State Memes Mock Poor Folks' Food Aid Days Before Vote

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins posted a photo of a Black man standing in front of stacks of cash on Saturday, stamped with the words SNAP FRAUDSTER, and dressed it up as a joke. The image mimics Spirit Halloween costume packaging. Its caption: "Some costumes come with a price tag. This one comes with a prison sentence." Two days earlier, the White House posted a pumpkin carved into a sombrero shape with the words "Spooky szn is here." This is how the people running the federal apparatus talk when they think the cameras are friendly, days before the midterm elections.

Critics called the posts racially inflammatory. The NAACP didn't respond to a request for comment. Neither did the White House or Rollins.

Who Has the Power

The man in Rollins's post is Mercedes Reshard New, a social media personality known as "Shawty Dred," according to the Justice Department. Federal prosecutors say he controlled more than 350 fraudulent SNAP accounts under stolen identities between January 2020 and July 2026, a stretch of about six and a half years, and extracted about $4 million. A federal grand jury indicted him October 7 on dozens of counts of mail fraud and aggravated identity theft, plus one count each of SNAP fraud and illegal transactions with access devices. He was arrested October 13 and remains in federal custody.

Those are allegations. A federal defender, Joseph Austin, is listed in court records as representing New and didn't return a phone message. Nobody's been convicted of anything. The Agriculture Department's chief didn't wait for a verdict. She grabbed a photo from his own Instagram account, apparently from a September 2025 post, and turned it into a punchline for millions of followers.

The FBI had its own script. "Instead of this money feeding families in need, New, the social media personality known as 'Shawty Dred,' allegedly used the cash to bankroll a life of luxury," said Marlo Graham, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta.

What They're Calling "Order"

The posts land inside a larger campaign. The government says it's showing aggressive immigration enforcement and cracking down on fraud to save taxpayers money, while rising healthcare costs and other economic stressors make affordability a top concern for voters. In other words, the people being squeezed get a spectacle instead of relief.

The sombrero isn't new. One year ago, during the government shutdown, the White House revived a deepfake video posted by Trump showing House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries in a fake mustache and sombrero, accusing Democrats of acting on behalf of illegal immigrants. Jeffries called the meme bigoted. Administration officials played it on repeat in the White House briefing room. Vice President JD Vance promised the "sombrero memes will stop" once Democrats agreed to end the shutdown. A ransom note, delivered in costume.

Who Gets Crushed

The rhetoric has travelled well beyond memes. The administration recently ratcheted up anti-immigrant talk and fraud accusations, including against U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat born in Somalia and a naturalized citizen. Federal agents searched her Washington, D.C., home earlier this month. Authorities are investigating potential fraud in her family's immigration paperwork.

The government has also taken punitive steps tied to fraud allegations in mostly Democratic-led states, including California and Minnesota. Their governors say Washington is targeting them for political reasons.

So the pattern runs like this: a fraud case becomes a racial punchline, the punchline becomes a campaign prop, and the prop becomes cover for punishing whole states. Meanwhile the food assistance program itself, the thing that keeps families fed, gets reduced to a costume. Whatever one man is accused of, the poster boy treatment says more about the people holding the megaphone than about the people holding EBT cards.