Paul Krugman makes this interesting point in his Substack column “The Hunger Games Begin.”

Consider, for example, Owsley County in Kentucky. The county is 96 percent white, and last year it cast 88 percent of its votes for Trump. Also, 37 percent of residents are on SNAP.

So, by refusing to maintain food aid, Republicans are hurting many of their own supporters.

The map above from the Herald Leader and used to illustrate a story in Kentucky Health News shows how bad things are. Owsley County is represented by Hal Rogers in the 5th congressional district. Hal has represented the Eastern Kentucky district since 1981, and surely by now he knows there is poverty and hunger there. But he’s a toady who believes it’s better to protect a corrupt, racist, xenophobic, rapist pedophile monster than feed children.

Rogers got 100 percent of the vote in his district in 2024 with the backing of AIPAC and the NRA, meaning he’s being paid to support bombing Palestinian children and ignore school shooters.

Which brings us to the real problem here. It’s not Rogers. It’s not even the Orange Menace.

It’s the voters in Rogers district. They made this choice even though 37 percent of them are on food stamps.

According to Census Reporter, about a quarter of the people in the district live in poverty, which is 1.5 times that of the rest of the state. 34 percent of its children and 18 percent of its seniors live in poverty. Its median household income is $44,175, only three fifths of the amount found in the overall United States.

Every voter in that district is responsible for the coming starvation of its children. Because they’re MAGAts who were happy to vote for a con man who “Speaks his mind and says what I’m thinking.”

It’s also a problem in the rest of the state, although there’s been a slight improvement. According to the Kentucky Lantern:

Poverty is down in Kentucky, new federal data shows, though the percent of Kentuckians living in poverty exceeds the national average and the state is the nation’s 46th poorest.

The American Community Survey (ACS), released by the United States Census Bureau last week, shows 15.6% of Kentuckians lived in poverty last year, more than the 10.6% rate in the United States. That’s an improvement from 2023, when 16.4% of Kentuckians lived in poverty. 

Child poverty levels are at 19%, down from 22% four years ago. Kentuckians also made more money in 2024 than in 2023. The state’s median household income was $64,526. That lags national median income by about $16,000 but is up from $61,118 in 2023.

Within Kentucky, disparities persist across racial groups and regions. Median income for Kentucky’s Black households was $47,881 in 2024, compared with $66,749 for white households. The poverty rate for people in Eastern Kentucky’s 5th Congressional District was 24.3% in 2024, compared to 15.6% for the state as a whole, reports the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.

Yet given the opportunity, I’m sure the folks in the 5th District would vote the same way in coming elections.

“The Hunger Games” analogy in Krugman’s headline works well. If there’s ever a reaping by “The Capital,” Owsley County would be in District 12.

But even District 12 showed it would never support people who want them to starve to death.