[[link removed]]

IT’S TIME FOR AN ALL-OUT FOOD FIGHT WITH TRUMP  
[[link removed]]


 

Jeremy Brecher
December 14, 2025
Common Dreams [[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ How can ordinary grocery shoppers organize and become part of the
movement that is endeavoring to protect society against Trump’s
authoritarian juggernaut? _

Apples and bananas in brown cardboard box, Photo by Maria Lin Kim on
Unsplash

 

Hunger has a funny way of concentrating the attention.

The cost of food and cutbacks in the provision of food for those who
need it have been drivers of mass protest
[[link removed]] throughout much of history:

* One of the events initiating the French Revolution was the
Women’s March on Versailles
[[link removed]], which
began among women in the marketplaces of Paris protesting the high
price and scarcity of bread. Their demonstrations quickly became
intertwined with the activities of those who were seeking an end to
autocracy and had just issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
* The 2008 Egyptian general strike
[[link removed]] over
rising food costs provided inspiration for the overthrow of Egyptian
dictator Hosni Mubarak three years later.
* In 2022 in Sri Lanka, rising food prices among other grievances
led to protests
[[link removed]] that
culminated in the overthrow of the ruling regime.

Recent months have seen the emergence of a powerful movement-based
opposition to President Donald Trump
[[link removed]] and MAGA, manifested
in the 7 million participants in No Kings Day and the unprecedented
on-the-ground opposition to Immigration
[[link removed]] and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) and National Guard occupations of American cities. At the same
time, the price of food for Americans of every class has soared: A
survey this summer by the _Associated Press_ and NORC
[[link removed]]
found the cost of groceries has become a major source of stress for
just over half of all Americans—outpacing rent, healthcare
[[link removed]], and student debt
[[link removed]].

What are sometimes belittled as “pocketbook issues” like the cost
of food, housing, and medical care have become critical issues for a
majority of Americans. So far, the hundreds of millions suffering from
inflated prices have not found a way to organize themselves and fight
back. Nor has the movement-based opposition taken up their cause. But
a rarely remembered consumer boycott half a century ago indicates how
such self-organization against high food prices might emerge.

“America’s Largest Protest”

Ann Giordano, 33, described herself as “just a housewife.” She
recalled that she was never particularly conscious of food prices; her
Staten Island kitchen didn’t have enough shelf space for her to buy
in large quantities. But one day when she had put the groceries away
there was still space left on the shelf. She vaguely wondered if she
had left a bag of food at the store. Next time she came home from
shopping, she looked in her wallet and concluded that she had
accidentally left a $20 bill behind. When she went back to the
supermarket and found out how much her food really cost, she suddenly
realized where the shelf space had come from and where the money had
gone.

It was early spring in 1973. Inflation
[[link removed]] was rising, food prices
were soaring, and millions of shoppers nationwide were having similar
experiences. Mrs. Giordano called some of her friends and discussed
the idea of a consumer boycott—an idea that was springing up
simultaneously in many places around the country in response to rising
food prices. Soon a substantial network of women was calling homes all
over Staten Island, spreading word of the boycott. They called a
meeting at a local bowling alley to which over one hundred people came
on two days’ notice. They named themselves JET-STOP (Joint Effort to
Stop These Outrageous Prices) and elected captains for each district.
Within a week they had covered the island with leaflets. picketed the
major stores, and laid the basis for a highly effective boycott.

Mrs. Giordano and her friends were typical of those who gave birth to
the 1973 consumer meat boycott, “a movement which started in a
hundred different places all at once and that’s not led by
anyone.” As a newspaper account described it:

The boycott is being organized principally at the grassroots level
rather than by any overall committee or national leadership. It is
made up mainly of groups of tenants in apartment buildings, neighbors
who shop at the same markets in small towns, block associations,
and—perhaps most typical—groups of women who meet every morning
over coffee. All have been spurred into action by the common desire to
bring food prices back to what they consider a manageable level.

