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.