President-elect Donald Trump has not moved back into the White House, but Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is already reaching out to his administration with a masterfully cruel plan to fat-shame and poor-shame her constituents at the same time.
Sanders penned a letter to raw milk afficionado and likely future U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with a crack idea to police the diets of people dependent on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Her letter also went to Brooke Rollins, presumptive secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The gist of her missive, which she shared with New York-based Fox News at least an hour before alerting local media per usual, is a rehash of the age-old conservative mantra that public funds should not pay for lifestyle choices with which blowhards disagree.
Sanders also took to X to spread the news.
President @realDonaldTrump, @BrookeLRollins, and @RobertKennedyJr are committed to Making America Healthy Again.
Mr. President: It’s time to end taxpayer-funded junk food in food stamps. pic.twitter.com/nIlQjLHugl
— Sarah Huckabee Sanders (@SarahHuckabee) December 11, 2024
The letter itself suggests that SNAP not only allows needy families to eat unhealthy diets, but encourages it somehow.
As you know, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a $113 billion federal program designed to support low-income families with food assistance. Unfortunately, this “Nutrition Assistance” program is undermining the health of millions of Americans, on the taxpayer’s dime, by encouraging families to eat highly processed, unhealthy junk food.
In fact, soda, unhealthy snacks, candy, and dessert account for nearly 23 percent, or $25 billion, of all SNAP purchases. Given the relationship between junk food and poor health, our federal food assistance policies are fueling obesity, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and a wide range of chronic health conditions across America.
To be fair, there’s no doubt unhealthy foods make for unhealthy people. The Trump administration wants better for us, Sanders said. Disqualifying processed, sugary foods from SNAP “offers a great opportunity for Americans to support Arkansas farmers by enjoying Arkansas-grown and harvested poultry, eggs, beef, pecans, peanuts, soy, strawberries, sweet potatoes, rice, peaches, oats, and more.”
The governor has legitimate expertise on the benefits of shifting to an Arkansas-grown diet. Sanders herself is looking great after abandoning the fast-paced Washington, D.C., lifestyle for the wholesomeness of home. Was it a switch to Arkansas-grown meals of locally raised pecans and peaches that rendered her so svelte?
Arkansas’s work requirements to access SNAP benefits can leave recipients without loads of free time for scratch cooking. But full-time working mom Sanders pulls it off (with the help of a stay-at-home spouse and a taxpayer-funded chef, mind you).
Indeed, motherhood is a theme in her letter. While Sanders has made sure Arkansas remains the only state to withhold Medicaid to qualifying new mothers for the year after they give birth, she suggests to Kennedy and Rollins that perhaps fresh eggs and vegetables would be just as good:
As a mom of three, I have made improving maternal health outcomes one of my key priorities as governor. But we will never address our maternal health challenges unless we tackle chronic health conditions, like diabetes and obesity, that dramatically increase the risk of pregnancy complications. For example, one-third of our state has diabetes or pre-diabetes. Forty percent of our state struggles with obesity. Sadly, these health conditions disproportionately affect lower-income families—the same people who rely on SNAP for food.
A rousing MAGA-themed send-off enlists Kennedy and Rollins in a lofty campaign to force a whole foods diet on poor people. “Together we can, and we will, Make America Healthy Again,” she wrote.
Make America Healthy Again starts TOMORROW. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/LLzr5S9ugf
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 17, 2024
You may be experiencing some cognitive dissonance here thinking about Trump’s famously McDonald’s-heavy diet, or the recent snap of RFK Jr., Elon Musk, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Donald Trump Jr. sharing fast food burgers with the president-elect aboard his private plane.
Chalk it up as proof that for a lot of MAGA types, rules are for thee, not for me. Freedom isn’t free, you know. If you can’t pay for it yourself, you can do without.
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Publish date : 2024-12-11 05:26:00
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