What did Donald Trump do today?

He held a millionaire-themed party while the clock ran out on food and health care benefits for millions of Americans.

Trump threw a party tonight at Mar-a-Lago. The theme was the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's cynical look at wealth, hedonism, and class privilege during the economic boom of the early 1920s. According to attendees, the event also had another theme: "A Little Party Never Hurt Anybody."

That may be true, but at the same time, Trump's administration reached a number of other milestones today that will mean Americans who can't afford Mar-a-Lago's million-dollar dues won't have much to celebrate. It is now one full month since funding for the government lapsed over Trump's refusal to fund the Affordable Care Act. This means that as of November 1st, Americans who depend on that program for their insurance—the vast majority of whom are in states that voted for Trump—will see premiums skyrocket, often by tens of thousands of dollars a year.

 

 

The shutdown is forcing hundreds of thousands of government workers to go without pay, even if they haven't been laid off. Most of them have now missed two consecutive pay periods, which has depressed local economies and stressed food banks. 

 

Making matters worse is that appropriations for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) also expired at the start of October, and while there is a contingency fund that would keep it in operation, Trump has refused to do so even though he is legally required to. His administration reaffirmed that today, defying a federal judge's orders to make sure that the program millions of Americans rely on didn't grind to a sudden halt.

 

One thing Trump has found time and money for, though, is his ongoing decorating project at the White House. Today he posted twenty-five pictures of a single bathroom he'd ordered redone in "black and white statuary marble."

 

 

 

The bathroom in question is off the Lincoln Bedroom, which means that the 41 million Americans who rely on SNAP will never get to see it in person. That part of the residence isn't normally part of White House tours, which are on hold anyway as the government has shut down and the East Wing—the only part of the People's House that was ever really open to the public—has been destroyed.

Why does this matter?

• Americans who didn't inherit hundreds of millions of dollars don't deserve this kind of contempt from a president who did. 

• There are much, much more important things for Donald Trump to be worrying about now than picking new toilets for a redecorating project.  
  
  
• It's okay if Trump hasn't read The Great Gatsby, but that doesn't make choosing it as his party's theme any less stupid.