Reading this article gave me the same feeling I get when someone tries to fix a server with what a former trans coworker of mine proudly called percussive maintenance. You can tell right away that somebody in Washington thinks they are offering farmers a real solution, even though they seem unclear about what the actual problem is.
A little background, since my political history has taken more turns than a loose extension cord. I grew up in an extreme conservative evangelical home as a preacher’s kid. That meant I carried around beliefs I had not really inspected up close. So yes, for years I showed up and did the Republican work. I made thousands of campaign calls for Romney. I worked for someone running for the state house who did not get elected while I was on her staff, though she later squeaked out a win by six votes, which felt like watching a progress bar creep from 99 percent to complete. I checked all the boxes. Special elector. County central committee. If there was an election from 2011 on, I was probably standing in a school gym with an R next to my name.
Then the party hitched itself to President Mango Unhinged. I wrote the county Chairwoman a long, weary letter explaining that I could not pretend this was normal. I switched to Independent and then, in a moment of questionable judgment, voted for Gary Johnson. Let us call that a corrupted file in my political directory.
Later, when the Senate Election Committee decided Roy Moore was still an acceptable investment, that was it. I went to the courthouse, filled out the form, and became a Democrat. There comes a point when you realize your operating system has too many vulnerabilities to patch.
During the last presidential election, I worked as the precinct chair in a rural county. My grandparents all farmed, and I spent plenty of childhood summers walking beans, putting up hay, and roguing corn with a hoe sharp enough to qualify as a safety violation. But I have been an IT guy for decades now, and even I could see what was coming when the final tally came in and sixty six percent of the precinct voted for Mango Unhinged. That was the moment I knew the whole system was about to crash.
So reading this article about a twelve billion dollar aid package funded by tariffs that Americans are actually paying feels like watching someone reboot the wrong machine. Farmers do not need giant checks mailed out after a political fire. They need stable markets, predictable trade, and equipment that does not cost the same as a mid range server rack.
And when I see a promise to cut environmental rules to make machinery cheaper, all I hear is the unmistakable sound of someone deleting files they should not delete.
At this point I half hope Pam Bondi has my name in a folder labeled Formerly Cooperative, Now Suspiciously Reasonable. It would be the most attention the federal government has ever given a middle aged Army veteran living quietly in an RV.
This twelve billion dollar relief package is not a solution. It is the equivalent of taping over a warning light on the dashboard. Farmers deserve real fixes, not another round of political tech support from people who keep unplugging the wrong cables.
Fascist playbook 101:
Step 1: Remove something good with the claim that the good thing is actually the cause of all troubles
Step 2: Cause a colossal crisis as a result, putting the public in extreme risk
Step 3: Make a bullshit non-solution that you advertise as a solution (like a bribe).
Result: US famers will endlessly pledge their loyalty again because they’re some of the dumbest motherfuckers in the country, and perhaps the planet.
the farmers know exactly what they’re doing.
gone are the days of mom and pop family farms…in any farming town across the country whatever farmers that have survived now are multi-millionaires abusing this corrupt system to ratfuck public funds just like everyone else
these types don’t vote republican because they’re stupid, they vote republican because they know republicans are both predictable in their games and don’t give a single fuck about enforcement/standards in return for their ratfucked funds like dems occasionally do.
After he fucked them over completely
No. First he ensured that family farms went bankrupt. Now he gives the major industrial farming corporations a massive check, but only after they paid him and his friends and family invested heavily. It is always a grift. Always.
… which is fucking them over…
Are there even family owned farms anymore? I figure most farms are bought out by corpos.
Yeah, not as many tu but yes
Scott Bessent recently proclaimed himself a farmer in an interview based on the assertion that owning agriculture interests makes you a farmer. Think of this when you hear about bailouts to farmers* intended to put out the fire started by tRump’s own tariffs which crippled American access to foreign markets. Everything according to plan for the oligarchy, and the small folk will still vote for this.
- offers exclusive to agro-conglomerates that will already be buying up the land and interests of the remaining and failing small and family farmers across the country.
Gotta buy those votes back.
The people already forced to sell their land don’t get shit.
They only need enough to fill a few town halls a year and cry on the news every other political cycle.
They could give a fuck if the rest blow their brains out or drink themselves to death.
Didn’t we go around with this same dance back in 2017?
You’d have thought the farm sector would have learned the first time.
What ? That big corporate farm lords would get the vast majority of the handouts to pad their executive pockets and boost investor confidence while an overwhelming number of small and independent farmers are left out in the cold often closing shop or selling out to the big corporate farm lords?
I think they learned.
NGL, I’ve family in the corn belt and hear that an awful lot of the local farmers there were 1,000% MAGA and voted for Trump even though they got fucked during his first term.
It’s the culture war that they are hooked on. The notion of gay people and women having a voice scares the shit out of them and they react to that, more than the threat of being forced out of business. Information silos are fiercely defended if you even attempt to point out alternative sources for information… Their stock reply - it’s all “fake” this or that.
It’s all just played out to distract people from realizing they are slaves. That’s the craziest part.
…it’s (American politics and culture) like giving a toddler an iPad to keep it busy while the parent sets up a playpen area to keep it in its own set predictable space.
It’s hard to take anyone seriously anymore, because it’s pretty evident you can even have reached an “American dream” and have success, but still be in the playpen and never know what authentic genuine life actually is. It’s like having pride in being the most successful fool.
…
It’s like American culture is a jpg that lost quality from being saved over and over again and nobody can see the picture anymore. The .jpg is peoples idea of what it means to exist… They repeated until there was no meaning or quality.
Excuse me while I flip through the racist dogwhistle rolodex…
So, Trump cares about MAGA farmers about “three-fifths” as much as Argentina’s president.
I see what you did there
Socialism!
They better not be buying soda with that
So its USAID purchases with extra steps?
These fucking welfare queen farmers are destroying America!
I’ve got some land. I’m not opposed to farming. MONEY PLZ
Wait, that article says American farmers, not Argentina…
Because Trump doesn’t need to bail out farmers in Argentina.
The recent uptick in agricultural purchases from China also comes after the world’s second-largest economy turned, at least temporarily, to Argentina for its supply of soybeans in lieu of U.S. exports.
The same thing that happened last time only it keeps getting worse for USA farmers.
And what’s that got anything to do with the $40 billion he gave Argentina for beef? $12 billion for American farmers almost seems like an insult in comparison.
