Smol Beans And Bad Faith

Update: Two federal judges ruled October 31 that the regime can't halt SNAP benefits during the government shutdown. The president said the regime would ask for clarity from the courts about how many Americans they can withhold from in November.

It's a weird thing to be both an omnipotent Goliath empowered by God and the capitalist class – one and the same, really – to rule over the earth with an iron fist and a helpless slim governing majority trying its best to abide by constitutional restrictions.

That hasn't stopped House Speaker Mike Johnson – a real-life constitutional law attorney – from trying this cute little trick. After months and months of staring at the ground and muttering to the assembled press that the president can do whatever he wants whenever he wants, Johnson has embraced the bone-crushing bad faith of pretending there's nothing Republicans, even with control of the entire federal government, can do about funding for food vanishing. SNAP funding expires on November 1, plunging tens of millions of working people into food insecurity, and Johnson says there's simply nothing to be done.

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Johnson, as you've probably seen on various microblogging platforms over the past week, shrugs his shoulders when asked if there's anything Republicans can do to stop the coming hunger crisis in the richest nation in human history. Johnson goes on and on about creative budgetary tactics the regime has purportedly used to fund this or that program, but says funding for food is beyond the scope of a lawless administration that has regularly canceled congressional spending allocations if it does not fit their fascist agenda.

You might be old enough to remember February and March, when the world's richest man had an army of computer hackers escorted around D.C. with armed men, busting down the doors of every agency in the federal government, stealing their data, and canceling approved congressional funds one line at a time. They could do that just fine.

They cannot, however, figure out a way to fund a vital food program for folks with low incomes, most of whom work, but for inhumane wages (also, it doesn't matter if someone works or does not work, they deserve fucking food because they are human). These conservatives simply have too much respect for checks and balances, for the foundational principles of the country, for the separation of powers. If we know anything about Republicans, we know these are the things they treasure most. It's why they're fine with a military privately funded by donations from the president's cocktail party buddies.

The regime could, of course, release billions in emergency funding to ensure SNAP benefits go out to needy Americans in November. They money is there for exactly this kind of situation – a protracted government shutdown in which neither side has budged, with both Democrats and Republicans believe wholeheartedly that they are winning, whatever that means when Congress essentially deletes itself from existence. That's where the bad faith comes into play: Republican officials must pretend they are helpless smol beans in the matter of funding a massive anti-hunger program because doing so might be useful in making Democrats cave to their demands (raising healthcare costs for working families) and reopening the government.

Republicans don't actually believe they have no power to stop Americans from going hungry in the coming weeks and months. They say they lack that power because it's politically useful. Mainstream media outlets can't decipher this monstrous turn of bad faith because corporate media operates under the assumption of good faith, pristine faith on all sides of a debate. Politicians mean what they say, according to this logic. So if Mike Johnson says nothing can be done about SNAP funding, then nothing can be done about SNAP funding. Republicans – after furiously working the refs for decades – understand this dynamic and operate accordingly. The rest of us have to watch this and get mad online and know that the median American political observer is being told a lie about why they might go without food in November.

In a blow to the Both Parties Are The Exact Same crowd – a crowd that has gotten awfully quiet as authoritarianism creeps into every crevice of American life – Democratic members of Congress have all but begged the regime to release the emergency money for SNAP benefits, while Republicans have greeted the prospect of hungry American workers with a smirk and a shrug and a big old fuck you to anyone who might have a hole in their belly next month.

Democratic governors across the US are ready to tap into emergency funding to try to fill the gaps left by Republicans' pro-hunger campaign, though the states' budgets will fall well short of the necessary money needed to make sure humans in the United States are properly fed. "It's immoral for people to suffer because Republicans will not unleash the food emergency funds that are sitting there," New York Governor Kathy Hochul said when announcing her state's efforts to counter Republican efforts to create millions of hungry Americans.

"Withholding funding from food assistance is not just illegal," said Maryland Governor Wes Moore, "it's also cruel." 

Elected Republicans, meanwhile, have responded to demands to fund SNAP by urging Americans to "stop smoking crack."

I've had the BFT interns look into it powerfully over the past few weeks and I can confirm right here, right now, that good and bad things are not the same. I know this will come as a great inconvenience for those who dismiss elected Democrats because some of them sound and act like Republicans in the 90s. Good and bad things must be exactly the same if you are to feel superior to those who might suggest that there is a difference. I get it.

In a poisoned and disorienting information ecosystem, I think it's important to be clear about what, exactly, is going on. The right's Unreality Machine sometimes makes this difficult if not impossible, as Bad Faith Times readers know well by now. A clear statement about what's happening with the withholding of SNAP benefits would look something like this: The regime and congressional Republicans have decided to let Americans go hungry for some period of time – weeks or months, we're not sure – to push Democrats back to their knees.

Because Democrats, these Republicans know, care about shit like people going hungry, about families going without meals in a country awash with obscene wealth. The calculus is that Democrats' caring about something – anything – will be a disadvantage in ongoing shutdown negotiations. So being a helpless smol bean is the only thing to be for now. And it might work.

Follow Denny Carter on BlueSky at @dennycarter.bsky.social