The 1973 consumer meat boycott was undoubtedly the largest mass
protest in American history. A Gallup poll taken at the end of the
boycott found that over 25% of all consumers—representing families
with 50 million members—had participated in it. Large retail and
wholesale distributors reported their meat sales down by one-half to
two-thirds. The boycott was strongest among what the press referred to
as “middle income” families—those with incomes around the
then-national average of $10,000 to $12,000 a year. It represented, in
the words of one reporter, “an awareness that, for a whole new class
of Americans like themselves, push has finally come to shove.”

In low-income neighborhoods, sales fell less during the boycott,
largely because, as retailers pointed out, the residents, who
couldn’t afford much meat at any time, had been cutting back for
weeks due to high prices. As one Harlem merchant said, “How much can
these people tighten their belts when they don’t have too much under
their belts in the first place?”

Some advocates of the boycott made the dubious argument that it would
bring meat prices down by reducing the demand for meat. Most
participants, however, saw the movement as a protest, a way of
communicating to politicians and others what they felt about the
rising cost of living.

President Richard Nixon
[[link removed]] responded by putting
a freeze on meat prices, but his move was met by scorn among many
boycotters, who felt that prices were already far too high (“They
locked the barn door after the cow went through the roof,” commented
one housewife).

“We Ain’t Buying It!”

The meat boycott did not prove to be an effective tactic for combating
high prices. Lacking a further strategy for meeting its
participants’ needs and failing to hook up with the other mass
insurgencies of the time, the movement soon lost momentum.
Participants stopped coordinating their activity and returned to more
individual strategies. But it did show the tremendous capacity of
ordinary people to organize themselves on a massive national scale
around issues of mutual concern—in this case the price of food.

Recent months have seen the emergence of the consumer boycott as a
powerful vehicle for combating the Trump regime and undermining its
“pillars of support.” Today’s boycotts are far more effectively
targeted on specific institutions and realizable demands. For example,
when the “Tesla Takedown” challenged Elon Musk’s role
demolishing federal agencies and jobs, sales plunged and company
stocks fell
[[link removed]]
13% in three months. A boycott campaign against Target initiated in
January by the local Black community in Minneapolis over its reversal
of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies has now cut
sharply into its sales, helping lead to
[[link removed]]
its stock falling 33%, a $20 billion loss in shareholder value, and
replacement of its CEO. When Disney took late-night host Jimmy Kimmel
[[link removed]] off the air
over comments he made following the murder of Charlie Kirk
[[link removed]] in September, the
Working Families Party
[[link removed]] helped put
together a toolkit that explained how to cancel a Disney subscription.
The _Wall Street_ [[link removed]]_
Journal_ reported
[[link removed]]
that customers ditched Disney+ and Hulu at double the normal rates in
September. Disney brought Kimmel back within days, and Hulu soon
followed suit.

_THE 1973 MEAT BOYCOTT ILLUSTRATES THE WAY WHAT ARE SOMETIMES
DISMISSED AS “POCKETBOOK ISSUES” CAN BE DRIVERS OF
SELF-ORGANIZATION AND MASSIVE OUTPOURINGS OF PUBLIC DISCONTENT._

Today’s boycotts are also much better aligned with other forces. For
example, in the days following Thanksgiving, major organizations that
had backed the millions-strong national No Kings and MayDay2025 days
of action, including Indivisible, 50501 [[link removed]],
and MayDayStrong, swung behind the boycotts of Target, Amazon, Home
Depot, and other major corporations. Some national coordination was
provided by a group that called itself “We Ain’t Buying It.”
[[link removed]]

This action [[link removed]] is
taking direct aim at TARGET, for caving to this administration’s
biased attacks on DEI; HOME DEPOT, for allowing and colluding with ICE
to kidnap our neighbors on their properties; and AMAZON, for funding
this administration to secure their own corporate tax cuts
[[link removed]].

These groups and many others are backing the boycott in support of
striking Starbuck’s workers
[[link removed]] under the slogan, “No
contract, no coffee!” [[link removed]]

Like the Tesla [[link removed]] Takedowns,
these boycotts are coordinated with and often spearheaded by
demonstrations and other forms of direct action at physical locations.
And they are finding ways to stimulate other forms of pressure on
their targets: The Amazon protest group Athenaforall
[[link removed]], for example, is encouraging local groups
to demand an end to local contracts with Amazon, permission for Amazon
expansions, and public subsidies for Amazon.

