By Nancy Colasurdo
Yes, yes, put the bananas in the shopping cart.
Oh, look, ground beef is on sale.
A loaf of bread goes a long way, so yes.
Waiting in line at the register and she’s eyeing the candy bars.
“SNAP can’t be used for junk,” the cashier says.
Whoa, what?
Enter the big beautiful bill. Depending on the state, lots of changes are afoot, including work requirements to qualify for assistance.
The poverty police have taken charge and we’re just starting to see what it will look like. Put the Milky Way down. If you’re going to use my tax dollars, it better be for lettuce, bitch.
We know this brand of person in real life, right? They’re the ones who talk about so-and-so because she claims to be in a tight spot financially, but hey, my neighbor saw her in the McDonald’s drive-through. Junk food! The audacity. They could stretch their dollars with produce.
Or they latch on to the story of the homeless person they saw with – wait for it – an iPhone! Imagine that. Do you know how much they cost?
Let me ask you this. If you suddenly became homeless, would you give up your iPhone? It’s your literal connection to jobs, information on programs/resources, loved ones. Wouldn’t you hold on to it as long as you could? It could be the key to righting your ship.
The poverty police, according to them, are the only ones who earned what they have. You made a well-intentioned but ultimately bad decision? Mass layoffs at your job when you were just starting to build your savings? Not their problem. Why should they pay for it?
This is a world view I’m very familiar with. It’s one I grew up with and it’s also one I’m proud of shedding. It has taken me years of vigilant work to undo a lot of conditioning.
This is partly coming up for me right now because some of the SNAP changes are taking effect and I’ve been reading articles and watching videos about them, but also because I just spent a vacation week with family at the Jersey Shore in a county that is overwhelmingly MAGA. The prevailing mindset is they’ll give you the shirt off their back if they know you. Generous to a fault.
But if they don’t know you? Creeping paranoia about others taking from them. “They” and “them” and “those people” are not deserving of that same generosity. It explains why they’re so threatened by people who aren’t legal U.S. citizens – they’re stealing everything from jobs to votes to government handouts, after all.
Sometimes it’s like looking in a mirror that reflects back my image from 40 years ago. I never questioned Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queen” disparagements back then; I voted for him twice. I took a lot at face value. While it embarrasses me now, I’m grateful to have experienced a perspective shift in the 1990s (I was in my 30s).
To be clear, I’m not casting this as right vs. wrong. But I am definitely casting it as right for me vs. wrong for me. And I am suggesting that rather than politics, as it’s so often categorized, it involves diverging morals and a different capacity for empathy.
On the street where we’ve vacationed most of the last two decades, there is a house with a large flagpole out front. The top flag is our beautiful stars and stripes. Under it is a white flag that reads “socialism” but with a red circle and line through it.
No sharing!
You’re taking my job, my benefits … who are you?
Nope.
I am happy to have broken that pattern for myself. How can I enjoy life if I’m dwelling on what people are taking from me? (When it’s not even true!). I cannot imagine living in that prison.
Call me crazy, but I think sometimes the person who relies on SNAP needs that Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Like needs it.
And I’m just fine with my tax dollars paying for it.
Love this. The ability to right a personal wrong is so key.
I just recently learned about a phenomenon called the "Backfire Effect", which refers to when individuals confronted with information that challenges their beliefs actually become more convinced of their original stance, rather than changing. This is MAGA in a nutshell.