I mean this reaction to poverty is not even mocking, or laughing. The have-nots hate the haves just for being themselves, glorious, glossy and rich; thus the haves needn’t, and won’t, even acknowledge that the have-nots exist, those gap-toothed ignorant peasants in their gross marabou-free clothes. They need to shut up, control themselves. Calm down.

A new study suggests that one reason seniors are more conservative politically than younger cohorts of Americans is that poorer people don’t live as long and suffer from health conditions that inhibit voting and other forms of political activity.

What also makes O’Connor’s article so troubling is that he wraps the usual scurrilous myths about SNAP in a veneer of health promotion — a framing that’s sure to win over some left-leaning readers who’d otherwise recoil at the usual trumped-up claims about food stamps. Yet in the end, O’Connor’s health paternalism doesn’t just run aground morally, but empirically: the study provides no evidence that SNAP encourages soda purchasing, and no evidence that SNAP funds (as opposed to personal funds) were used to buy soft drinks. O’Connor writes a lot about sugar, and not much about social policy. So perhaps his main target here is the sugar industry. If so, he has thrown millions of food-insecure Americans — most of whom work or have significant disabilities — under the bus to advance his agenda. Just as political attacks on social protections are on the rise, the article panders to the worst stereotypes of “welfare,” ignoring the SNAP program’s many successes. In the process, it tells people who imagine the worst about food stamps that they’ve been right all along. Facts be damned.

In this debate (which I guess it is now), the participants actually agree on the basic principle that: you should support a woman over a man for president provided that her views aren’t really bad. The only thing we disagree on is whether the proviso at the end of that principle is satisfied here. I think Hillary’s actions and views about the poor are so egregious that they should disqualify her from our support (especially where there is a better candidate out there). Others don’t think they are egregious enough to warrant disqualification.

‘The Republican position on inequality rests on five statements, all false.’