President hosts a Great Gatsby-themed Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago hours before SNAP benefits lapse for forty-two million people.

OK. Pay close attention. I want you to follow the timeline. I want you to follow the exact timeline. I am going to walk you through the same Friday, two locations, four hours apart.

Eight p.m. Eastern. The clock at the Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., reaches the deadline. The contingency fund Congress set up for exactly this purpose is, by the administration’s stated position, off-limits. Forty-two million Americans on SNAP, in 25 states, including roughly fourteen million children, are about to lose access to their food assistance for November.

Ten p.m. Eastern. At Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, the President of the United States is hosting a Halloween party. The theme of the party, announced by the White House, is “A little party never killed nobody.” The phrase is a song from the 2013 movie of The Great Gatsby. The party is Gatsby-themed. Guests are in flapper costumes. Women in white feathered fans. Champagne pyramids. Silver and gold balloons in the swimming pool. The Secretary of State is there. Two of the President’s children are there. The man who used to run Marvel is there.

One a.m. Saturday Eastern. Federal SNAP benefits formally lapse. A federal court has been preparing the order it will issue later that day, and another judge will issue another order on Wednesday, but as of one a.m. Saturday, the lapse is the legal status. Mothers in Tulsa, in Phoenix, in Toledo, are checking their EBT balances on phones. The balances are not loading.

Same hour at Mar-a-Lago. The party is going. The press pool is in the parking lot. The pool reports the obvious. The pool reports the costumes. The pool reports the song.

Buddy. I have run a casino floor. I am the last person to begrudge a man a good night. Fine. Have the night. Have the costume. Throw the balloons. Live a little.

But. But. You do not throw a Gatsby party. Gatsby. Fitzgerald’s Gatsby. The entire literary point of which is that the rich are throwing themselves a grotesque costume party while the country starves outside the gate. You do not throw that party, on that night, and call it that theme, in the house you bought with the money, on the night the food assistance ran out. You do not.

That is the movie. That is the book. Fitzgerald wrote that book. About that. In 1925. I am not making it up. The book is on the shelf at every public library that is still open. They are closed this month, by the way. The shutdown. The libraries. The librarians are home.

The press shop’s defense, by Saturday afternoon, was that the President had also greeted trick-or-treaters on the South Lawn the day before. Fine. He did. There is video. He handed out candy bars. That is true. The candy bars were nice. The candy bars on the South Lawn on Thursday do not move the Gatsby party at midnight on Friday one inch.

You ever notice how the man who tells you he wants to make America great again chose for his Halloween costume the exact villain the most famous American novel of the twentieth century is the indictment of.

I am arguing with the television. I am arguing in italics. The television is in 1925.