"Let Them Eat Nothing"

Forty million plates will sit empty while Washington feasts on blame. Hunger is no longer a symptom of poverty; it’s become the policy of power.

Marie Antoinette’s infamous “Let them eat cake” wasn’t just a line; it was a symptom. A sign of a ruling class so insulated from the suffering of its people that starvation became punchline material. Fast forward to 2025, and here we are again. Only this time, it’s not cake; it’s nothing. Forty million Americans, many of them children, are about to lose their food assistance, and our modern-day aristocracy in Washington seems just fine with it.

Come November, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; SNAP, will run dry. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins admits there’s only about $5 billion left of the $9 billion needed to feed the families who depend on it. That means no money for food stamps. No funding for the program that literally keeps Americans from starving. And the response from our so-called leaders? Political theater. A hostage standoff dressed up as fiscal responsibility.

Republicans are demanding that Democrats reopen the government and accept a deal that would spike Obamacare premiums. Democrats refuse, insisting that extending health care subsidies is a moral line in the sand. And so, 40 million Americans; mothers, fathers, seniors, children, are reduced to pawns on the chessboard of partisan brinkmanship.

Let’s be crystal clear about what’s happening here: politicians are gambling with people’s ability to eat. This isn’t about policy; it’s about cruelty as leverage. Senator Tommy Tuberville; yes, the same guy who once held up hundreds of military promotions, shrugs off the hunger crisis with the emotional range of a man reading a golf scorecard. His solution? “If the Democrats don’t sign onto this C.R., then SNAP is gonna be one of them.” Translation: accept our terms or let the poor starve.

Senator Katie Britt’s advice to families facing hunger in November? “Call your Democrat senator.” As if a desperate mother can feed her kids on phone calls. Senator Josh Hawley, ever the opportunist, suddenly rediscovers his moral compass just long enough to propose a temporary fix. “Our kids deserve to eat,” he declares, before returning to his regular programming of performative outrage.

Even Democrats aren’t blameless. Senator John Fetterman; who’s actually been voting with Republicans on the continuing resolution, calls it a “Sophie’s choice.” And he’s right. It’s an impossible moral dilemma: do you protect health care or food? But the real question is, why should any functioning government force its citizens into that choice at all?

Senator Elizabeth Warren summed it up perfectly: “Worth it to whom?” Because from where I’m standing, it’s not worth it to the single mother in Virginia rationing beans and rice so her 11-year-old son can eat. It’s not worth it to the food bank worker in Fairfax who hasn’t seen this kind of desperation since the pandemic. And it sure as hell isn’t worth it to the millions of Americans who will soon find themselves with empty cupboards and no one answering their calls for help.

I’ve told this story before, but it feels especially relevant now. During my 51 days of solitary confinement, I was denied food for three days. Three days. The hunger I felt wasn’t just in my stomach; it invaded my bones. It burned through every nerve ending until it became something else entirely: despair. The pain doesn’t just live in your body; it takes over your mind. You begin to understand, viscerally, what deprivation really means. You don’t think about politics or policy or partisanship; you think about survival. And that’s what millions of Americans are about to face, while politicians on both sides argue over who gets to claim the moral high ground. There is nothing theoretical about hunger. It’s agony. It’s humiliation. It’s a slow, gnawing violence that changes you.

Meanwhile, politicians posture on cable news. Democrats tell us the Republicans are heartless. Republicans tell us Democrats are playing politics. Both are right. And while they bicker, real people are lining up at food banks that are already running out of supplies. Deb Haynes, who runs Food for Others in Virginia, says her organization hasn’t struggled this much since April 2020. That was the peak of the COVID chaos. Think about that.

I remember what it’s like to be caught in the machinery of politics; where loyalty and image take precedence over truth and consequence. I’ve seen how quickly conviction can turn into justification, how noble ideas can be used to excuse harmful choices. What’s happening in Washington now reflects that same broken instinct: a fixation on political victories while the people those victories are meant to serve are left behind.

Let’s stop pretending that this is about budgets or debt ceilings or continuing resolutions. This is about values; or the lack thereof. It’s about a country that once prided itself on feeding the world now failing to feed its own. It’s about children going to bed hungry in the richest nation on earth while lawmakers hold press conferences about “fiscal restraint.”

“Let them eat nothing” isn’t a metaphor anymore; it’s policy. It’s the logical conclusion of a government that’s forgotten who it serves.

The truth is, hunger isn’t a partisan issue; it’s a moral one. And if you’re in Congress right now, still playing chicken with 40 million dinner tables, then you’ve forfeited any right to call yourself a public servant. Because when the government chooses politics over people, cruelty doesn’t just become policy; it becomes character.

And America, if we’re honest, is starting to look a lot like Versailles. The banquet tables are full, the rhetoric is cheap, and the people are starving outside the gates. Only this time, there’s no revolution coming; just resignation. The quiet, gnawing kind that comes from an empty stomach and the bitter realization that the people you elected to protect you would rather let you starve than compromise their talking points.

So let them eat nothing. And let every lawmaker who allowed it remember that hunger has a long memory; and so do voters.

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