And that includes the 3/4 to 4/5 of farmers who voted for the current executive. I don't feel sorry for them that they hurt themselves, I'm pissed off that they did so -- in hurting themselves they have also hurt everyone else, on top of the many other ways everyone else is getting hurt.

I'm not granting exemptions to my "fuck you" policy for essential workers. If anything, my patience with essential workers is even thinner. If you occupy a foundational role in our society, fucking act like it. Take your duty seriously and act soberly.

relative to what people in other places have. The American Farm Families have been the foundation of our bounty. But over decades, that has eroded as conditions got tougher for farmers and huge Agri-Corporations started gobbling up land, here and worldwide.

Don't be nasty to the independent producers. Help them get real information and not just the propaganda that has poisoned so many of them into voting against their best interests.

I have lived among them, and hated much of the experience. But I saw them, heard them, and lived pretty much like an anthropologist in their midst. There is much to dislike, too much in fact, but understanding the history, culture, and the problem of modern propaganda has broadened my view and softened my own bigotry against 'rural America'. Do I get furious at the narrow view and refusals to see the realities? Oh yes, and howdy. But I think of them, those neighbors who mostly treated me like an enemy because I grew up urban and West Coast, and I know there is good there, and that their families have fed us for generations, while getting damned little in return for the worry and hard work.

A contact to the area where I lived has told me of many suicides in the past decade. It's not pretty and there are many reasons for that population to distrust. The powerful know fearful, distrustful people are SO much easier to manipulate/control. It's by design, this divide in our nation.

The powers that be like it when we are a people at war with ourselves. It's kinda counter productive to let those few manipulate us like they manipulate rural populations. Don't fall into the trap. Please.

Haven't been since covid, and I have to get back there, but I enjoyed for decades going to our farmer's Green Market, which are non-agribusiness usually 2 big ones ( markets) in NYC.
I always chat with them, and say thanks.

I have much respect for the people that are being threatened every day by the man those farmers voted for that do the back breaking job of picking those crops.

IT DOES NOT APPLY TO the increasingly rare FAMILY FARMERS.

Please rethink.

Last edited Sun Aug 31, 2025, 05:55 PM - Edit history (1)

But fuck em anyway, the majority are MAGATS.

Do you really think they want to lose their workers even if you refuse to credit them with humanity vis-a-vis their workers?

You really are off base on this. Have you ever even met a family that farmed through generations? It is true that suicide rates are among the highest in the country for family farmers. I know. My parents and grandparents knew many over their lives--and shared in their friends' sad prospects.

Why do you hate them so? They live in rural areas that go for Republicans and have for generations. They are also among those who have been lied to for generations and many now quietly vote DEM. Not enough to prevail, but they DO. Yet you would hold them all responsible?

My spouse used to say: I am sick of hearing people bad mouthing farmers, while they have a mouthful of cheap food.

Many of these comments are cruel, condescending/conflating to even hardcore DEM family farmers, and ignorant.

I have always been an activist. I drew my husband into it. We are Democrats to the bone, and we raised three more.

My Dad's side of the family is from Minnesota. They are all Democrats. They don't all farm any more, though.

saying hi and thanks
Asking about the weather, too.

As ami said i chat w our green market farmers.

in the area. It is very difficult to get labor and many farmers import workers from Mexico (through a program in the Agricultural Department which only approves legal workers)
Farming is hard work and they all face unpredictable circumstances

successful those efforts..

You might be surprised at the corporate-owned farms in Kentucky. I know they have been exploding over two or more generations in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska, so I'd be surprised if there are not several in Kentucky--albeit they probably don't seek to advertise the fact. The tactics they use to drive out the family-run farms is often as close to "evil" as it comes.

according to my family members. Some of these farms have been in the same family for 150 - 200 years.

One of the main cash crops is tobacco and it is highly labor intensive. You can't just fire up a piece of machinery and mow it down a row. It is hand set and cut down by hand, and cured high up in the rafters of a barn . When it comes down it is hand tied for market. Big Ag is interested in things that can be planted and harvested in huge bulk quantities.

😬

I lived in Washington County and it was pure MAGA.

When they are voting to strip me of the support I need while I'm disabled, I will say anything I want to about them.

