Are bread riots coming to America?
Hundreds of thousands of private citizens who have lost their jobs are flocking to Reddit for help and advice, as state unemployment bureaucracies are so janky and swamped they often can't deal with the flood of applications.
In the past week, the r/unemployment subreddit has taken a dark turn with the expiration of the CARES Act's super-unemployment and the failure of Republicans to even come to an agreement about what they want in the next round of pandemic relief. It's become a de facto support group for people whose lives are collapsing around them for simple lack of income or jobs, and talk of suicide is common.
One wonders: Is America about to see bread protests, or even riots?
People around the country have been testifying how they are down to their last dollar or flat broke, facing eviction or living on the street, unable to afford vital prescriptions or even food. "I've got $18.91 in my bank account this morning. My cupboards are getting low, my dog will have to eat whatever me and my kids eat and my gas light will be back on shortly," wrote one Redditor recently. "My car payment was due today and I'm still $200 short, 500 counting last month's. My phone bill is due in a few days. I'm a month behind on the electric bill. I have about $60 to my name, I'm not going to make rent and my [landlords] have already said they will not be giving any allowances," wrote another. "Well I've waited and now my power turns off at the end of today, in a house where my entire family has moved in with me - worst of all I have two toddlers and virtually nowhere to go. 'Rona and the government have picked off my family one by one and this seems to be the final nail in the coffin," wrote a third.
Demanding a handout from the government is difficult for many Americans because we are trained from birth to "look out for yourself" and not expect help from others. But the fact is that nobody can actually look out for themselves. Interdependence is simply a fact of life in any complex economy. We all depend on state-created laws, regulations, subsidies, and policies - and none more so than the rich, who are collecting government cheese in about a thousand subtle ways. It is absolutely within the rights of the people to demand that their elected representatives make sure everyone has enough to eat and a roof over their heads at all times, not just in a crisis. And when a Great Depression-scale disaster is allowed to fester for no reason, it is anybody's guess what will happen. As we saw with this summer's racial justice protest movement, mass despair is just waiting for a spark to blow into a conflagration of rage. The result could easily spin out of anyone's control.
