Again: Newt knows exactly what he is doing.
My family was on food stamps for some time when I was a kid. I know if some presidential candidate at that time had called the current president "the best food stamp president in American history," that would've told me right away that person wasn't in my corner. Presidents don't "put" people on food stamps; you apply for them because you need them, not because the government made you do it. Not having the money to afford enough to eat can be humiliating; the fact that government assistance exists to get you through it isn't. It amazes me anyone would think this is a good way to make a pitch to poor people that your economic plan will provide a living wage for more people than the incumbent's. I'm guessing most people defending Gingrich on this have never been on food stamps, and aren't involved with anyone who is. People on food stamps aren't sitting around fuming about how their SNAP card is a disingenuous and insulting I.O.U. from the government for taking their job away.
"This is the best food stamp president in history. So more Americans now get food stamps therefore and we now give it away as cash. You don’t get food stamps. You get a credit card and the credit card can be used for anything. We’ve had people take their food stamp money and use it to go to Hawaii. And you know, they give food stamps now to millionaires. Because after all, don’t you want to be compassionate? You know the Obama model, isn’t there somebody you’d like to give money to this week?"
--Gingrich at a campaign stop in Iowa, Nov. 30 2011 (source:
PolitiFact, which rated it "Pants on Fire")
Yeah. I can just hear the heartfelt priority placed on the difficulties of the poor coming through there...oh, wait! He was only talking about food stamp
fraud! So really, he was just expressing solidarity with all the people
truly in need who Obama's f*ing over by giving all his millionaire friends SNAP cards!
That's all setting aside the case for racial undertones in Gingrich's fondness for this phrasing.
Most historians would agree that
one reason why debates over the welfare state are especially polarized in the US is because of our troubled racial history, which among other things predisposes many Americans, in particular many older Southern white people, to reflexively picture a black person first when the notion of 'the undeserving poor' is explictly or implicitly invoked.
Obviously, this doesn't mean all proposed welfare reforms are racist, or that a given proposed reform mightn't genuinely be in poor African-Americans' longterm best interests. It also doesn't mean that just because certain white voters heard a nudge-nudge-wink-wink towards some of their cruder populist impulses in some turn of phrase, that all other white voters who found the comment sensible liked it for the same reason. To my ear, yes, "best food stamp president in history," as repeatedly leveled at our first black president who is very popular with black voters, sounds like it's intentionally including those "certain white voters" in its support target sights. I grew up in Gingrich's corner of the country, I know that a certain segment of the white population there (and elsewhere, but in smaller numbers) are uncommonly delighted by slogans like that, I know why they are and I think he's plenty savvy enough to know too.
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