This Trump-voting county in Maine heavily relies on food stamps. The shutdown is hitting it hard.

From the Globe article:

“About 20 percent of residents in rural Aroostook County get SNAP benefits, which lapsed Saturday. Food banks can’t make up the gap.

Like other rural counties, Aroostook has trended rightward in recent elections. It handed President Trump a 26-point win last year and is the birthplace of Susan Collins, Maine’s long-serving Republican senator. A recent Portland Press Herald headline asked “Is Aroostook County more politically conservative than Alabama?” (It isn’t, but just asking the question says a lot.)

And here’s another factor that sets Aroostook apart: It’s the Trump-voting New England county that relies most heavily on SNAP, the federal aid program commonly known as food stamps, which has come under strain as the government shutdown drags on. That, in turn, has strained food banks and pantries that distribute aid across the county.

SNAP is “the 8,000-pound gorilla in the room,” said Jon Blanchard, an Aroostook native and program director for Catholic Charities Maine. “To have it just disappear when families are counting on it as part of their monthly budget, it shocks the system.”

By the numbers, Aroostook’s needs are greater. About 20 percent of the county’s roughly 67,000 residents get food stamps, surpassing the state and national rates. It’s among the oldest counties in the oldest state, with more than a quarter of residents aged 65 or older. Its residents also have fewer resources, with one of Maine’s highest unemployment rates and a median household income of around $54,000, about 25 percent lower than the statewide figure.

Courts have ordered the Trump administration to tap emergency funding to restore SNAP benefits, which lapsed Saturday. But the administration initially agreed to disburse just half the normal amount. “ Fifty percent would be way better than zero,” said Paquette. “That’s still going to have a catastrophic impact.” (Yesterday, a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the administration to fully fund this month’s SNAP benefits by today.)

Still, the reductions might bite less if Aroostook hadn’t already been struggling. Well before the shutdown, inflation and Trump’s tariffs helped push up food costs, leaving food banks with less buying power. His threats to annex Canada tanked tourism, hurting local businesses. And the Agriculture Department canceled funding for food banks to buy from local farmers.

Now the need has deepened. On Wednesday, Blanchard traveled to a parking-lot food pantry in the county seat of Houlton. Last year, he told me, the site distributed between 30 and 40 boxes of food each week. That morning, it had already given out 120.

What’s next?

Aroostook highlights one political tension of the Trump era: voters who depend on government benefits like SNAP, Obamacare, and Medicaid but back candidates who tend to favor cutting them. Asked who his constituents faulted for Aroostook’s struggles, Trey Stewart, a state senator who represents part of the county, blamed Maine Democrats. “This hardship isn’t Trump’s doing,” he said in a statement.

Until SNAP is restored, aid groups are adapting. When I spoke to Blanchard, he was driving a 26-foot box truck to pick up donated clothes, which Catholic Charities sells to benefit Aroostook food pantries. “There’s definitely people coming out of the woodwork” to help.

For now, giving is unlikely to be enough. Supplemental funding from private donors and the state only amounted to about $1,000 per food pantry Good Shepherd works with, Paquette said. Some are discussing restricting how many times someone can visit or limiting which zip codes they serve.

“These are not decisions pantry partners should have to make,” Paquette said. “And they’re not decisions they’ve ever had to make before.”

So, what, they are getting what they voted for, if they go hungry, too bad, it is what they wanted.

I will gladly help Dems, Liberals and Progressives. Republicans, Conservatives, Libertarians and ChristoFascists can all starve.

They’ll blame the Democrats.

They wanted retribution and they got some.

This was just the beginning. Wait until those 2026 cuts hit.

Depressing, but unfortunately y’all are getting what you voted for

It is wild how the people who support him are the ones getting hits hardest. Maybe they’ll start connecting the dots

*slips Trump ballot into the counter.*

“This will show us!”

Thing is, they will never realize Trump is to blame. They probably all watch Fox News and Newsmax, and they are being told that it’s the Democrats’ fault. And I’m sure they will never hear that the President is openly refusing to use resources available to fund SNAP temporarily, or that he is actively defying court orders to people continue to starve.

This is what they voted for. So, I guess, congratulations to them. Very happy for them getting to live in the world they helped to create. 

Get fucked. Hateful freaks can eat each other in the woods I don’t care

Let me guess. They want the rest of the state to step in and make up the shortfall? The rest of the state that they hate and consider “north Massachusetts”. Maybe we should create some rainbow flag, no kings, inflatable frog convoys to deliver food. 

It’s terrible that people have to go hungry. This is what the disinformation and dumbing down of our country universe gives us. 

This is what you voted for…

I lived in Branson, MO, in 2000. The entire town would go on food stamps and unemployment for months during the winter because of the ice and snow. I wish them the best this winter.

I’m glad they are getting the life they voted for.

Everyone is getting hit hard,  42m people rely on this program that is being used as a crude political leverage point to take away Healthcare.  

Trump counties should be happy they finally ended all the abuse and waste in these programs, if you lost your benefit you are clearly a lazy Crack smoker playing video games all day.  

There should be a way to send a few dollars to the registered Dems in the county. Well, Dems who need some assistance.

Any ideas?

I really don’t care, do you?

tots and pears – JK, you can’t have those either 

Yeah but they owned the Libs so it makes it all worth it.

Washington County also voted down a $11M bond to get them out of a budget crisis. Thanks to then voting it down, they’ll default on loans by December and run out of money by February.

The irony is us liberal counties and the federal government will probably bail them out