It’s nearly November. The clocks are preparing to fall back, the temperatures are beginning their descent, and so are the budgets—except not for bombs or tax shelters or the perfectly tuned machines of state violence. No, what’s being sliced cleanly at the neck is food assistance for the poor, particularly for children. SNAP benefits are set to expire for millions. And the government, with billions in reserve, is choosing to let that happen.
Let’s not play pretend: this isn’t mismanagement. This isn’t an unfortunate side effect of bureaucratic tangles or tough decisions in hard times. No—this is intentional. This is theater. It’s starvation as strategy. A deliberate policy of deprivation, orchestrated not just for budget optics or red meat for the base, but for something far more chilling: to provoke chaos, and then point at it as justification for more control.
Because what happens when children go hungry? What happens when entire communities already on the brink lose the last threadbare safety net holding them above the threshold of collapse? You get fear. You get desperation. You get looting, maybe. You get frustration turning inward, or outward, or both. You get a population that tears at itself while the architects of the fire sell themselves as the only ones who can put it out.
And while all this unfolds, there’s a very specific choir harmonizing to the sound of the guillotine: American Christians. Or, more precisely, that uniquely American brand of Christianity where the figure of Jesus has been bleached, weaponized, stripped of context, wrapped in a flag, and turned into a white suburban landlord who mostly cares about protecting private property and shaming the poor.
These are the people—many of them good neighbors, smiling at you in grocery store lines—who cheer this kind of policy. Who say things like “Well maybe they should just get a job,” or “If I have to work for my food, so should they,” or, my personal favorite, “You don’t work, you don’t eat,” with the kind of smugness that suggests they’ve never read anything Jesus actually said, or if they did, they immediately buried it under a pile of Fox News bumper stickers.
Let’s be clear: Jesus—the actual Jesus, brown-skinned, anti-imperialist, itinerant teacher Jesus—didn’t say “blessed are the fiscally responsible.” He didn’t say, “Render unto Caesar and then wait for trickle-down bread.” He said feed the hungry. Care for the sick. Love the outcast. Share your damn cloak. When the crowd was hungry, he didn’t demand a work history or ID. He multiplied the loaves. He created abundance where there was lack. And his harshest words weren’t for prostitutes or tax cheats or doubters. They were for the religious elite who used their piety to shield their cruelty.
Which brings us back to now—to Christians cheering for hunger while muttering prayers for rain. To politicians who hold church in one hand and a blade in the other. To a government choosing to withhold food in a land of plenty.
What does that say about the people making these choices?
It says they know exactly what they’re doing. And it says they believe the rest of us—those who still think feeding children matters—are too scattered, too pacified, or too polite to stop them. It says they’ve bet on our exhaustion. On our disconnection. On our habit of scrolling and sighing and doing nothing.
They want violence—not in theory, but in practice. Not because they’re cartoon villains, but because violence justifies more funding for cops, more surveillance, more militarization, more reasons to say, “See? We warned you about those animals.” And all the while, their donors get richer, their narratives get sharper, and their congregations keep singing songs to a messiah they no longer resemble.
But maybe—just maybe—there’s still time to reroute the script. To treat this moment not as a prelude to riots, but as a catalyst for mutual aid. For radical, furious compassion. For neighbors refusing to let each other starve while billionaires blast into orbit. For atheists who’ve never believed in a god, but still believe in feeding people. For Christians who actually read the Beatitudes and felt something. For anyone tired of watching the least among us be offered up as kindling for political power.
Because what we’re facing is not a financial crisis. It’s a spiritual one. Not in the churchy, hymnal sense, but in the raw, existential choice every society eventually confronts: Will we let people starve so we can preserve our illusions? Or will we finally admit that survival is a communal act—and empire is the oldest, most well-fed lie in history?
The writing’s on the wall. It’s not prophecy. It’s policy.
And if you’re still siding with the ones who believe hunger is a lesson the poor deserve—then I don’t care how many crosses you wear. You’re not a follower of Jesus.
You’re just one of the Romans.