Family farmers voted even in Trump areas. Many did and many did not, just as many do not vote for Trump or MAGA or R's in red states throughout the country. Just as many DUers did not, but who are living in red states. Are you going to accuse these DUers of being Trump supporters just because they hail from a state that overwhelmingly did?

Professing direct knowledge you don't have and conflating statistics to all-- where they do not exist is indefensible.

There are MAGA cops, MAGA bikers, MAGA teachers, MAGA truckers, MAGA soldiers

While farming, in an of, itself is an honorable way to live a life, if that culture in America is plagued by white supremacy and religious bigotry, a mantle of "The American Farmer" isn't going to insulate one from one's Karma should one participate in the myriad MAGA bigotries.

Most know better. Most know it's wrong.

but Big Ag is definitely in the crosshairs for some bashing, TBS.

I know a lot of them voted trump, believing that somehow he'd be different this time, like a battered spouse returning home because he/she promised to do better. Shit happens, I guess, and some people have difficulty changing their positions and opinions.

So I hope that family farms survive, but I know many won't. trump's policy is a dagger at famly farms all over the country, and I fear that many more will go bankrupt and be swallowed up by Big Ag.

Frankly, I'm a bit tired of the endless "bashing" of cities by rural folks when they obviously don't know what the hell they are talking about and are spouting RW BS from the local hate radio station. So if you're cheering for farmers, fine, but are you supporting folks who are all in on trump's attacks on cities with black mayors?

Actual one on one exposure to 'the other' along with seeing first hand the challenges and blessings each group lives with might help heal some of our nation's ills.

When I lived in that very remote rural county, people didn't know what to make of me. Some were afraid. Some could barely walk upright owing to the monstrously big chips they carried on their shoulders. Some were curious and some of those gave me half a chance to prove my humanity and kind nature.

But I learned a lot in over a dozen years, and more than a few learned a lot about 'city people' from dealing with me.

An exchange program would help build understanding and bridges. That would take a LOT of power from the political factions that rely on propaganda to keep the nation fighting its self instead of taking on the real authors of most of our misery.

C'mon in... the water's fine, most of us don't bite.

Rural America voted, both times, overwhelmingly for the very guy causing the problems.
He failed for 4 years, and 7 out of 9 of rural voters voted for him anyway because he pretends to hate what they hate.
So, my answer is no.
My sympathy will be reserved for the 2 out of 9 who knew he would bad for the cpubtry.

My father (and his parents) are/were Nebraska farmers. He's retired now - but most of his income still comes from the farm which is rented and/or crop shared with former neighbors.

I'm pretty sure he has voted in every election once he was eligible to vote - certainly every presidential election. He has never voted for a Republican for national office. (Sometimes there aren't party choices in local elections.) He was Nebraska's first conscientious objector, was kicked out of his family because of it, but by the time I was in middle school my grandfather had come around to my father's way of thinking. He has actively campaigned for (and donated to) Democratic candidates for most of his adult life.

Right out of college, he spent 4 years in a peace-corps type program in the Philippines. He has taken more than decade off from full time farming to devote to social justice causes (world hunger, native american issues, and lobbying Congress on behalf of progressive causes - where being a Nebraska farmer opened doors to a lot of conservative offices he might otherwise not have had access to). That was made possible by a business arrangement with his cousin - in significant part so that the farm would be able to support my father's and the cousin's investment in social justice and world hunger issues.

Once he retired, and was no longer dependent on spending ungodly hours actively tending the farm, he devoted considerable time to restoring native grasses to the pasture across from our house, controlled burns to rid two farms of invasive species, and to sectioning the hill pasture so that it could be more productively used in a manner consistent with land conservation for cattle grazing (don't even suggest it should have been turned into food crops - the land cannot sustain direct production of food because of the terrain and the lack of sufficient water to support crops - the myth that it is always better to use land for direct production of food is one made by people who have not actually spent time farming)

I'm just back from a trip back home. The crops this year are healthier - and, in addition to annual health, are generally more productive per acre than any year in my father's memory. Because of the impact of tariffs - and, ironically the increased production - the per acre income will be one of the lowest in decades.

So, yeah, telling my father (and grandfather) that they are getting what they voted for is ignorant. And direct involvement in farming will end with my father. It is an extremely hard life, often surrounded by people with politics which make day-to-day life emotionally draining. None of the kids in my family will be joining the effort to make sure that people in this country have food to eat. I garden, and support a local CSA. But that's the extent of it.

