In the contest for “Most Awful Member of Donald Trump‘s Cabinet,” you’d assume that Jeff Sessions, the bigoted twerp now serving as attorney general, would be a shoo-in. Suddenly, however, Mick Mulvaney has darted from out of the deepest, meanest darkness of severe right-wing dogma to become the new favorite for awfulest of them all.
Mulvaney, a former Tea Party Congress critter from South Carolina, was plucked from obscurity to become Trump’s budget director – and chief demonizer of America’s poor people. The budget he wrote for The Donald savages such effective anti-poverty programs as food stamps, Medicaid, and job training, in order to pay for massive, unneeded, and unproductive tax cuts for America’s pampered 1-percenters.
But that’s not the only reason they want to clobber the poor, for Mulvaney sees himself as the wrathful enforcer of the Holy Work Ethic, a Dickensian character whose job it is to punish the poor for being, in his view, a morally bankrupt class of slothful moochers. The Trump budget is all about “compassion,” he declaims – explaining that it shows compassion for the poor by compelling them
to get a job in order to end their so-called “shame” of accepting public assistance, rather than “taking charge of their own lives.” Never mind that most able-bodied adults getting poverty aid already work or are looking for a job – Mulvaney mindlessly barks, “We need people to go to work.”
No, Mick, we need you to go get a clue about the harsh realities of living in poverty – including having to endure constant condescension from judgmental jerks like you who smugly condemn a food-stamp family while drawing a six-figure salary from taxpayers, plus health coverage, a rich pension, and a chauffeured limousine.
Congratulations, you’re the awfulest of the awful.
This article appears in June 9 • 2017.