Disclaimer: This isn’t a Sandhills News, Rant or NC Local product—it's The Curious Scout, my personal newsletter exploring culture, politics, and moral courage through community-centered storytelling.
Table of Contents
The King with the Gauntlet
Thanos, Marvel’s Infinity War supervillain who saw himself as a god with ultimate power, chose, with one snap, to erase half the universe.
Donald Trump's presidency feels like that snap—sudden orders, devastating impact, no process, no checks.
SNAP benefits: vanish overnight.
White House walls: come down without review.
Legal residents and citizens: detained without due process.
People: killed in international waters without congressional approval (and likely illegal).
Like Thanos, Trump believes his power justifies any action. The pattern is clear: when power is concentrated and unchecked, vulnerable people disappear first—from their jobs, from their communities, from just being able to exist.
At first, heroes fought alone and failed. But once they united, with a strategy in hand? Power shifted.
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The SNAP Heard Across America
Disappearing Reality
On October 24, the USDA announced it would suspend November SNAP benefits, affecting 42 million Americans who rely on $8 billion in monthly benefits to feed their families.
For the first time in SNAP's 60-year history, the federal government refused to issue benefits during a shutdown, despite having $6 billion in contingency funds specifically designated for this crisis.
In North Carolina alone, 1.4 million people—including 580,000 children—faced losing food assistance. That's $250 million month to month, vanishing with no process or debate, just an order from the top down.
Signage showing Family Dollar customers that the establishment participates in SNAP in Lee County, NC. September 19, 2025. Credit: Diara J. Townes / NC Local
In my October 30 piece for NC Local, I detailed how recent federal law shifts billions in costs to states starting in 2027, leaving North Carolina scrambling for $700 million it doesn't have.
Jason Kanawati Stephany of the Food Bank of Central & Eastern NC told WUNC that for every meal food banks provide, SNAP provides nine.
“We can certainly keep this going for the next several weeks, but beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess,” Kanawati Stephany said.
Gov. Josh Stein (D) sourced $18 million for food banks, "a critical, but fleeting, lifeline," he said, while the federal government sat on $6 billion specifically designated for this crisis.
Twenty-five state attorneys general sued. Federal judges ordered the administration to use contingency funds. The Supreme Court temporarily allowed the withholding anyway.
The pattern repeats itself across policy areas.
On Nov. 14, Trump signed the “Fostering the Future” executive order, championed by First Lady Melania Trump. The slew of initiatives is aimed at boosting support for older foster youth, expanding partnerships with faith-based organizations, and modernizing technology in state-managed child welfare systems.
But, like other crises created or worsened by this administration, the order identifies problems without providing the resources to solve them. Rev. Starsky Wilson, president and CEO of the Children's Defense Fund, told The Imprint that while the order "names some valid challenges with our child welfare system," it "stops short" of addressing root disparities around race and poverty that drive family separations and offers no accountability for meeting the needs it identifies.