Millions of hungry people are going to be opening up their food boxes from the Farmers to Families program in coming weeks and finding a letter from Donald Trump. The Agriculture Department is now requiring the thinly veiled campaign flyers to be included in the food boxes, to the horror of many food banks.
“In my 30 years of doing this work, I've never seen something this egregious,” Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Food Banks, told Politico. "These are federally purchased boxes.”
One Oregon food bank pulled out of the Farmers to Families program in part because of the letters, noting in a statement that “there are real questions as to whether food assistance organizations can ethically distribute such a message with an election looming in mere weeks.”
Other food banks are consulting lawyers to be sure they won't get in trouble for elections activity, or seeing volunteers quit because of the letters, or racing to remove the letters from the boxes one by one before handing them out. Or cleaning up the litter when food box recipients immediately toss the letter.
The letter doesn’t mention the election, but the message is clear: DONALD TRUMP is responsible for your family being fed. Obviously it also doesn’t mention that Trump has stood in the way of renewed coronavirus economic relief that might ease the desperate need for government food boxes. It also misrepresents CDC guidelines on preventing the spread of COVID-19, downplaying the importance of mask-wearing in line with Trump’s personal preferences.
There is nothing Trump won't do to try to win, and apparently no part of the government he won’t exploit to boost himself personally. Whether it’s leveraging the government to appeal to the desperation of hungry families or threatening the integrity of the elections themselves, Trump’s dictatorial aspirations keep coming to the fore.