to our visit, but were all-in on Kamala Harris while we shared coffee (outdoors, of course, because their level of coronapanic is still at least Code Yellow; they were refraining from seeing an elderly parent, even outdoors, because there had been some recent positive COVID tests in his senior community).

What I found most interesting was that the groundswell of Democrat support for the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”) and the destruction of Israel hadn’t shaken their faith in white native-born Republicans as their biggest and most dangerous enemies. As we got closer to Chicago, the percentage of people wearing Islamic headgear steadily increased. Yet these senior citizen Jews didn’t see the young rapidly growing Muslim population of the Midwest as a sign that Jews would one day be as unwelcome in Illinois as they are in the typical Muslim country. (If present demographic trends continue, their neighborhood will become majority Muslim. How would the neighbors feel about having to drive/walk by the above Rainbow Flag with Star of David while on their way to the mosque? See “‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags” (Guardian) for a story about Hamtramck, Michigan)

Separately, speaking of coronapanic, here are a couple of photos from the O’Hare airport:

We see the apparently young and healthy wearing masks. We see a Follower of Science wearing an N95-style mask over his/her/zir/their full beard, contrary to the manufacturer’s instructions. We see a slender youth wearing a basic mask in hopes of avoiding an infection that kills obese Americans at a median age of 82.

Related:

  • “New Study Looks into Strengths, Needs of Muslims in Illinois” (WTTW, 2022): Illinois is home to more than 350,000 Muslims. According to a new study, that makes the state No. 1 in the country for Muslims per capita. … Researchers found that Muslims in Illinois were the youngest and most diverse faith community in the state and the country. The sample in the study were racially and ethnically diverse. About half of the sample was born outside of the U.S. and a sizable number speak languages other than English at home. … Researchers also found that Muslims in Illinois were also highly politically active and civically engaged. 75% of the sample is registered to vote with an additional 16% expressing an intention to register.
  • “For Convention Goers in Chicago, the Issue of Migrants Comes Into Full View” (New York Times): Around downtown, migrants are not sleeping overnight on the sidewalks, they say, and some are staying in hotels that have been converted into shelters. A large number appear to be living in apartments that they obtained with government housing assistance, commuting downtown each day to sell candy and earn cash. Very few have English skills or official work authorization, leaving them in a limbo of illegal street vending that is often ignored by police officers. “It’s a totally different look for downtown,” said Annie Gomberg, a volunteer who works with migrants. “We’re not used to seeing mothers and children standing on the street selling candy and water.” … “We have had issues that involved having a lot of single males without a whole lot to do outside,” he said. “So we certainly have gotten lots of complaints involving drug use, catcalling, as well as some prostitution.”
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Our democracy is threatened by Democrats (says Cori Bush)

For at least eight years we have been informed for by Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, the New York Times, et al., that Republicans will end our democracy (see Why do the non-Deplorables deplore the Trump shooting?). Yesterday, however, I saw something new. A Democrat in a primary election says that if a fellow Democrat is elected that will end our democracy:

Unfortunately, democracy lost yesterday and it will be a different Democrat representing this district in Congress (at least until democracy is ended, as predicted, and Congress is dissolved). The Hamas-supporting politician says that the loss will “radicalize” her:

(Click through to Mona Eltahawy’s profile: “she/her” and “Cairo/New York”)

What does a radicalized ex-member of Congress do next? Can she become a lobbyist as so many former politicians have? Her job would be highlighting to Ilhan Omar, AOC, and Rashida Tlaib some additional progressive causes to fund?

Here’s her successful opponent, Wesley Bell, on the most impactful issue of our time:

The St. Louis region has been enriched and strengthened by generations of immigrants choosing to start new lives in our community. But for decades, Washington politicians have kicked the can down the road instead of actually coming together and tackling this issue. It’s time for comprehensive immigration reform that addresses current challenges and prepares for the future as well.

We need to work toward finding the appropriate balance in creating a system that ensures safety and security at the border, while also treating people with dignity and respect, and honoring the rights of asylum seekers. A pathway to citizenship must be established for those who are already here, working hard, and paying taxes. We need to ensure that our country is protected from MS-13 gang members, drug traffickers, and terrorists. You can count on me to fight to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security has adequate funding to serve our country.

