When did caring about people became political?

October 27, 2025 • 1941 words • 9 min read

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I’ve spent most of my career trying to stay out of political discussions in professional spaces. Not because I don’t have opinions, but because in tech communities, we’ve generally agreed that keeping our professional spaces focused on the work creates room for everyone. That’s still true. This isn’t about that.

This is about something that shouldn’t be political at all: whether we care when our neighbors can’t eat, can’t see a doctor, or can’t pay rent.

What’s happening right now

This week, millions of Americans are facing situations that will fundamentally change their lives:

Healthcare premiums are increasing 30-50% for most people, with some older Americans facing increases over 200%. (The Washington Post, Center for American Progress) For individuals just above certain income thresholds, premiums could more than double, and those with incomes between $23,000-$31,000 per year will see their out-of-pocket premium spending rise by 400%. (Commonwealth Fund) This isn’t an abstract policy change. This is people choosing between medication and groceries, between doctor visits and rent.

SNAP and food assistance programs serving nearly 42 million people aren’t paying out, with the USDA announcing that benefits will not be issued starting November 1. (NPR, CBS News) I grew up on these programs. I know what it means when the food runs out before the month does. I know what hunger feels like, and I know it’s not a character-building experience or a lesson in resilience. It’s just suffering.

About 1.4 million civilian federal employees across the country are going without pay. Roughly half are furloughed, while the other half has been deemed essential and is continuing to work without pay. (NPR) Many federal employees will lose out on hundreds of dollars from partial paychecks, and it’s the last paycheck they’ll receive until the government shutdown ends. (Federal News Network) These aren’t abstract government bureaucrats. They’re TSA agents, park rangers, food safety inspectors, and thousands of other people who show up to work every day. Air traffic controllers - about 13,000 of them - are considered essential workers and must continue working without pay, keeping planes in the air and skies safe while worrying about paying their mortgages. (ABC News, CBS News) Some are taking second jobs like driving for DoorDash to make ends meet. (NBC News)

Meanwhile, the people who could end this with a single vote continue to collect their paychecks. (CBS News, CNN) They also receive health insurance with 72-75% of premiums paid by taxpayers (Congress.gov, Becker’s Payer Issues) - coverage that won’t be affected by the premium increases devastating their constituents. They are completely insulated from the harm they’re causing.

Businesses that contract with or serve the federal government are trying to figure out how to support their own employees while their revenue has stopped. These companies can’t just pause operations. They have leases, payroll, and obligations.

Food banks are reporting that they’re either out of stock or strained beyond capacity to meet the sudden spike in need. More than 50 million people received food from food banks in 2023, compared to roughly 40 million in 2019. (U.S. News & World Report) Food banks provide about 10% of food assistance under normal circumstances, with 90% coming from SNAP and other federal programs. (KCUR)

The stock market hit an all-time high this week. That number means nothing to any of the people I just described. The richest 10% of Americans own 89% of all US stocks. (Inequality.org) The bottom 50% of households own just 1% of stock market wealth. When the market soars, it’s the people who already have everything who benefit, while the wealth gap grows wider than it’s been since right before the Great Depression. (LSE Inequalities) The system rewards those who are already winning, and leaves everyone else further and further behind.

This isn’t complicated

Here’s what I want to be extremely clear about: this situation is not the result of complex policy tradeoffs or difficult choices between competing priorities. This is the result of leadership choosing to allow harm.

There were options. There are always options. Leaders chose not to take them.

When you have the power to prevent people from going hungry and you don’t use it, that’s a choice. When you have the power to ensure people can see doctors and you don’t use it, that’s a choice. When you have the power to make sure people can pay their rent and you don’t use it, that’s a choice. When air traffic controllers keeping our skies safe have to drive for DoorDash between shifts to pay their bills while lawmakers continue collecting their six figure salaries, that’s a choice.

Any leader who allows their people to go hungry and lose their homes has fundamentally failed.

The system is working exactly as designed

But here’s the thing: this isn’t just about individual leaders making bad choices. This is about a system that makes these outcomes possible in the first place. A system where:

• Healthcare coverage can vanish or become unaffordable overnight based on decisions made by people who are unaffected
• Food assistance can simply stop, leaving millions of people scrambling
• Workers can be forced to work without pay while still being expected to meet their financial obligations, while the people who could end the shutdown continue to be paid
• The stock market can hit record highs while people are choosing between food and medicine

This system is working exactly as designed. The problem is the design.

