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~78% of farmers voted for him. They are directly responsible for their own outcome in this regard. Canada supplies 75-80% of US potash imports, and potash is a

~78% of farmers voted for him. They are directly responsible for their own outcome in this regard. Canada supplies 75-80% of US potash imports, and potash is a non-substitutable input in agriculture; without it, crop yields drop significantly. China no longer buy soybeans from US farmers, and instead now sources from South America; they have made a token 12M ton purchase, as they promised. https://www.thenation.com/article/society/farmers-bailout-trump/ https://www.thenation.com/article/society/farmers-bailout-tr... > Ragland, for example, supported Trump dating back to 2016, making him just one of many in rural America. Trump won a majority of USDA “farming-dependent” counties ahead of his first term, and within a year of assuming office, his trade wars drove American farm exports to China down from $19.5 billion to $9 billion. Ultimately, farmers saw a decline of $27 billion in agricultural exports, nearly 71 percent of that attributable to soybean profit losses. Ragland, a soybean farmer, still turned right back around and voted for Trump again in both 2020 and 2024. Here again, he was just one of many. Farmers increased their support for Trump by 5 percent in 2020, hitting 76 percent support, and then added another 2 percent in 2024, reaching 78 percent support. In 100 of the country’s 444 “farming-dependent” counties, according to Investigate Midwest, Trump won a whopping 80 percent of the vote. > “So they voted for this guy three times—all these white farmers did. And now this president has turned agriculture in this country to the worst [shape it’s been in] since the ’80s. Farm bankruptcies. Farm foreclosures. Farm suicide [My note: farmer suicides are 3.5x-4x the general population]. Input costs—all these things,” Boyd told me. https://investigatemidwest.org/2024/11/13/trump-election-farming-counties-trade-war/ https://investigatemidwest.org/2024/11/13/trump-election-far... > Not only did Trump increase his support among farming-dependent counties, but more than 100 of those counties supported him with at least 80% of their vote. This is entirely self inflicted, which to me, is wild and a case study for history. This was a collective choice, intentionally made.

jmyeet 10mo ago
This is an example of taking the wrong lesson from history. The lesson from the last 20 years is that voters consistently vote to people who speak to their interests and their problems. The biggest electoral landslide in this time is Obama in 2008 and second place isn't even close. Obama ran as a progressive. He didn't govern as one but that's not really the point. Although it's a big part of the reason of why we're here now. There has (now) been a 50+ year trend of declining living conditions and real wages. People are getting loaded up with debt essentially to make wealthy people even wealthier. Everything has been getting worse. This was the turning point of the 2016 election. Trump's talk of being an outsider (he isn't), draining the swamp (he didn't) and talking to actual voter concerns was what propelled him to the nomination. And the victory because Hilary Clinton was such a dogshit bad candidate who thought she could win running as a generic corporate Democrat. You know who else run with populist messaging? Bernie Sanders. A nontrivial number of people who voted for Bernie in the primaries voted for Trump in the general. This might confuse you if you think of this as a purely Democratic-Republican divide. It wasn't and it isn't. So why do farmers keep voting for Trump even though he now has a record of screwing them over? Because he speaks to their interest and their problems where Democrats don't talk to them at all. 2024 was a textbook example of how to intetnionally run a campaign to lose the biggest lay up election in history. No real policies. Ordinary people do not care about tax credits for small businesses. That doesn't help anyone who is struggling to afford rent and food. So you can say "you made your bed now lie in it" to the farmers but does that help you? Does that help the country? The Democratic Party is complicit in everything that's happened by their intentional inaction and choice to lose.
- loeg 10mo ago
  Obama did not run as a progressive, lol. Much of the rest of this is equally ahistorical. Living conditions and wages haven't gotten worse over the past 50 years.
  - jmyeet 10mo ago
    You must be young because nobody who lived through his campaign would say that. He was anti-war. In 2007-2008. Only a few years when the majority of Democrats voted in favor of the Iraqi War Resolution, something that helped sink Hilary Clinton's 2008 bid. He ran on universal healthcare. He ran on renewable energy. He ran on increased LGBTQ rights. He won Iowa by 9 doing this. To a war hero. Kamala lost by 13. To a convicted felon who had a track record of screwing over farmers.
    - GenerWork 10mo ago
      >He won Iowa by 9 doing this. To a war hero. He won Iowa by 9 due to the fact that the war in Iraq was incredibly unpopular and the economy was imploding.
    - triceratops 10mo ago
      > when the majority of Democrats voted in favor of the Iraqi War Resolution The majority of Democrats in the Senate voted in favor (29-21). In the House a much larger majority voted against (81-126) the resolution. A total of 7 Republicans voted against the resolution. Between both chambers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Iraq_Resolution_of_2002 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milit...
  - Spooky23 10mo ago
    Were you in high school or elementary then? Obama ran on “hope” and “change” very foofy stuff. Ultimately you may be able to support your position by virtue of his saying very little at all. Wages have in fact fallen for the majority of people in real terms.
pear01 10mo ago
Farmers like Ragland are overrepresented. Why do these rural states (several of which have a total population less than that of major metro areas on the coasts) have two senators? The senate is an antidemocratic institution. The compromise that every state gets two senators made sense when we were a weak, newborn and vulnerable nation, with a total population of less than 3 million people. Not anymore. The founders likely didn't want people like Ragland to have the vote anyway. They were not salt of the earth farmers they were largely plantation and merchant and legal elites. Ragland is the dumb mob rule they feared. Maybe the 17th amendment was a mistake. At the very least, why stop there? The constitution is not sacred, as established and as written, the founders would have given Ragland less representation. Perhaps in the spirit of actual democracy and modern reform, it is time to revisit the idea that every state gets two senators. Given what is really going on here is these states vote against their own interests and then rob blue states to cover up the shortfall. Why are blue states tolerating it? It would be one thing if it was just about money, but it's not. These populations are being deputized in a culture war that tells them to hate you while they take your money. They need a reality check.
- dboreham 10mo ago
  Meta-answer: whenever you ask a question "why...<crazy thing> is done in the US", the answer will turn out to be "something something slavery" or the related "something something racism".
- AlgorithmicTime 10mo ago
  [dead]

