With Halloween having already passed last Friday, more news on Trump’s lavish party thrown in its celebration has been released to the press. While the president’s decorative and public displays of wealth are nothing new, public outrage has sparked in response to this particular event due to it’s tone-deaf, even humiliating timing. With the Roaring Twenties inspired party occurring just hours before millions of Americans would lose their SNAP benefits, denying working-class families food aid. The theme of the party was in reference to 2013 film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby , with the White House officially phrasing it as, “A little party never killed nobody.”
Guests were seen dressed extravagantly in 1920’s attires, with notable attendees being Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ivanka & Tiffany Trump, alongside her husband Michael Boulos. The Great Gatsby has long been celebrated across literary circles as masterfully demonstrating the division of wealth that took place during the Great Depression, a comparison that democrats have begun pointing out.
Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin stated that, “Last night [Halloween night], Trump made it even clearer that he doesn’t even give a damn about anyone but himself and his little rich friends.”
Amaya-Aniston Dela Cruz, a Freshman at Eleanor Roosevelt High School , also offered her own insight as an American citizen watching the events unfold, saying that, “It is really ridiculous and scary how they are allowed to do these things without any guilt or consequences.”
In response to the criticism, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly completely dismissed them, responding in a statement that, “These Democrats are full of it. . .President Trump has consistently called on them to do the right thing and reopen the government, which they could do at any time.”
While the Democrats and Republicans continue to go on accusing each other, the one reality that the American people will have to face is how they will continue to feed one another. Without SNAP, about 41.7 million families will have to make the difficult choice of either buying groceries, or paying the rent. one in eight families depend on this program. According to the SNAP director for FRAC (or Food Research and Action Center, Gina Plata-Nino, “For families living paycheck to paycheck, recovering from this setback will be nearly impossible . . .”
In order to aid our struggling countrymen across America, possible organizations that you could donate to include Give Directly, Feeding America, and The Salvation Army.
