As the man most likely to someday usurp Rep. Louie Gohmert's throne as America's Dumbest Congressman, Wisconsin's Rep. Glenn Grothman has some mighty big shoes to fill. I think he's
up to the challenge.
Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) reportedly said at a town hall in his district last week that constituents should monitor purchases made with debit cards from Food Share, which is Wisconsin's name for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Grothman "told the people in attendance to keep an eye on the types of things people on Food Share buy at the grocery store," Oshkosh Northwestern Media reported Monday.
Because that's what poor Americans really need, to have the whole store looking over their shoulder when they're buying groceries, looking to see if there's anything there that Congressman Glenn Grothman needs to know about. Don't you think you should be buying generic-brand rice, not the fancy stuff? Do your kids
really need romaine lettuce? What the hell's wrong with iceberg? A bag of chips? You. Monster.
Yeah, that will make everything better.
It's not clear what problem dispatching these eagle-eyed Grothman Junior Rangers is meant to solve. You are already not allowed to buy certain things with SNAP benefits—cigarettes, for example—and the stores themselves are very familiar with the rules. The purpose seems to be silently (hopefully silently) judging people for the sake of doing that, in order to make life in poverty just that much more humiliating for families needing the help.
Is it Gohmertian dumb, though? Hmm. It's getting there. It has the right mix of rigorously enforced paranoia and general seething hostility toward less-"worthy" Americans, and his solution, which is effectively to just be an ass to people in public for no discernible end other than being an ass, is a fine attempt at pointless, belligerent stupidity. Yes, I'd say he's definitely worth our continued attentions.
