Politics
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StudentNation
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November 27, 2025
In Martin County, the federal government shutdown and assaults on meals stamps have uncovered Donald Trump’s empty guarantees. To many, that makes him simply one other politician.
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On an April morning in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson landed in Martin County, Kentucky, stepping from Marine One to the hollers of a rural county the place 60 % of residents lived in poverty. With reporters and photographers from Time and Life in tow, Johnson ended up on the cabin porch of Tom Fletcher, a father of eight who had been unemployed for 2 years. After listening to the Fletchers inform him their story, Johnson got here down from the porch, turned towards the press corps, and declared: “I’ve known as for a nationwide battle on poverty. Our goal: complete victory.”
Johnson was referring to a pronouncement he had made earlier that 12 months, earlier than a joint session of Congress throughout his State of the Union handle, when he declared his “Struggle on Poverty.” Martin County, he made clear, can be on the entrance line.
By August, Johnson signed the Meals Stamp Act, which—together with Medicaid, Medicare, and Head Begin—federalized the instruments he had promised to deploy throughout that tour via locations like Martin County.
This month, the longest authorities shutdown in US historical past introduced the deepest disruption to the Supplemental Vitamin Help Program since Johnson made it everlasting. In Martin County, households are getting ready for Thanksgiving as roughly 23 % of residents, or round 1,300 households, depend on SNAP to place meals on the desk. And whereas the shutdown is over, a return to the established order will not be sufficient for a lot of voters.
In 2024, 91 % of voters within the county backed Donald Trump. But, as The New York Occasions lately reported, it was the Trump administration that pressured states like Kentucky to roll again efforts to ship full meals stamp advantages in the course of the shutdown. “Full SNAP advantages have been paid out for October, so recipients would have solely seen an influence on their family budgets beginning in November,” stated Harris Eppsteiner, the affiliate director of financial evaluation on the Yale Funds Lab, a nonpartisan coverage analysis middle. The consequences “rely on what state you’re in,” he stated. “Some states had issued full SNAP advantages for November, whereas round two-thirds had issued partial or zero advantages.”
Kentucky was one of many two-thirds, in line with the Kentucky Middle for Financial Coverage, whose director, Jason Bailey, stated that SNAP recipients in Kentucky obtained partial advantages on November 6.
Present Problem
In response to the federal government shutdown, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear issued $5 million to assist meals banks—an quantity Bailey known as a“stopgap,” provided that the month-to-month SNAP allocation in Kentucky is round $105 million.
“SNAP is a program designed to struggle starvation,” Bailey stated. “Many individuals who work additionally qualify as a result of their wages are too low.” What Washington calls “work necessities,” he argued, are extra precisely “paperwork necessities” that strip folks of advantages “due to programs deliberately made too difficult to adjust to, slightly than a failure of individuals to work.” The shutdown, he stated, was solely a preview of what’s coming.
Trump’s “One Huge, Stunning Invoice” may also jeopardize SNAP advantages for 114,000 folks, or roughly one-fifth of recipients, in Kentucky, the place work necessities will now develop to roughly 50,000 folks aged 54 to 65, together with caregivers whose youngsters are older than 14, beginning in early 2026. The invoice additionally expanded work necessities for army veterans and folks experiencing homelessness—successfully pushing many out of a program they depend on to not go hungry. “That is notably problematic,” Bailey stated, “as now we have the second-highest meals insecurity in the US for adults over 50.”
Starting subsequent 12 months, Bailey advised me, the Kentucky State Meeting should fund the shortfall brought on by Trump’s invoice—as much as $188 million per 12 months.
In Martin County—the place there isn’t a single big-box grocer—SNAP {dollars} flow into via six small shops: two Greenback Generals, two Household {Dollars}, a Save A Lot, and Warfield Market, a once-IGA-affiliated retailer that’s now the county’s solely independently owned grocer. “We had low gross sales the primary couple weeks of November,” stated Ron Jones, the assistant supervisor. “Everyone has been coming collectively to attempt to assist out. I reside in an condo complicated, and the workplace has been making meals for the entire children dwelling within the constructing.” Within the closing days of the shutdown, Jones advised me, “the workplace cooked 30 lbs of soup beans and cornbread.”
