Oklahoma Repubs Facebook post refers to SNAP recipients as 'animals' [View all]

[Panich52]

ThinkProgress

The Oklahoma Republican Party is making the case against food stamps by comparing poor people to animals, reviving a stereotype that’s often deployed against Americans who rely on government benefits to feed their families.

In a Facebook post published Monday night, the Oklahoma GOP suggested that the millions of Americans receiving food stamps this year should not be enrolled in the program because “the animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves.”

Opponents of maintaining state and federal funding for social safety net programs have a long history of making comparisons between government beneficiaries and animals, which is widely considered to be a racially coded insult.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich once said that the current welfare system is “turning children into young animals and they are killing each other.” A GOP congressional candidate in Texas, meanwhile, compared welfare beneficiaries to donkeys.

The “don’t feed the animals” meme in particular is popular among GOP candidates. In 2012, a Minnesota state representative made nearly the exact same comparison while making the case that less money should be allocated to food stamps. In 2010, a Republican candidate for governor in South Carolina criticized food stamps by saying his grandmother “told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals” because “they breed.” Both later apologized.

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http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/07/14/3680185/food-stamp-oklahoma-gop/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tptop3&elqTrack=true&elqTrackId=cbc65abb445e4e109871e54dfec4fcc6&elqaid=26344&elqat=1