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Iowa has the first primary every year in the US[1]. Iowa produces more corn than any state[2] while being 32nd in population. Corn is very important to people i
by njarboe 5y ago
Iowa has the first primary every year in the US[1]. Iowa produces more corn than any state[2] while being 32nd in population. Corn is very important to people in Iowa and as long as the first two facts remain the same, corn will continue to be highly subsidized and supported in other ways by the US government.
[1]https://www.uspresidentialelectionnews.com/2024-primary-schedule/ https://www.uspresidentialelectionnews.com/2024-primary-sche...
[2]https://www.cropprophet.com/us-corn-production-by-state/ https://www.cropprophet.com/us-corn-production-by-state/
- jillesvangurp 5y agoPrecisely my point. Maybe that's not a very future proof plan for Iowa? That sounds like at some point they are going to have to cut loose from the federal handouts.
- greenonions 5y agoIt is apparently easier to make the subsidies continue forever than to consider growing alternatives.
- DerArzt 5y agoYep. When it comes to specialization farmers are not excluded. All crops, if their production can be mechanized, need specialized tools to farm at scale. In Iowa at least this looks like combines that are tooled for corn and soybean to allow for cycling the fields every few years. (Not an expert, just a resident)
- gutitout 5y agoThat is the American issue in a nutshell.
- akvadrako 5y agoIowa doesn't have a primary at all, but a caucus. New Hampshire has the first primary. It's a state law.
- dpeck 5y agoOutside of a relatively minuscule number of people who view politics/elections as sport no one cares and they’re treated the same on the national stage.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoSure but most people don't understand how truly awful the caucus system is so it's worth repeating from time to time.
- colordrops 5y agoMight want to mention why it's awful then. It's much easier to manipulate for one.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoI was on a phone. It's easy enough to check wikipedia and follow sources from there.
- talideon 5y agoSo, rather than a banana republic, it's a corn state?
- AniseAbyss 5y agoI always thought the GOP hates welfare programs...
- pinephoneguy 5y agoModerate libertarians hate welfare programs but their parties rarely win so their candidates often run under the GOP. The GOP just likes the status quo.
- admax88qqq 5y agoIt's not welfare it's a subsidy. And it's okay because it's for people we like, rural farmers who vote GOP, rather than people we don't like, inner city populations who vote Democrat.
- gruez 5y agoAs always, a party's political beliefs are more complicated than being pro-[thing] or anti-[thing]. To steelman the GOP, I'd say that they're against welfare for individuals because for the most part they're transfer payments that don't require any "work" to obtain (short of filling out some forms). They think that's bad because it encourages laziness. To my knowledge farm subsidies aren't implemented that way. They're implemented as price supports or loan programs, so you still need to actually produce something to get that government money.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoPaying someone to do something destructive in order to produce something you don't want isn't very smart, even if it keeps them busy in a way that fools them I to feeling productive. If we all did that it would be worse than doing nothing.
- gruez 5y ago>to do something destructive is growing corn a destructive activity on net? If it is, then we shouldn't just be cutting subsidies, we should be banning it outright. As it relates to this discussion (ie. "are republicans hypocrites because they're anti individual welfare but pro agricultural welfare"), we can safely assume that republicans don't think that and therefore aren't hypocrites. This is not to say whether growing corn is actually destructive or not, only that the republican view is at least self-consistent.
- mrfusion 5y agoWhy doesn’t another state move its primary up? It seems like an easy way to get more influence?
- _dark_matter_ 5y agoRace to the bottom. The political parties won't let it happen.
- mrfusion 5y agoWe’ll the bottom would be everyone on the earliest possible day and then no one has an advantage. Seems like a good thing.
- s1artibartfast 5y agoI'm not sure that there is any limit on the earliest day. In theory they could be any time after the last one.
- IgorPartola 5y agoThe correct solution is to adopt approval voting and not have primaries at all.
- ClayShentrup 5y agoyep.
- gruez 5y agoI vaguely remember a state trying that, and getting smacked by the federal government in retaliation.
- donarb 5y agoThe federal government is not responsible for presidential primary elections. It is the parties that are.
- bsenftner 5y agoIowa. Former Iowans here. The nation's politics have screwed Iowa, with it being the first primary state all manner of overt attempts of political favoritism occurs in there. The economy is screwed left, right, and sideways with all the attempts at political favoritism. And the intellectual mind there is equally turned around with large helpings of religious infringement on world views, and a material amount of corporate shenanigans because Iowa is tax favorable for corporate headquarters - most the Insurance and large publishing has corporate headquarters there.
- alistairSH 5y agoThe nation's politics have screwed Iowa Iowa's own laws have screwed Iowa. State law mandates the caucus occur at least eight days prior to any other state's proceedings (similarly, NH law mandates they be the first primary election). The DNC and RNC might also like it that way, but both states are complicit.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bsenftner 5y agoAs if these states exist independently; come on, you know political operatives and dollars from every state, and every wealthy anyone anywhere on the planet flow into these states trying to influence American elections.
- brnt 5y agoIt would be good for Americans to understand how their layered elections work out into something quite undemocratic. Designed to be so [1] in fact. Things don't need to be this way, and to set the country up for bad incentives this way, but it requires understanding who exactly is fighting and benefiting from the current set up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Money_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Money_(book) Yes, it's a book. Highly worth the time it takes to read to make the point in full.
- paledot 5y agoThere are a lot of elected positions in the US that actually undermine democracy by themselves being democratically elected, such as sheriff, judge, and indeed election commissioner. These are jobs where the correct thing to do is often at odds with the popular thing to do, and favouring the latter over the former is potentially disastrous.