“Actually,” he stated, “I see folks coming out and in of the shop day by day which might be affected. They’re actually fearful about making it, as a result of they’ve children to feed.” The shop’s common prospects disappeared for practically two weeks. “We usually do $15,000 per day, and our gross sales dropped to $7,000 per day in the course of the shutdown.”
Thomas Howell, a 25-year-old line employee at a fast-food restaurant in Martin County, works 5 days every week for $8 an hour. “It sucks, however proper now I don’t have my very own car, and it’s just about the one work alternative I’ve,” he stated. “If I make $170 per week, I think about {that a} actually good week. And I get $110 monthly in meals stamps. It’s just about all of the meals I’ve except another person buys it for me.”
With out meals stamps, he needed to discover different methods to afford to eat. “There’s a reduction sweet retailer close to me that sells meals gadgets which might be about to run out for 1 / 4 a chunk.” Throughout the federal government shutdown, Howell ate discounted sweet bars and beef jerky that couldn’t be bought by grocers. “I don’t like going to meals banks except I’m actually about to starve, as a result of I do know there’s individuals who in the event that they don’t have the meals they are going to starve.”
Howell appreciated Trump in 2016, when he was too younger to vote; and voted for the president in 2020 and 2024. However he advised me his assist ended this 12 months. Throughout the shutdown, “he appeared unwilling to cooperate with any quantity of funding when it got here to Meals Stamps and simply shifted blame towards Democrats.” He believes each events are at fault, however emphasised that the one ones that suffered have been “the poor folks.” His grandmother—who taught her whole life as a public faculty instructor and now survives on lower than $900 a month together with Meals Stamps—has to depend on meals banks.
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“I’m actually upset within the minimal effort Trump’s been giving us poor folks,” he advised me. “I believe most of this nation voted for Trump on empty guarantees,” he stated, “hoping he’d give us a greater future—however as an alternative it appears it’s going the precise wrong way. I pray to God I’m mistaken.”
In accordance with latest projections, Trump’s web approval score in Kentucky is now simply 0.2 %. “As soon as the honeymoon is over, presidents are likely to lose recognition rapidly,” writes The Economist. “However no latest president has fallen so low so rapidly as Donald Trump.” And whereas the vast majority of Martin County’s voters backed President Trump in 2024, a majority of the county’s registered voters merely didn’t vote. Within the final presidential election, the county had the second-lowest voter turnout of any county in Kentucky—simply 49 %.
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“I didn’t and wouldn’t vote for him, as a result of I do know he wouldn’t assist folks in Martin County,” stated one other voter, who spoke beneath the situation of anonymity as a result of she fears retribution at her office. Though she’s a Republican, she believes that “he completely has not saved his marketing campaign guarantees.”
However disillusionment with Trump or different previous Republicans doesn’t appear to have instantly translated to enthusiasm for Democrats both. The final Democrat that Kentucky backed for president was Invoice Clinton in 1992 and 1996. “The final time I voted was when Bush ran,” stated Deana Lynn Howell (who isn’t instantly associated to Thomas Howell), a 58-year-old in Martin County. “I don’t imagine or belief anybody working for president,” she stated.
In Kentucky, there isn’t a political realignment taking form a lot as an abandonment. Whereas presidential elections have been gained completely by Republicans, Kentucky has elected Democratic governors—together with its present governor, Beshear, whom Thomas Howell voted for. “Lots of people right here see ‘Democrat’ as a nasty phrase,” he advised me, “nevertheless it’s all in regards to the particular individual.” However no matter who Martin County has supported for president, or what strides have been made in assuaging poverty, life doesn’t appear to be getting any simpler, voters stated. It doesn’t really feel like anybody is listening. “Nobody cares to speak to us,” Thomas Howell advised me.“They similar to to level the finger on the downtrodden hillbillies.”
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