I dunno about the biggest famine in history—it would take a lot of people dying to match the higher death toll estimates for the Great Chinese Famine of 1959-1961. I could see things getting pretty messed up, though: sharp rises in food prices because of lowered yields, the need for imports going up, profiteering on the international market, lower-income people being unable to buy enough calories to survive. Unfortunately, it’s likely that the urban poor, rather than the rural white people who are the core of the Republican voting base, would be the ones disproportionaly affected.
I dunno about the biggest famine in history—it would take a lot of people dying to match the higher death toll estimates for the Great Chinese Famine of 1959-1961. I could see things getting pretty messed up, though: sharp rises in food prices because of lowered yields, the need for imports going up, profiteering on the international market, lower-income people being unable to buy enough calories to survive. Unfortunately, it’s likely that the urban poor, rather than the rural white people who are the core of the Republican voting base, would be the ones disproportionaly affected.
But if I remember correctly, the great Chinese famine was caused by one idiot on top and loads of people not having the balls to say no to him.
So you see, it was a totally different situation from now.