I can’t figure out how this kind of statement, which seems to be standard at least for Democrats, is convincing to American voters. He implies that he will limit the number of low-skill migrants (“appropriate balance”) and in the same sentence talks about “honoring the rights of asylum seekers”. Yet under our present laws, the right to seek asylum is without limit and, thus, the only way to honor the rights of asylum seekers is to have unlimited low-skill immigration.

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A Constitutional amendment to impose an age limit of 67 on the President?

An immigrant physician friend, simply based on videos that she watched in 2020, diagnosed Joe Biden with dementia four years ago and referred to him as “the senile puppet” long before the New York Times editorial board noticed that anything was wrong. Democrats now believe that Joe Biden’s cognitive abilities are insufficient to handle the job of U.S. President. Democrats also hate Donald Trump and there are at least some Republicans who prefer Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley to Mr. Trump.

I wonder if these groups could get together and do a quickie amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would impose a mandatory retirement age of 67 (the current Social Security full retirement age for those born after 1960) on the job. We need three-fourths of the states to ratify such an amendment and then both the Republicans and Democrats would have to nominate younger politicians for the November election.

We’ve already got a minimum of 35:

Why not a maximum?

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Jamaal Bowman, art, and Hitler

International Jewry is responsible for Dr. Jamaal Bowman, Ed. D.’s recent defeat in New York. The Hill:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) slammed American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) for pouring tens of millions into fellow Democratic New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s divisive primary race Wednesday after Bowman lost the primary to a more moderate Democrat.

Bowman, a second-term progressive, faced tough opposition from the pro-Israel political advocacy group AIPAC because of his criticism of the Israeli government.

Who else had superior ideals and blamed International Jewry for obstructions to their implementation? From The Women Who Flew for Hitler:

Over tea that afternoon, Hitler once again ‘leapt up in a fit of frenzy, with foam on his lips, and shouted that he would have revenge on all traitors’. Interrupted by a call from Berlin, he screamed orders ‘to shoot anyone and everyone’ before announcing, ‘I’m beginning to doubt whether the German people are worthy of my great ideals.’ [this was following the aristocratic assassination and military coup attempt against Germany’s democratically elected leader]

Blaming the war on Jewish incitement, and defeat on the betrayal of his officers, Hitler ended his last statement with the injunction that his successors should ‘above all else, uphold the racial laws in all their severity, and mercilessly resist the universal poisoner of all nations: international Jewry’. [from the bunker]

In one of the few parts of Porto that isn’t mobbed with tourists, maybe due to the outrageous-by-Portuguese-standards 24 euro entry price for the Serralves Foundation (mercifully free for the kids), I found the following artistic collaboration between Yayoi Kusama and Dr. Jamaal Bowman, Ed. D.:

Kusama is 95. It’s a shame that she wasn’t born in the U.S. or she could run for President.

Circling back to Dr. Jamaal Bowman, Ed. D., could the reason that progressive Democrats haven’t managed to take control of the entire U.S. be that Americans aren’t worthy of great ideals, e.g., stopping climate change, providing asylum to 8+ billion humans if they want it, ending homelessness, liberating Al-Quds and establishing a river-to-the-sea Palestinian state, a living wage for everyone who attempts to work, eliminating the acquisition of unnecessary wealth, etc.?

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30 years of Republican cuts to the food stamp (SNAP/EBT) program

From the member of the U.S. Congress who called for “river to the sea” liberation of Palestine after the October 7 Hamas/UNRWA/Palestinian Islamic Jihad victory:

There have been previous cuts. The program has been gutted. A yet larger cut is forthcoming unless everyone votes for Democrats.

After 30 years of “cuts” to this program that is part of what used to be called “welfare”, how has the number of beneficiaries changed?

USDA publishes data from 1969 through 2023 regarding the number of Americans who are dependent on their brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters who pay taxes. Based on the table below, the number of dependents has grown from 2.9 million in 1969 to 42 million in 2023:

How does it work in practice? Here’s a tutorial video:

Note that this post is not an argument against taxpayers being forced to provide for those who wisely elect to refrain from work. It is about the subtlety of the American progressive mind, in which people can believe and say that a government program has been “cut” or “gutted” while spending on that program grows.

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