Denying the existence of major issues in America seems to be a massive part of the GOP’s campaign to unseat President Barack Obama in the coming 2012 election, and foot soldiers like Sean Hannity are seeding misinformation and simplifying issues among low-information voters- with the shameful amount of hungry Americans as Hannity’s latest target of derision.
Having to listen to someone with absolutely no understanding of an issue they subsequently deem to be not a problem is frustrating, and Hannity admits to never having gone to bed hungry. But still, despite raking in millions each year via his TV and radio hosting gigs, Hannity is totally fine with saying that feeding the poor isn’t all that much of a problem and shouldn’t be much of a concern.
Earlier this week on his show, Hannity engaged in the popular GOP pastime of ragging on the poor, saying things like fresh fruits and veggies are a nice luxury, but presumably not essential when contrasted with things like keeping taxes on the rich super low compared to the poor. The conservative talking head claims to know some poor people who can’t afford real food, and they do just fine on rice and beans:
“I don’t believe people are going to bed hungry… For, instance I have friends of mine who eat rice and beans all the time. Beans protein, rice. Inexpensive. You can make a big pot of this for a week for negligible amounts of money and you can feed your whole family.”
Hannity continued:
“Look, you should have vegetables and fruit in there as well, but if you need to survive you can survive off it. It’s not ideal but you could get some cheap meat and throw in there as well for protein. There are ways to live really, really cheaply.”
With one in seven American families requiring food stamps to eat, now is not the time to downplay the issue of hunger in America. Yes, all those Americans can subsist solely on rice and beans, but is that the kind of country people other than Sean Hannity and his ilk want to live in?
