from Closer to the Edge (thanks to Pam P)
You couldn’t script irony this sharp if you tried. On October 31, 2025, as the federal government collapsed under the weight of its own indifference, Donald Trump threw a Great Gatsby-themed Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago — just hours before SNAP funding expired, cutting off food assistance for tens of millions of Americans.
The theme? “A little party never killed nobody.”
The timing? The exact moment the nation’s poor were being told they might not eat.
It’s hard to exaggerate how grotesque this is — a president hosting a champagne orgy of nostalgia for the Roaring Twenties while recreating the exact class divide Fitzgerald wrote about. It’s not “The Great Gatsby” anymore. It’s “The Great Gaslight.”
THE GREEN LIGHT AT THE END OF THE BUFFET TABLE
Imagine the scene: flappers in sequins, Ivanka’s pearls shimmering under chandelier light, Marco Rubio sweating through his tux like an understudy for moral bankruptcy. Trump stands there, basking in applause, looking out over a ballroom of decadence as if poverty were an abstract concept instead of a national emergency.
Meanwhile, in the real America — the one not gilded in Mar-a-Lago gold leaf — grocery carts sit half-empty, EBT cards flash “INSUFFICIENT FUNDS,” and parents start counting crackers to make a meal last till Monday.
The symbolism writes itself. The original Gatsby stared across the bay at a green light, reaching for a dream he could never touch. Trump’s green light was the glow of a neon bar sign reflected off the buffet trays, while 42 million hungry Americans looked at an empty fridge and saw nothing but darkness.
THE SPECTACLE OF STARVATION AS ENTERTAINMENT
Trump didn’t just throw a party. He threw a middle finger at the American working class wrapped in vintage sequins. The government shutdown dragged on toward record length, and SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — ran dry.
Two federal judges had to order the administration to use emergency funds, because otherwise people would literally starve. Trump’s response?
“We’re not sure we have the legal authority.”
Translation: We don’t know if we can legally care.
It’s a hell of a look for the supposed “party of law and order” — using legal ambiguity as a blunt weapon against the poor. (continued on page 2 or here)