And - if that isn't enough - Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer. Those painting farmers with an indiscriminate brush should think of everyone they are including in that tar and feather job.

thank you, to you and your father, for your post and his work. All of his work.
I appreciate how hard it must have been for him in spite of the people he was surrounded by.

Unfortunately, aside from burning fossil fuels, agriculture is the most environmentally destructive thing humans do.

We ought to do our best to minimize it.

It should be possible to be an ethical and environmentally responsible farmer in the United States but that's not the norm for a lot of reasons.

Frankly, U.S. farmers, miners, ranchers, and other rural voters are pandered to in the United States because their votes have more political clout than urban voters (which is a deep flaw in our Constitution), but even worse, most consumers don't think too much about where their food or biofuels come from.

Cheap factory farm meat and dairy products are not necessities. Fuel ethanol and biodiesel are not necessities. HFCS and sugar soft drinks are not necessities. We could re-wild land that currently supports these agricultural industries and nobody would starve.

I'm most familiar with California's Central Valley. Large portions of that should never have been converted to farmland and really ought to be converted back to something resembling a natural state. Currently the big industrial farmers of that region enjoy too much political power largely because people are conditioned to believe without question that farming is good and farmers can't be bad people.

That question may become moot however as California's population density approaches that of Japan in the coming century. Nobody wants to live near a factory farm dairy operation or chicken producer and the price of a gallon of milk, a pound of hamburger, or a Costco broiled chicken really isn't going to stop further urbanization. Nor will it matter if the cost of water is higher than farmers can pay.

Farming isn't a sacred occupation any more than coal mining is.

Actions have consequences, for good or for ill.

Thoughts & prayers or whatever to every single one that voted for Trump. Those work, right?

Told us what he was going to do. Did farmers think it was for everyone else but not them? That's even worse. They Didn't care. I don't care what a person does for a living. If you voted for him, I hope you are miserable.

Small farmers have voted for people and policies that screwed everyone including themselves. Often because they hurt brown and black people a little worse.

I have zero sympathy. They benefited greatly from NAFTA, probably more than any other industry, and whined because hate radio told them to whine about tax free things coming into the US that they couldn't grow. Meanwhile, feed corn, pork, chicken, were flowing at record levels into Canada and Mexico.

“There is growing evidence that long-term pesticide use is linked to to alterations in farmers' mental health”

“These chemicals that farmers use, look what they do to an insect. It ruins their nervous system,” Peters said. “What is it doing to the farmer?”

“Farming is a stressful job – uncontrollable weather, physical demands and economic woes intertwine with a personal responsibility for land that often is passed down through generations. But experts say that some of the chemicals used to control pests may make matters worse by changing farmers’ brain chemistry.”

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/high-rates-of-suicide-depression-linked-to-farmers-use-of-pesticides/

We didn’t lose because of the farmers- according to YouGov, we lost because 19 million Dems who voted for Biden in 2020, stayed home. Main reason given by younger voters - genocide. And, even after knowing this we had a bunch of Dems go to Israel last week.

So we have around 2 million farms in US BUT 19 million Democrats didn’t vote. I don’t think we can blame this loss on farmers.

They need to lie in the bed that they made.

voted for TRUMP?? Hell yeah. Them and anyone else who did.

ESPECIALLY if they voted for this psychopath BECAUSE they thought he'd hurt someone else. Foolish and/or malevolent actions deserve consequences.. AND ridicule.

They KNEW what happened to farmers during Trump's last occupation. ESPECIALLY to small farmers, many of whom lost their farms because they weren't beneficiaries of Trump's BAILOUTS to big farmers as a result of his unconscionable tariff wars.

And, He TOLD them what he'd do AGAIN. No excuse.

Btw, kudos to those who WEREN'T bamboozled into supporting this cretin a second time.

FROM NOV. 2020:

Here’s The Crushing Truth About American Farmers Under Trump’s Trade War - Forbes

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_Aid

details the original concert, plus the ongoing efforts of one organization to support farmers.

of they didn't support Trump it's not directed at them. The black farmers mostly did not support Trump. But the majority white farmers oppose giving black farmers ant benefits that they recieve.

as it is bashing the fucking morons who have traditionally supported the repuke party

and if they are "disappearing" it's likely because of the abuse brought on by the repuke party, not us