Today’s boycott actions are better targeted and better allied than
the 1973 meat boycott, but so far, they have not drawn in much of the
population that is directly harmed by Trump and his corporate backers.
The 1973 meat boycott shows that pocketbook issues, such as inflation
and most notably food prices, can be a basis for self-organization and
action beyond the electoral arena among the wide swath of people they
affect.

The 1973 meat boycott illustrates the way what are sometimes dismissed
as “pocketbook issues” can be drivers of self-organization and
massive outpourings of public discontent. Such examples from the past
are unlikely to provide us the specific programs or tactics we need to
meet today’s food crises. But they do demonstrate the power that
people can mobilize when they are driven by food deprivation.

Food Facts

The US currently has two overlapping food crises. One is the
elimination of food programs for the poor. According to the Center for
American Progress
[[link removed]]:

Project 2025
[[link removed]]
and the Republican Study Committee
[[link removed]]
budget [[link removed]] envisioned a
transformative dismantling [[link removed]] of
federal nutrition assistance programs. In January, the Trump
administration [[link removed]]
chaotically froze federal funding
[[link removed]],
leaving farmers reeling
[[link removed]]
and nonprofits serving the needy worrying
[[link removed]]
about steady access to support from SNAP
[[link removed]] and Meals on Wheels. In March,
the administration cut
[[link removed]]
more than $1 billion of funding from two programs that supply schools
and food banks with food from local farms and ranches. These cuts
affected schoolchildren and small farmers in all 50 states
[[link removed]].

Despite the end of the government shutdown, millions face cutoff of
food assistance
[[link removed]]
right now. The GOP’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” passed earlier this
year, cuts SNAP by roughly 20%
[[link removed]].
The cuts may affect people in every state
[[link removed]].
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the addition of new work
requirements alone will cause 2.4 million people to lose benefits in
an average month [[link removed]].

There is also another food crisis that affects everyone—poor and
less poor—the fast-rising cost of food.

As you may have noticed, the price of food in American supermarkets
has soared. As surveys indicate
[[link removed]],
the cost of groceries has become a major source of stress for American
consumers.

Many consumers compare food prices now to five years ago. According to
the Department of Agriculture
[[link removed]], five years ago the
average cost of groceries
[[link removed]]
for a family of two working adults and two children
[[link removed]] ranged between $613 and
$1,500 per month. In 2025, such a family is spending between $1,000
and $1,600 per month at the grocery store.

Food prices have continued rising through Trump’s presidency. In
September 2025, banana prices were up 7% from a year before, ground
beef had risen 13%, and roasted coffee rose 19%, according to the most
recent Consumer Price Index
[[link removed]]
(CPI) data available. (At that point the Trump administration stopped
releasing CPI data—perhaps on the theory that no news is good news,
or that what you don’t know won’t starve you.) As of September,
the average cost of a pound of ground beef was $6.30, according to
Federal Reserve [[link removed]]
data [[link removed]]—the highest
since the Department of Labor started tracking beef prices in the
1980s and 65% higher than in late 2019. The average retail price of
ground roast coffee [[link removed]]
reached a record high of $9.14 per pound in September, more than twice
the price in December 2019 when a pound of ground coffee cost just
over $4.

Discontent over inflation was a principal cause of Trump’s 2024
election [[link removed]] victory. It
was also a principal cause of the Republican rout in 2025. But there
is little public confidence that either Democrats or Republicans
[[link removed]] will rectify it. And
neither has much in the way of a program to fix it—beyond each
blaming the other.

The Fight for Food

In the 1973 meat boycott, households with 50 million members found a
way to protest high food prices without waiting for elections. Today,
the hundreds of millions of victims of exorbitant food prices may be
enraged, but they have not yet found a way to organize themselves and
fight back. Nor has the movement-based opposition that has challenged
Trump’s galloping autocracy yet found a way to address food and
other affordability issues. Food deprivation presents an opportunity
for the movement to defend society against Trump’s depredations to
bring a new front—and a new constituency—into that struggle.

