Gaither Campaign for Rural America

President Trump, like growing numbers of most elected Republicans and supporters of this administration I’ve been blessed to know, have extreme double standards when it comes to the U.S. Constitution and any form of definable ideology when it comes to government and how it interacts with the American people, business, the states and healthcare.

For those of us on the other side of a Republican talking point, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

These are the Republican tools of government when it suits their purposes:

‘Regulate it. Control it. Stamp it out. Starve it of resources. Deny it access to the markets.’

And, make sure that no one sees yourself as the double standard, few discernible values, questionable ethics, loose moral standing person, party and movement that you happen to be part of at this moment.

The Republican Party has only been heading in this direction my entire life. That’s not to say that y’all aren’t good people.

Good people like Republicans and Trump supporters are very willing to cut food stamps (SNAP) while increasing tax cuts for the wealthiest corporate farms in America.

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When the economy literally goes where it hasn’t gone since the Great Depression, it’s a struggle to get food stamps back on the bargaining table for many Republicans. And, food stamps literally is the most successful government program in existence.

I don’t care about people whining and complaining about people buying whatever food they want with food stamps. Yes, listening to these people whine and complain is the biggest cost to increasing food stamps and feeding hungry people in America.

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Imagine how lucky it is. At any moment, we could have a new administration take over the White House, and willy nilly cut the food that helps feed the family, all because someone has a shitty story about seeing someone use food stamps to buy something they could eat.

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Imagine if I had a job, had the skills and the training to do that job, had the education provided not by public schools alone but by a family and community that actually made certain I knew what I needed to know after every year. Imagine that.

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Imagine if I hadn’t been hungry when I went to school every morning, and to bed every night. Someone is always coming in to eat our food. Food is always shared by good people.

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That’s what makes throwing it away so painful and such a loss when the government could pay these farmers and construct an efficient system that would transport that food to hungry people, since apparently the private sector cannot figure out something sensible on its own.

We haven’t paid to make an efficient government system in this country in decades. That’s why most agencies use such ancient computers. That’s why it often seems as if these agencies don’t work well with one another for our benefit.

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And, yet, Americans love telling shitty stories about their neighbors, apparently.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we started giving a damn about them instead?

We care enough about farmers to give corporate farms nearly all the bailout money, and we should care about farmers. We should care more about farmers to get the bailout right.

There is no reason a corporate farm should get the same percentage assistance as a small farmer. It doesn’t make any sense.

Smaller farms have higher costs, can’t negotiate prices, can’t purchase suppliers, I could go on. It’s why small farms have been disappearing for decades. Income inequality comes in many forms. It’s not just about individuals. It’s about business.

But, a pandemic happens, and all of a sudden, everybody around here is a public health expert, a doctor and doesn’t need to respect the law, the order or each other.

I will not like when those lessons come back to bite us all. 
And, they will.

The problem with double standard living as a nation is that no one respects our word, no one respects our work, and no one respects our nation.

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That’s what we have now.

It was never more clear than it was when Trump blew up because Twitter gave him an asterisk.

If Trump didn’t know he deserved the asterisk, then the 25th Amendment should be invoked.

It’s a difficult world for a lot of people, including President Trump. He’s got a tough job, many jobs, actually.

Especially after getting rid of the pandemic response team in 2018 didn’t work out so well for so many.

One of Trump’s jobs shouldn’t be lying to us.

Our top job should be to make sure we’re not lying to ourselves.

(Image: Graphemica)