Why Aren’t We Afraid of a Food Stamp Revolt?

The government is shut down. You might not have noticed. I haven’t either. It’s the first shutdown in memory that feels like background noise.

But something ancient is being tested right now. Food stamps are being cut.

Not many people realize this, but twelve percent of Americans, about forty million people, rely on SNAP benefits to eat. That’s more people than the entire population of Canada and California. A gigantic number.

In any other country, or any other era, cutting off the food supply of twelve percent of the population would be a national emergency. It would dominate headlines, shake the markets, and trigger panic in the halls of power. But there are no emergency sessions of Congress. No fear of unrest. The system feels no danger.

Even though it is rational to think a revolt is possible. America has more guns than people. Many of those losing food assistance own firearms or could get them. They outnumber the military twenty to one. The government knows this. But it seems unconcerned.

You may argue that it’s because the recipients of food stamps are elderly or children. But really, it’s not a whole lot. Only 34% of SNAP households had children, we’re still talking about millions of able-bodied adults. From afar, it looks like every precondition for revolt, hunger, pride, numbers, weapons, is in place.

A few governors have noticed. They’ve stepped in to keep food aid flowing, but not out of fear. These governors act from pity, not panic, from optics, not obligation. They don’t fear low-income Americans. They just don’t want to look cruel.

You may laugh at this scenario, but food riots have caused a lot of problems. From Rome to Paris to Moscow. It’s one of the oldest forces in history.

Instead, people argue online about whether food stamps are moral, or if the poor deserve them at all. No one is really afraid of low-income Americans rebelling on food issues.

@yonsidelucas

SNAP Benefits #food #hungry #snap #fyp #trending

And yet, I bet you no revolt will be coming.

History does show exceptions, but they prove the rule. Stalin starved Ukraine deliberately. Mao’s policies caused mass famine. Both maintained power through overwhelming state violence, tanks, secret police, executions.

That’s because America has built something more sophisticated than Chinese or Soviet state repression. Through three mechanisms, none of them requiring violence, it has made the underclass incapable of recognizing themselves as a political force.

No Fear of the Underclass

America has performed a quiet miracle. Rioting does happen, just not over bread.

The system works in stages. First, the Funnel physically separates potential leaders from the communities they might organize. Then the Winners and Losers ideology ensures those left behind blame themselves rather than the system. Finally, the culture war divides them against each other, channeling economic rage into battles over identity

For now, it holds. Forty million people lose food assistance and the streets stay quiet. Government no longer fears hunger because hunger no longer produces mobs, it produces depression, shame, and online arguments about whether the poor deserve to eat.

Is this Lindy? No.

The system has no slack. It depends on the Funnel continuing to offer real escape, on cheap places staying unlivable enough that opting out remains impossible, on culture war remaining hot enough to keep class consciousness frozen. If any piece fails, if the economy stops generating exit routes, if enough capable people get trapped, if the exhausted ever stop blaming themselves, the mechanism breaks.

Recent grads face a hiring crisis. If enough smart, functional and capable people can’t find work they will break this fragile system above.

Not sure how long this is going to be the status quo, but it’s fascinating to see how it all works

The Funnel Is Efficient

America has perfected a quiet mechanism for preventing revolt based on economic concerns, a sorting system that identifies talent early, relocates it to where it’s most productive, and leaves behind places with people not functional enough to organize. Essentially, the certain type of people are not there. They left.

Every year, standardized tests, college admissions, companies and corporate recruiters identify the most talented young people in struggling towns and urban areas and pull them away to opportunity hubs. These people rarely return. What they leave behind are hollowed-out communities stripped of potential leaders, social networks, and organizational capacity.

Anyone with the skills, connections, or sheer stubborn competence to organize resistance has already been extracted and relocated to San Francisco or New York or Austin or Nashville or even just the nicer part of town. They're too busy optimizing their careers to think about the town they left behind.

That’s because America offers escape. The economy is massive and dynamic. There are jobs in other states, industries hiring, ways to reinvent yourself. If you're capable and willing to move, you can usually find something better. This mechanism is devastatingly effective precisely because it's not oppressive. The system doesn't crush the talented, it absorbs them.

Someone who wants to opt out of the funnel system finds it nearly impossible because America equates cost with value. The funnel ensures that anyone who refuses to enter has nowhere decent to go.

Walk through a small city in France, Portugal, or Spain and you'll find something that barely exists in America, affordable places that aren't degraded. The buildings are maintained. There are cafes, parks, functional public transit. Crime is relatively low. And crucially, you'll regularly encounter highly educated, intelligent people working ordinary jobs. Their system is less efficient at sorting talent. Coincidentally, these places rebel for economic issues much more than Americans.

The pattern is visible everywhere. At Harvard, over 60% of grades are now straight A', the real trial is admission, not performance. Same with jobs at top industries.

But the the funnel doesn't just separate places, it severs human contact across class lines. People at opposite ends of funnel might as well speak different languages.

You're at the DMV. The staff seems alternately apathetic and overwhelmed. Nothing works smoothly. You leave frustrated, convinced the people running it are incompetent. But that's not quite right. The issue isn't incompetence, it's that everyone competent enough to fix the system has already been funneled elsewhere.

While the funnel moves people, the ideology convinces them their station in life is deserved.

The Ideology of Winners and Losers

America's dominant narrative centers on meritocracy, the idea that success reflects virtue and failure reflects inadequacy. It always has. It's bipartisan gospel. It's in every bookstore, every political speech, every LinkedIn post about grinding. You can fix your life if you work hard enough.

What makes this ideology remarkable is not its existence but its total acceptance. In other societies, poverty is often seen as bad fortune. And its true, you do get very smart people who are in bad positions in those countries.

But in America, the poor are told they made a series of wrong turns. They picked the wrong major. Didn’t hustle hard enough. Failed to “network,” to “grind,” to “manifest.” If you suffer, it’s because you earned it.

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