While food inflation has multiple causes, our current food crises are
in considerable part a result of actions by Trump and MAGA’s
would-be autocracy. For example, Trump’s tariffs
[[link removed]], a significant cause of
rising food prices, represent an unconstitutional usurpation of the
exclusive authority of the legislative branch to levy taxes. The
violent attacks by ICE on immigrant workers—especially on farm
workers—have driven workers from the fields, leading to farm labor
shortages and rising food prices. And of course the cuts in SNAP and
other food support programs make food immensely more expensive for
tens of millions of people. While long-term solutions to food prices
and food security will require major reforms in agricultural and other
policies, reversing Trump’s tariff, anti-immigrant, and anti-SNAP
policies could help a lot right now.

The anti-autocracy movement has the opportunity to raise the issues of
food and other consumer prices as a fundamental part of the way MAGA
autocracy is hurting ordinary people. The message can be: The
destruction of democracy [[link removed]]
is hurting _you_. This can open a way to the convergence of
“pocketbook” concerns and the “No Kings” struggle for
democracy. The movement-based opposition can serve as an ally to help
people organize themselves and fight for themselves—as households
with 50 million members did in the 1973 meat boycott.

_WHILE FOOD INFLATION HAS MULTIPLE CAUSES, OUR CURRENT FOOD CRISES ARE
IN CONSIDERABLE PART A RESULT OF ACTIONS BY TRUMP AND MAGA’S
WOULD-BE AUTOCRACY._

The 1973 meat boycott grew out of the daily life conditions of
millions of people; mass response to today’s food crises will
similarly depend on the experiences, feelings, reflections,
discussions, and above all experimental action of those suffering
their consequences. But one of the limits on the meat boycott’s
success was the difficulty it had formulating concrete demands and a
program which could actually realize its objectives. Today, there are
proposals “in the wind” to bring down food prices that are well
worth discussing and testing. They include:

END ALL TARIFFS ON FOOD: Trump’s tariffs contribute significantly to
the high cost of meat, coffee, bananas, and other groceries—tariffs
on Brazilian beef imports are more than 75%, according
[[link removed]] to the American Farm
Bureau Federation. Whatever the Supreme Court
[[link removed]] decides about current
challenges to the constitutionality of Trump’s tariff programs, he
will almost certainly try to continue his tariff powers using
different legal justifications—and the impact on consumers will
continue. Yet his recent reduction of some tariffs on food shows how
politically vulnerable he is on this issue—and indicates that
pressure could force even more reductions.

The Yale Budget Lab recently estimated
[[link removed]]
that tariffs will cost households almost $2,400 a year. In a recent
poll
[[link removed]],
three-quarters said their regular monthly household costs have
increased by at least $100
[[link removed]]
a month from last year. Respondents identified the tariffs as the
second biggest threat
[[link removed]]
to the economy. Only 22% supported Trump’s tariffs. A demand to end
all tariffs on food might win quick and massive support—and find
allies among the public officials and corporate leaders who are
turning against Trump’s tariffs. Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada recently
introduced the No Tariffs on Groceries Act
[[link removed]],
saying, “Donald Trump lied to the American people when he promised
to bring prices down ‘on day one.’ His reckless tariffs have done
the opposite, raising grocery costs and making it harder for
hardworking families to put food on the table.”

RESTORE ALL FOOD PROGRAMS: The hunger-producing cuts in nutrition
programs like SNAP are immensely unpopular. In October, Republican
Senator Josh Hawley, of all people, introduced
[[link removed]]
two bills to reinstate Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
[[link removed]]
(SNAP) benefits and critical farm programs during the government
shutdown. Despite the end of the government shutdown, cuts in SNAP and
other nutrition programs are burgeoning. A campaign to cancel all cuts
in all food programs would have wide popular support and could be
spearheaded by those who have lost or will lose their benefits.
Legislation
[[link removed]]
to do so was introduced in Congress in late November.

