So what are we supposed to eat?

Feb 20, 2025

Issue #811 The Choice, Thursday, February 20, 2025

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Oh! You thought there would never be empty grocery store shelves?

So it’s raining catastrophes, and your umbrella doesn’t work.

I get it. I do.

And when it’s raining catastrophes like what we’re seeing now – and what we’re seeing is admittedly unlike any storm of catastrophes we have ever seen before – it can be hard to prioritize those catastrophes.

And prioritization is important because that helps you decide which catastrophes you need to deal with right now, as opposed to which ones will hold (please, God) until five minutes from now.

All of us will need to make – or are already making - our own high-priority list based on our own needs and personal life situations. But I suspect that if we could examine each other’s list, we would find that a surprising number of our top ten priorities would align nearly perfectly with everybody else in the room.

Let’s take food, for example. Because we all need to eat.

Within days after Trump took office, he wasted no time dispatching ICE to brown-skinned communities around the country to round up all the undocumented immigrants they could find for deportation, even if that meant sweeping up some folks who looked like they might be undocumented but weren’t. Shit happens, right? Collateral damage, etc. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Anyway, immediately after that, there were stories being reported about how undocumented immigrants were no longer reporting for work out of fear of being swept up by ICE. In case you didn’t already know, much of what we eat that is grown on a farm – and I mean a whole lotta much – is harvested by undocumented immigrants.

Because they are the only ones willing to work for such low wages and still pay into Social Security as well as pay taxes without reaping any of the benefits of either. The farmers – many of whom apparently voted for Trump – are aware of this. When I say ‘this,’ I mean they are aware that their workers aren’t showing up to work in the fields. They may or may not be aware – or simply don’t care – that they are exploiting the hell out of those workers.

Anyway, those farmers didn’t quite make the connection between Trump and their undocumented employees until they stopped showing up for work. And once they stopped showing up for work, they made the connection that there was hardly anybody left to pick the crops, which meant they couldn’t make any money off those crops if they weren’t getting picked by those exploited workers.

So now they’re aware there’s a problem because it’s always a problem when your primary source of income kind of evaporates right in front of your eyes.

But where this becomes a problem for us, meaning you and me, is that if no one is tending to the crops (oh, and the chickens) that feed America, then what is America supposed to eat? How is America supposed to eat? I’m guessing there may be some reserves, at least I hope so, but fruits and vegetables don’t stay fresh forever, folks.

As for the meat, fish, and poultry, OK, sure. You don’t grow cows or chickens out of the ground. But if Trump is firing all the quality control folks and inspectors whose job it is to make sure the food is safe, then how safe are we supposed to feel about whatever unfortunate animal makes it to our plate?

Do you feel safe with Trump as your president? Then I wouldn’t worry. You’ll be just fine. No, really. You’ll be totally A-OK. No problem. Reality was never meant for you.

Trust me.