Eric the Blue

The occasion for the above social media post by Mike Davis, a Trump enthusiast and former law clerk to Neil Gorsuch, is reporting about how the shutdown will end Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments starting November 1. I think I detect a whiff of racial bigotry and so would just like to point out that his opinion is, shall we say, over-simple. Here is a list of the hundred counties in the country with the highest rates of SNAP beneficiaries. A casual scanning reveals, for example, that 3 of the top 14 are in West Virginia, a tiny state and one of the whitest. If you’re in the habit of reading Wikipedia articles about counties, you know that there is invariably a “demographics” section and a “politics” section. I’ve devoted a half hour or so to reading the Wiki articles on these West Virginia counties, and you keep coming to passages like:

The racial makeup of the county was [in the 2010 census] 98.8 percent white. . . . Like most of West Virginia, Clay County was reliably Democratic through the 20th century, but it has shifted to being sharply Republican in recent years.

Indeed. The article includes a table of the presidential vote in the county over the years, and Trump has never won less than 76% of the ballots. In 2024 he got just over 80%. The other two West Virginia counties among the top 14 for SNAP participation are McDowell and Mingo. McDowell County is 85% white and voted for Trump over Harris by 79 to 19 percent. The article notes, too, that McDowell has the lowest life expectancy of any county in the country–63.5 years for males, 71.5 for women. Mingo County is 97% white and voted for Trump over Harris by 86 to 13 percent.

Is any state better represented on this list than Kentucky? Partly this must be on account of having a lot of counties (120), so that a belt of poverty results in more poor counties. Still, of the hundred counties with the highest percentage of residents receiving SNAP benefits, it’s notable that 15 are in Kentucky. I started reading the Wikipedia articles about them, too, but quit when it soon got boring. It’s the same story as in West Virginia.

I don’t mean to pick on the people of Appalachia. They have enough trouble without a world-famous blogger like me piling on. In their favor, however, is that no Trumpistas are of the opinion that their food insecurity should be attributed to their feckless ways, their promiscuity, their ghetto lives, and their generally “shitty culture.” I’m sure Mike Davis is one of those who thinks that, with liberals, “it’s always about race.” Actually, every accusation is a confession.