https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2026/01/17/china-pur...
[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-farmers-voted-trump-feeling-210...
I mean, name one thing that Trump has done to help farmers more than he hurt them with the tariffs? (Subsidies they already had, regardless of the party in power.)
What are they getting in return for their vote? The safety of knowing that trans athletes are banned and some Guatemalans in far away "liberal" cities have been "gotten rid of"? None of those benefit them in any way. I still can't quite understand.
You may find this hard to believe, but there are a lot of people old enough to see how rapidly "our way of life" has gone down the toilet. It's not a myth, it's happening.
yes, the world as a whole has changed, and society with it, but I'm nearly 60 and don't see a "way of life" being "destroyed"
The party really abandoned rural voters and farmers. Money in politics didn’t just affect Republicans — the democrats abandoned the traditional party structures and followed the money. There’s no more democratic picnics, etc.
I’m not defending the GOP. They’ve embraced evil imo. But people followed their message because nobody else is talking to them.
Not to defend the Dem party (only the lesser of two evils, at least lately), but in what way? Because farm subsidies seem fairly consistent regardless of which party was in power[0]
[0] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-commodity-...
Dairy is the best example, it's an industry that scales down just fine with a regulated market. That was thrown away and massive dairy producers have literally destroyed the supply side of the market. 90% of dairy operations in New York have shut down since 1980. I worked on a farm as a teenager in the 90s that has been in continuous operation since the Dutch colonial period in the 1600s. Almost 200 years of that was significant dairy operations. They probably had 50-100 cows in the 1970s, but that business was gone by 1990-1992. Today, the family boards horses to pay their taxes and work for the government.
Dairy is important because it supports a large ecosystem of business. Vet practices. Laborers. Dairy processing and cheese making. The remaining producers in New York are usually captive producers for vertically integrated businesses like convenience stores, co-ops or scaled operations in Western NY. All of that is dead, and that pattern repeats everywhere.
Even in big agriculture states like say Iowa, the "farmers" are mostly tenants and employees now. All of these Trumper idiots who are going bankrupt will have their land purchased by PE, foreign capital or other funds and will become workers.
Seriously, do you think this works? Do you think urban people living in poverty vote against their interests as well?
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-Ame...
Frank himself later pulled back some of the book’s claims and shifted more blame toward party strategy and elite failure rather than voter pathology. Everyone is influenced by elites and narratives but only some voters are treated as lacking agency when they choose differently.
Something that's been made very clear over the last few election cycles is that a lot of voters will go against their own interests, as long as it hurts their perceived "enemy" more than themselves.
Just an anecdote, but IMO progressive liberals are some of the most racist people I've encountered.
I have family members who didn't like Obama at all, not one of them would ever comment on color, it was his policies.
ICE is literally using skin color to determine who to stop and detain. The last time I checked they had detained more than 200 US Citizens and all of them were POCs. MPD police chief also shared similar incidences even involving his police officers. And there is literally nobody in this administration doing anything to stop it. Even Kavanaugh is on it.
Compared to this, what racism do you face?
Edit: Not sure if you read this but this is a recent story: https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/ice-elderly-hmong-ame.... Do you and your relatives support this? If not, why aren't you protesting for your fellow countrymen rather than playing a victim?
Nobody votes against their own interests. That is something that only stupid caricatures do, not actual people. If it seems that way to you, that should be a very strong signal to reevaluate your understanding of the situation. Most likely, that means either nobody is representing their interests or you have misunderstood what their interests are.
There is only one comment above that says that both rural and urban people do the same thing, it is all boiling down to everyone should be voting one party.
We'd really be better off if we had zero trade with them. They're poison.