Roughly 1 in 4 North Carolinians, or nearly 3.1 million people, use Medicaid to cover their medications, doctors’ visits, hospital stays, and home care. Almost a third of those folks are seniors.

I didn’t know then that I’d be one of them one day. In 2023, after years spent helping others suffering from domestic abuse, threats from my husband forced me from my home.

Now, I’m worried that the Medicaid system will be stripped so bare that I might become a financial burden to my children, who are working hard to support themselves.

Who could have imagined public service could be so dangerous? I became the mayor of a small town in Western North Carolina to serve my entire community. To sit in churches, barbershops, and kitchen tables, and have intimate and honest conversations. To represent and lead the people I meet, even when we cannot agree on everything.

The military is supposed to be nonpartisan – to protect and stand for all Americans. To those soldiers standing behind Trump booing and laughing at Trump’s cruelty – and their commanding officers that went along with the spectacle – you disgraced the uniform, and you should all be ashamed. 

The Appalachia Comics Project is working to produce its first book, “Islands in the Sky” (which will be available in digital and print formats) about Hurricane Helene.

What is changing is that despite decades of anti-immigrant rhetoric, I believed the line would be drawn at turning these services into weapons. That the government would not use school records, Medicaid applications, or tax forms to target the families that feed our nation.

There is no way that the charitable food bank network — as big and robust as it is — can make up for these devastating cuts. SNAP is, by far, the most efficient and cost-effective way to make sure that people in our communities have enough to eat. What’s more, grocers in poor and working-class neighborhoods like mine, as well as rural communities, rely on SNAP dollars to stay open.