Today, the United States marks the 41st day of a federal government shutdown that has left federal workers without pay, air travel suspended, and millions of poor Americans without food assistance.
To be sure, this is not the first time that the government of the world’s reigning superpower has intentionally shut down, but the current shutdown recently set the dubious record of being the longest in modern U.S. history.
And this time, the political spectacle is beyond dystopian.
In other words, the government shutdown came as a result of budget disagreements between Republicans and Democrats over strict health care cuts supported by President Donald Trump. This, of course, is the same President Trump who fantasized about America being wealthy enough to propose a defense budget of over $1 trillion in fiscal year 2026.
In the wake of the shutdown, the Trump administration decided that poor and hungry Americans would have to pay the price, and on November 1, the nation’s vital Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was suspended for the first time since the program’s creation in 1964.
Almost 42 million Americans, or 1 in 8 people, rely on SNAP for their meals. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (ERS), children accounted for 39% of program participants in fiscal year 2023.
When I visited the ERS website on Sunday, I saw a very technical warning at the top of the screen that read: “Due to the Radical Left Democratic Party shutdown, this government website will not be updated during the expiration of funding.”
“President Trump has made it clear that he wants to keep the government open and support those who provide food, fuel, and clothing to the American people,” the message continued in slightly smaller print.
It could be funny if it weren’t so creepy.
Last week, the administration was forced to roll back hunger relief measures after two federal judges ruled that freezing SNAP benefits was illegal. However, the resumption of food aid was only partial and was accompanied by an appeal to the Supreme Court seeking intervention in favor of mass hunger.
These days, America’s highest judicial body rarely encounters an antisocial initiative that it does not support. And in this case, it did not disappoint.
On Friday, the Associated Press reported that the Supreme Court “granted the Trump administration’s emergency appeal temporarily blocking a court order to fully fund SNAP food assistance payments amid the government shutdown, even though residents in some states have already received the funds.”
Indeed, it is difficult to think of a more pressing “emergency” than having to use the vast resources at our disposal to ensure that our people do not starve.
Given that the Israeli military currently uses forced starvation as a key element in its US-backed genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, it may seem like a wild exaggeration to bring up such terms in the US domestic context. But intentionally depriving people of the food they need to survive, whether as a weapon of genocide or simply the latest iteration of America’s ongoing war on the poor, amounts to starvation, plain and simple.
On October 31, the day before the SNAP freeze, CNN published an article with the headline, “‘Feel guilty about eating meals’: Low-income families prepare to lose billions in federal aid,” citing an Ohio mother who pre-emptively withheld meals for her children.
Describing her family’s suffering from the federal government shutdown, the mother said, “This is no longer a Democratic issue. This is no longer a Republican issue. It’s our lives.”
And while the Democratic Party may seem like the more polite party in the face of President Trump’s unrepentant derangement, it helps to remember that the war on poverty has long been a bipartisan war. For example, in the 1990s, Democratic President Bill Clinton oversaw a “reform” of the U.S. welfare system that resulted in a sharp increase in the number of Americans living in extreme poverty.
After all, both parties are firmly committed to preserving the plutocracy that America itself is based on. Because if all people were created equal with equal rights, including the right to adequate food, the tyranny of a small elite could not be sustained.
Wealthy Americans like to shout about the existential dangers of taxing their wealth. But for tens of millions of people who are now deprived of essential nutrition, the existential threat is real.
Last night, eight Senate Democrats voted with Republicans to temporarily end the government shutdown and take the first step toward reopening the government until January. It needs another vote in the House and then President Trump’s signature, which could take several days. If passed, this bill would extend SNAP until September, but it would not fundamentally solve the problem. Hungry people remain in limbo, and health care remains in limbo.
In recent weeks, some observers have pointed to the possibility of mass starvation as “collateral damage” to the sectarian conflict. And while the war terminology is certainly appropriate, the poorest sectors of American society are merely temporary “collateral” casualties of the federal government shutdown.
They are the intended targets of a capitalist system designed to suppress them.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