We’ve built a society where basic human needs - food, healthcare, housing - are treated as privileges to be earned rather than rights to be protected. We’ve built a government where political leverage is more valuable than human welfare. We’ve built an economy where record corporate profits and all-time stock market highs can coexist with food banks running empty.

We’ve built a system where economic health is measured by wealth at the top, not by whether people at the bottom have enough. Where a thriving economy means stock portfolios grow, not that fewer people go hungry.

That’s not a bug. That’s the system functioning as intended.

When did caring become political?

Somewhere along the way, we decided that caring about our neighbors’ wellbeing is a political position rather than a baseline human value.

If I say “people shouldn’t go hungry,” that’s somehow political.

If I say “people should be able to see a doctor when they’re sick,” that’s political.

If I say “people should be able to afford the medication they need to survive,” that’s political.

If I say “people should be able to afford a place to live,” that’s political.

If I say “workers should be paid for their work,” that’s political.

None of those statements should be political. They’re moral baselines. They’re the bare minimum of what it means to live in a society rather than just occupying the same geographic space.

The fact that we treat basic human compassion as a partisan issue is itself a failure. It means we’ve accepted a framework where caring about other people’s suffering is optional, where it’s reasonable to debate whether hunger is an acceptable outcome, where it’s a valid political position to simply not care.

That acceptance is the soil in which this crisis grows.

What this looks like in real life

Let me be specific about what this means for actual people:

It means a parent being told by state officials to “use your benefits to stock up on food before the end of October” and “buy shelf-stable foods that can last through November and beyond.” (NBC News)

It means a Department of Veterans Affairs worker telling his kids they can’t have any snacks and will get smaller portions because they have to make the food last. (CNN)

It means a federal contractor saying “with my rent due next week, I take anything I can get” as she waits two hours in line at a food bank. (CNN)

It means an air traffic controller at Andrews Air Force Base taking on a second job driving for DoorDash four days into the shutdown because “my financial obligations were mounting.” (NBC News)

It means food bank CEOs who have already had to ration bags of potatoes facing the prospect of hundreds of thousands more people needing help. (U.S. News & World Report)

It means federal workers with decades of service lining up at food banks and saying “I kind of feel like I’m in a pool and I’m trying to swim to the top, but every time I get to the middle, I’m getting knocked back down.” (NPR)

These aren’t hypotheticals. This is happening right now. To people you know. In your community. Your neighbors.

What we owe each other

I don’t have a solution to systemic failure. I’m not going to pretend that one blog post or one person’s outrage changes any of this. But I do know what we owe each other in the meantime:

We owe each other compassion. If your coworker is irritable this week, if they’re distracted or stressed or not performing at their usual level, extend some grace. You don’t know what they’re dealing with. You don’t know if their healthcare just became unaffordable or if their partner is a federal worker missing paychecks or if they’re wondering how to feed their kids.

We owe each other honesty. This isn’t normal. This isn’t acceptable. This isn’t just “how things are.” This is a choice that people in power made, and we don’t have to pretend it’s anything else.

We owe each other action, where we can take it. If you can donate to food banks, do it. If you can offer material support to people in your community, do it. If you can use your platform or your voice to make this visible, do it.

And we owe each other the refusal to accept that this is inevitable. The system that allows this can be changed. It won’t be easy and it won’t be fast, but it’s possible. The first step is refusing to accept that caring about people is political rather than human.

Ways to help

Here are concrete actions you can take right now:

Support food banks

• Feeding America connects you with local food banks nationwide
• Donate to food banks in your area, they’re reporting unprecedented demand
• Many local food banks accept both monetary donations and food donations

Support federal workers directly

• Check if your local credit union offers interest-free loans to affected federal workers
• Some utility companies are offering flexible payment plans - encourage them to do so
• Businesses can offer temporary assistance like free meals or payment deferrals

Make your voice heard

• Contact your representatives to demand an end to the shutdown
• Share information about what’s happening in your community
• Don’t let this become normalized

The bottom line

When millions of Americans face healthcare premium increases of 30-200%, when SNAP benefits serving 42 million people stop, when 1.4 million federal workers miss paychecks, when 13,000 air traffic controllers work without pay, and when food banks run empty - that’s not a policy disagreement. That’s a leadership failure that causes real human suffering.

Any system that allows this to happen is a failed system. Any leadership that chooses this outcome is failed leadership.

And any society that treats basic human compassion as a controversial political position has lost something fundamental about what it means to be human.

We can do better than this. We have to.