From The Purge to Policy: The Legalization of Abandoning the Poor
There was a time when The Purge was viewed as a fictional horror series, a nightmarish story where violence was legal for one day each year and the most vulnerable were left to survive the night on their own. Many watched in disbelief, confident that such chaos could never be normalized in a real society.
But what if the core of that story is already unfolding around us but without the masks, sirens, or official countdown?
What if policy is doing in slow motion what The Purge did in a single night?
Because in city after city, the poor are not being protected. They are being abandoned.
Policy as a Weapon, Not a Safety Net
It is easy to identify abandonment when it is loud and chaotic. It is harder to see when it hides inside legislation.
Cities criminalize homelessness.
States reject Medicaid expansions.
Policymakers cut food benefits while giving tax breaks to the wealthy.
Entire regions close hospitals in underserved areas and then blame personal choices for the health outcomes.
This is not neglect. It is a design.
It is the quiet legalization of looking away.
When You Starve the System, You Starve the People
Many programs intended to help the poor are quietly defunded or intentionally designed to be difficult to access.
Applications are buried under red tape.
Waitlists stretch for months or years.
Case managers are overwhelmed.
Funding runs out before the month ends.
Meanwhile, lawmakers claim these systems are failing and use that manufactured failure to justify further cuts.This is not inefficiency. It is abandonment by design.
The Myth of Personal Responsibility
In the world of The Purge, survival is not guaranteed. You are on your own. You fend for yourself. No one is coming.
That same ethos is repackaged in modern policy through the myth of personal responsibility.
People are told that their poverty is a result of bad choices, laziness, or failure to work hard.
But what do we say to the family working three jobs and still unable to afford rent?
What do we say to the college graduate buried in debt with no path to home ownership?
What do we say to the disabled veteran sleeping in a shelter because waitlists for housing assistance are years long?
We say nothing. We offer nothing.
Because the systems are not built to protect. They are built to punish.
Eviction as Displacement, Not Discipline
One of the clearest signs of institutional abandonment is how we handle eviction.
Evictions are not just about property. They are about power.
They force people out of communities, break family networks, and sever access to jobs, schools, and healthcare.
Instead of intervening with prevention, cities allow landlords to displace tenants with minimal oversight.
Instead of building affordable housing, they prioritize luxury developments and tourism districts.
Instead of centering human needs, they protect property values and political donors.
This is not unfortunate. It is policy in action.
Policing Poverty Instead of Ending It
In The Purge, violence is legalized. In our reality, the criminalization of poverty serves a similar function.
Sleeping on public benches, loitering, panhandling, and even existing in certain spaces without an address becomes a reason for arrest.
People experiencing homelessness are fined for not having money.
Children are suspended for dress code violations tied to poverty.
Mental health crises are met with handcuffs instead of care.
We police poverty because it is easier to punish symptoms than to confront root causes.
What Happens When We Stop Pretending?
What happens when we finally admit that poverty is not an accident but a policy outcome?
What happens when we acknowledge that our systems are not failing the poor but are functioning exactly as designed?
We begin to see clearly.
We begin to organize.
We begin to build something different.
We cannot reform what we continue to excuse.
We cannot fight for justice while pretending injustice is random.
This Is Not Fiction. This Is Now.
From The Purge to policy, we see the same core message:
You are on your own. No one is coming. Survive if you can.
But it does not have to be this way.
We can choose to design systems that protect rather than punish.
We can choose to create policies that support rather than abandon.
We can choose to be the nation that rewrites the story entirely.
The question is not whether we can.
It is whether we will.