PROVIDE FREE SCHOOL MEALS: Free school lunch programs represent a
widely accepted form of support for all families—without demeaning
means tests. In Colorado voters just passed
[[link removed]]
statewide ballot measures which would raise $95 million annually for
school meals by limiting deductions for high income taxpayers. The
measures will support Healthy School Meals for All, a state program
that provides free breakfast and lunch to all students regardless of
their family’s income level. Excess receipts can be used to
compensate for the loss of federal SNAP funds. Nine states and many
cities already provide free meals for all students. Such programs can
directly reduce the money families have to pay for food.

EXPAND SNAP TO ALL WHO NEED IT: A proposal
[[link removed]]
by food insecurity expert Craig Gunderson would provide SNAP benefits
to all those with incomes up to 400% of the poverty
[[link removed]] line. If benefits were also
expanded by roughly 25%, it would reduce food insecurity by more than
98% at a cost of $564.5 billion. While such a program is not likely to
be instituted all at once, the demand to expand SNAP eligibility could
win wide popular support and directly benefit tens of millions of
people. According to Gunderson, states can and have set higher
eligibility thresholds of up to 200% of the poverty line. Given the
wide public outrage over the soaring wealth of the wealthy, surely a
tax on high-income people to pay for such a program could win popular
support.

SUPPORT COMMUNITY GARDENS, LOCAL FARMS, AND FOOD MUTUAL AID: The Trump
administration has eliminated
[[link removed]]
two programs that provided schools and food banks $1 billion to buy
food from local farms. This has directly impacted food banks, schools,
and farmers by cutting off a key market for local produce and reducing
the amount of fresh food available to those in need. People don’t
have to wait for government programs to start growing their own food
to fight hunger—in fact, they are doing so already, for example,
through community gardens. But state and municipal programs can
provide essential support for expanding these efforts.

OPEN PUBLIC GROCERY STORES: New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani
[[link removed]] has proposed
[[link removed]] a network of city-owned
grocery stores focused on keeping prices low, rather than on making a
profit. They would buy and sell at wholesale prices, centralize
warehousing and distribution, and partner with local neighborhoods on
products and sourcing.

“Don’t Starve—Fight”

Historically it has often been hard to find the levers of power to
affect food prices. The 1973 meat boycott was powerful enough to bring
about token action by President Richard Nixon. But it was unable to
parlay participation by families with 50 million members into an
effective way to reduce food prices. Around the world food riots have
often been more successful in bringing down governments than in
bringing down the price of food.

Targeted boycotts have recently proved effective where they could
seriously affect a powerful target—witness the Tesla Takedown
causing Elon Musk [[link removed]] to
withdraw from his DOGE [[link removed]]
disaster and Disney’s rapid rehiring of Jimmy Kimmel. Targets might
include food companies that have supported Trump.

Today’s boycotts are highly effective at generating new and creative
tactics: Consider the anti-ICE activists
[[link removed]]
in Los Angeles, Charlotte, and elsewhere who swelled long lines to buy
17-cent ice scrapers, then again swelled long lines to return
them—to send a message to Home Depot “to scrape ICE out of their
stores.”

_A MOVEMENT AGAINST THE FAILURE TO BRING DOWN HIGH FOOD PRICES COULD
BE A NATURAL ALLY FOR THE EMERGING MOVEMENT TO DEFEND SOCIETY AGAINST
TRUMP AND MAGA._

Boycotts are only one vehicle that could be used for food protests
[[link removed]]. Local demonstrations and
“hunger marches” can be vehicles for dramatizing the issue and
mobilizing people around it. Food banks, unions
[[link removed]], churches, and other local
institutions are in a strong position to initiate such actions. There
is no way to know in advance what actions will achieve traction, but
that is a good reason to start “testing the waters.”

Under public pressure, many states are stepping up to replace SNAP
funding to compensate for federal cuts. A special session of the New
Mexico legislature
[[link removed]],
for example, authorized $20 million weekly to provide state nutrition
assistance benefits to the 460,000 New Mexicans who rely on SNAP.

But states will only be able to fill in for the federal government for
a limited period of time. The New Mexico program, for example, only
provides funding through the week of January, 19, 2026. At some point,
even Republican governors and legislators may well begin demanding
“re-federalization” of food programs.