jmyeet 10mo ago

This is an example of taking the wrong lesson from history. The lesson from the last 20 years is that voters consistently vote to people who speak to their interests and their problems. The biggest electoral landslide in this time is Obama in 2008 and second place isn't even close. Obama ran as a progressive. He didn't govern as one but that's not really the point. Although it's a big part of the reason of why we're here now. There has (now) been a 50+ year trend of declining living conditions and real wages. People are getting loaded up with debt essentially to make wealthy people even wealthier. Everything has been getting worse. This was the turning point of the 2016 election. Trump's talk of being an outsider (he isn't), draining the swamp (he didn't) and talking to actual voter concerns was what propelled him to the nomination. And the victory because Hilary Clinton was such a dogshit bad candidate who thought she could win running as a generic corporate Democrat. You know who else run with populist messaging? Bernie Sanders. A nontrivial number of people who voted for Bernie in the primaries voted for Trump in the general. This might confuse you if you think of this as a purely Democratic-Republican divide. It wasn't and it isn't. So why do farmers keep voting for Trump even though he now has a record of screwing them over? Because he speaks to their interest and their problems where Democrats don't talk to them at all. 2024 was a textbook example of how to intetnionally run a campaign to lose the biggest lay up election in history. No real policies. Ordinary people do not care about tax credits for small businesses. That doesn't help anyone who is struggling to afford rent and food. So you can say "you made your bed now lie in it" to the farmers but does that help you? Does that help the country? The Democratic Party is complicit in everything that's happened by their intentional inaction and choice to lose.

loeg 10mo ago
Obama did not run as a progressive, lol. Much of the rest of this is equally ahistorical. Living conditions and wages haven't gotten worse over the past 50 years.
- jmyeet 10mo ago
  You must be young because nobody who lived through his campaign would say that. He was anti-war. In 2007-2008. Only a few years when the majority of Democrats voted in favor of the Iraqi War Resolution, something that helped sink Hilary Clinton's 2008 bid. He ran on universal healthcare. He ran on renewable energy. He ran on increased LGBTQ rights. He won Iowa by 9 doing this. To a war hero. Kamala lost by 13. To a convicted felon who had a track record of screwing over farmers.
  - GenerWork 10mo ago
    >He won Iowa by 9 doing this. To a war hero. He won Iowa by 9 due to the fact that the war in Iraq was incredibly unpopular and the economy was imploding.
  - triceratops 10mo ago
    > when the majority of Democrats voted in favor of the Iraqi War Resolution The majority of Democrats in the Senate voted in favor (29-21). In the House a much larger majority voted against (81-126) the resolution. A total of 7 Republicans voted against the resolution. Between both chambers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Iraq_Resolution_of_2002 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milit...
- Spooky23 10mo ago
  Were you in high school or elementary then? Obama ran on “hope” and “change” very foofy stuff. Ultimately you may be able to support your position by virtue of his saying very little at all. Wages have in fact fallen for the majority of people in real terms.

pear01 10mo ago

Farmers like Ragland are overrepresented. Why do these rural states (several of which have a total population less than that of major metro areas on the coasts) have two senators? The senate is an antidemocratic institution. The compromise that every state gets two senators made sense when we were a weak, newborn and vulnerable nation, with a total population of less than 3 million people. Not anymore. The founders likely didn't want people like Ragland to have the vote anyway. They were not salt of the earth farmers they were largely plantation and merchant and legal elites. Ragland is the dumb mob rule they feared. Maybe the 17th amendment was a mistake. At the very least, why stop there? The constitution is not sacred, as established and as written, the founders would have given Ragland less representation. Perhaps in the spirit of actual democracy and modern reform, it is time to revisit the idea that every state gets two senators. Given what is really going on here is these states vote against their own interests and then rob blue states to cover up the shortfall. Why are blue states tolerating it? It would be one thing if it was just about money, but it's not. These populations are being deputized in a culture war that tells them to hate you while they take your money. They need a reality check.

dboreham 10mo ago
Meta-answer: whenever you ask a question "why...<crazy thing> is done in the US", the answer will turn out to be "something something slavery" or the related "something something racism".
AlgorithmicTime 10mo ago
[dead]