Our View: Bad Room-reading

 It was a “let them eat cake” moment.

 How could no one in Donald Trump’s inner circle not recognize that holding a Great Gatsby-themed bash at Mar-a-Lago for the president’s wealthy friends during a government shutdown — and on the eve of the day that SNAP benefits for millions of Americans were set to expire — was egregiously tone deaf? Could none of them accurately read the room? We suspect that was the point, in which case, shame on the president and his people, and that includes Republicans in the House and Senate who have steadfastly refused to even meet with Democrats to negotiate an end to the shutdown.

 The juxtaposition highlighted the parallels between the Roaring ‘20s and today: massive wealth inequality, a hot stock market, an elite who appears to care little about average folk, political divisiveness. If you don’t know what happened at the end of the decade, look it up. It wasn’t pretty.

 Now is the time for the rest of us to step up and take care of our neighbors, whether they are federal workers going without paychecks or folks struggling with food insecurity. Even before the current crisis, demand on local food pantries had increased, as it has every year for as long as we can remember. With the uncertainty around the future of SNAP benefits, at least short term, even pantry officials don’t know what they will be facing in the coming days, weeks and even months. Because they are well-run, the pantries — including the Family Pantry of Cape Cod and local pantries run by the Lower Cape Outreach Council — have resources to bolster operations during times of uncertainty. But those resources aren’t unlimited, and if demand ramps up significantly, the operations will need our help.

 While we hold out hope that the shutdown will end soon and government resources will once again become available to those who need them, we don’t expect any sudden change of course on the part of the current administration. Perhaps, in an “It’s a Wonderful Life”-like moment, federal officials will have a holiday epiphany and realize that the vast majority of Americans are not benefiting from escalating stocks and crypto trading or tariffs and rising food costs and retool their economic policies to actually help people.

 Or maybe they will just read “The Great Gatsby” and figure out that’s not how they want things to end. That would be good, too.