Everyone I spoke with, from those at the township hall to the farmers around me and my physician, was clear-eyed that costs are going up and that we are entering a period of chaos.
Farmers will be especially hard hit.
No, we can’t simply take our export crops and start selling them internally, as Trump suggests.
Switching from soybeans and corn to asparagus and broccoli would require a complete overhaul of your farm system and would take multiple years to implement.
Payments to farmers are withheld or at least disrupted. Agricultural purchases canceled.
Worthwhile programs were suspended. Reliable weather data is under threat. Farmers are talking about this disruption.
How can you plan when there is no certainty?
The Chinese are now putting tariffs on Mexico and Canada so that they will put pressure on the Americans.
The mess is becoming messier.
Yet farmers still seem willing to let Trump play this out.
Why give Trump so much rope? Republicans talk to farmers, and they have a plan. Democrats seemingly don’t.
Republicans revere and talk to farmers, whereas Democrats shun farmers.
Democrats continue to refuse to talk to rural voters or farmers.
No matter how bad the other guy is, no one will vote for you if you shun them.
I recently went to our state capitol with 300 other farmers and met across the street from the seat of government. Food represents about one-sixth of our state’s economy.
The Farm Bureau invited every elected official and head of the relevant agencies to meet with us in an informal social setting.
Republicans showed up, but only one Democrat was there, and no agency head or anyone from the governor’s team showed up.
I heard farmers lamenting that they just can’t get Democrats’ attention and that food should be a non-partisan issue.
I guess Democrats were too busy resisting and making TikTok videos about just how angry they are.
The legislative highlights of the event were cottage foods, sound environmental practices, and educational issues in high school, like whether there is enough focus on AI. It also included how to ensure that students who want to learn a skilled trade get the same focus as students who plan to go to college.
And there were widespread complaints about how workers on H2-A visas were treated.
Can’t Democrats get behind these?
I also experienced this inability to talk to farmers at the two Democratic conventions I have attended. When a Democrat asks what I do and I say, “I live on a farm,” their eyes glaze over, an awkward smile appears, and they find a way to excuse themselves.
At the Democratic Party planning session I was invited to for a neighboring county, I mentioned that I was going with the farm bureau to a couple of legislative events.
One participant asked:
“Isn’t it scary being around so many Republicans?”
I can’t think of a friendlier or more down-to-earth crowd.
In virtually any other setting, I get precisely the opposite response. Without asking, Republican representatives and senators hand me their cards and ask for mine. They sometimes give me their cell phone number. They have a laser-like focus on what issues concern farmers.
Trump also consistently listens to and speaks to farmers. Sometimes, this is hidden in his language, but I can hear it.
Democrats talk about reaching out to the “working class,” whatever that means.
I heard again from a Democratic operative that he couldn’t understand why rural voters vote against their interests.
I replied, “You mean against their economic interests as framed by you.”
He understood my point. Whenever I ask a Democratic operative if they have actually asked a midwestern rural voter what their interests are, I always get a deer-in-the-headlights look because they have never asked.
Democrats rely on donors, advocates, experts, and poll results. Trump relies on what actual voters tell him.
You can’t just buy someone trinkets and expect them to fall in love with you. You have to also talk to them.
Democrats have no real plan of their own.
It seems that no one is happy with how Trump is executing his plans, but it would be hard to argue that he doesn’t have plans.
Democrats, on the other hand, have no plans and are not proposing alternatives.
To emphasize this point, Democrats disrupted the president’s address to Congress last week and held up inane signs, some of which simply warned of things that might happen but have not actually happened.
This looked desperate to rural voters and showed that Democrats weren’t proposing alternatives.
Rural voters picked up on that.
