Food banks have been strained by increased demand due to a lapse in SNAP benefits and as the government shutdown ends, the effects may be long-lasting.

“The most compelling and difficult thing is when hope is built up. On Friday all the judges were saying that SNAP benefits would be released, then it was appealed, then it was ‘We’ll have the shutdown taken care of,’” Kirkhart said. “So this nonstop uncertainty, I feel like, is developing into a certain level of trauma. It feels like it’s never-ending and that’s very challenging.”

^ This is how fascism works at a mechanical moment to moment level.