Such a dynamic can be seen in the federalization of relief in the
early days of the Great Depression. The entire American establishment,
led by President Herbert Hoover, abhorred the idea of federal help for
the poor and hungry, maintaining it was exclusively the responsibility
of local governments and charities. But “hunger strikes” and other
protests, often under the slogan “Don’t Starve—Fight!” created
disruption and fear of social upheaval. In response, many cities and
states created emergency relief programs, but soon many of them were
on the verge of bankruptcy. Once-conservative city and state leaders
began trooping to Washington
[[link removed]] to ask for federal
support. As Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven
[[link removed]]
put it, “Driven by the protests of the masses of unemployed and the
threat of financial ruin, mayors of the biggest cities of the United
States [[link removed]], joined by
business and banking leaders, had become lobbyists for the poor.”

Under such pressure, the Hoover administration developed a program of
loans to states to pay for relief programs. With the coming of the New
Deal, this became an enormously expanded program of federal grants.
The New Deal also began to buy surplus commodities from farmers and
distribute them to families with low income
[[link removed]].

While the details are different, this basic dynamic of pressure from
people to cities and states to the federal government is still
relevant today. Pressure to expand local and state programs is not an
alternative to federal programs, but a step to forcing their
expansion.

One weakness of the 1973 meat boycott was its isolation from the other
burgeoning movements
[[link removed]]
of the time, including the civil rights
[[link removed]] movement; the movement
against the Vietnam War
[[link removed]]; and the large-scale
wave of strikes, many of them wildcats. This made it less powerful
than it otherwise might have been. A food movement today would have
the opportunity for powerful alliances. Like consumers, farmers are
being devastated by Trump’s tariffs and would benefit from expanded
food programs. Like food consumers, farmers are also being hurt by the
ICE policies driving farm workers away from the fields.

Food inflation might seem to be a middle-class issue, but poor people
spend a substantially higher proportion of their total income on food,
so rising food prices affect them even more. In 2023, the fifth of the
population with the lowest incomes spent
[[link removed]]
nearly 33% of their income on food; the highest-income fifth spent
barely 8%. The rising cost of food means the poor can buy even less
with whatever small funds they have. So low-income and better-off food
consumers are natural allies.

High food prices were an important reason for Donald Trump’s
election; he promised to reduce prices on “day one” of his
presidency. Spooked by rising consumer anger at high food prices, on
December 6 Trump established two task forces
[[link removed]]
to investigate “whether anti-competitive behavior, especially by
foreign-controlled companies, increases the cost of living for
Americans.” An accompanying fact sheet stated, “President Trump is
fighting every day to reverse Biden’s inflation crisis and bring
down sky-high grocery prices—and he will not rest until every
American feels the relief at the checkout line.” The task forces are
instructed to report their findings to Congress within 180 days and
present recommendations for congressional action within a year.

A movement against the failure to bring down high food prices could be
a natural ally for the emerging movement to defend society against
Trump and MAGA—what I have called “Social Self-Defense
[[link removed]].”
Conversely, the emerging movement-based opposition to Trump and MAGA
has everything to gain by encouraging the development of a movement
that allows millions of people to fight, not starve.

_Jeremy Brecher_ [[link removed]]_
is a historian, author, and co-founder of the Labor Network for
Sustainability. His book, "Climate Insurgency: A Strategy for
Survival," or free download at his personal website. His other books
include: "Save the Humans? Common Preservation in Action" (2020),
"Strike!" (2020), and, co-edited with Brendan Smith and Jill Cutler,
"In the Name of Democracy: American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond"
(Metropolitan/Holt)._

_Common Dreams_ [[link removed]]_ is a
reader-supported independent news outlet created in 1997 as a new
media model._

_Our nonprofit newsroom covers the most important news stories of the
moment. Common Dreams free online journalism keeps our millions of
readers well-informed, inspired, and engaged._

_We are optimists. We believe real change is possible. But only if
enough well-informed, well-intentioned—and just plain fed up and
fired-up—people demand it. We believe that together we can attain
our common dreams._

 

* Grassroots Organizing
[[link removed]]
* food
[[link removed]]
* hunger
[[link removed]]
* Affordability crisis
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

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