And although government aid to the poor was not always stigmatized as it is today — in the wake of the Depression when blacks were largely barred from such programs (and whites didn’t mind when it was only people like us reaping the benefits) — today the racialization of welfare has assured a far less tolerant stance towards those in need.

And this it has done, despite all the evidence to suggest that virtually everything the right-wing says about welfare recipients is false. So while reactionary rock stars like Ben Shapiro enjoy pithily telling leftists “facts don’t care about your feelings,” it appears that the bigger problem is…

Conservatives don’t much care about facts.
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Though we are sadly and frighteningly living in a post-truth era, where facts have been rendered mere trivialities on the road to Trumpist fanaticism, perhaps there are still enough among the nation to insist that reality matters. And perhaps these may even now stand and push back against the scapegoating, the fear-mongering and the inherent dishonesty that animates the conservative American worldview on matters of poverty, need and government assistance.

Another local branch of the Republican Party appears to be forging ties with the far-right “Proud Boys” street gang which regularly engages in acts of political violence across the country.

On Wednesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was attending an event in southern Florida for congressional candidate Donna Shalala at a Democratic Party campaign office. As Pelosi arrived, the Proud Boys and others circles around her but she was quickly guided inside a backdoor entrance by staff and security.

According to footage obtained by Splinter, Proud Boys members and Miami-Dade Republican Party Chair Nelson Diaz began shouting and pounding on the doors of the building. The mob rush eventually prompted a lock-down by both Capitol Police and local law enforcement.

Ahead of the midterm elections, Republicans are positioning themselves as members of the party that will protect people with pre-existing conditions. But this campaign strategy simply doesn’t match up with their voting record on health care.

“Republicans only will always protect patients with pre-existing conditions,” said President Donald Trump during a campaign rally for Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) over the weekend.

Meanwhile, the truth is Barr voted to weaken protections for people with pre-existing conditions five different times since he started representing Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District in 2013. And he’s hardly alone in voting that way.

Of the 73 Republicans in House races deemed competitive by the Cook Political Report, 67 voted at least once to eliminate Affordable Care Act (ACA) protections for people with pre-existing conditions, according to an analysis from the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Fifty-seven Republicans voted more than once to overturn these protections; 31 voted more than six times to overturn these protections; and 24 voted all nine opportunities they had to overturn these protections without replacing them with something comparable.

Flashback. July 5. Trump on Elizabeth Warren: "I will give you a million dollars to your favorite charity, paid for by Trump, if you take the test and it shows you're an Indian." (via Fox)