What have you done for me lately? Addressing politicians in desperate times, part 5.
An agricultural country which consumes its own food is a finer thing than an industrial country, which at best can only consume its own smoke.
Chesterton.
A long time ago I started a post on one of our companion blogs about agriculturalist and the Republican Party. I can't find it now, maybe I published it, or maybe I didn't.
As I"m in both worlds, the urban and the agricultural, I get exposed to the political views of both camps. The Trump administration has made this a really interesting, and horrifying, experience. By and large professionals detest Donald Trump and regard him as a charleton Farmers and ranchers are, however, amongst his most loyal base, even though there's no real reason for them to be such. Indeed, with the damage that Trump is doing to agriculture this will be a real test of whether farmers and ranchers simply reflexively vote Republican or stop doing son and wake up.
The Democratic Party, not the GOP, saved family farmers and ranchers in this country when the forces of the unabated Homestead ACt and the Great Depression were going to destroy them. They've seemingly resented being saved from those forces, however, as an impingement on their freedoms, and they've bristled at every government act since that time. Farmers and ranchers would rather sink in a cesspool of their own making than be told how to properly build one, basically.
We here, of course, aren't a pure agricultural blog. This is an Agrarian blog, and that's different. We are, quite frankly, much more radical.
"The land belongs to those who work it."
Zapata.
Agrarianism is an ethical perspective that privileges an agriculturally oriented political economy. At its most concise, agrarianism is “the idea that agriculture and those whose occupation involves agriculture are especially important and valuable elements of society
Bradley M. Jones, American Agrarianism.
Still, we can't help but notice that American agriculturalist, more than any other class of businessmen, have voted to screw themselves by voting for Donald Trump. They voted for tariff wars that leave their products marooned here in the US while foreign competitors take advantage of that fact. They've voted for a guy who thinks global warming is a fib (which many of them do as well) in spite of the plain evidence before their eyes, and the fact that this will destroy the livelihoods of the younger ones. They've voted to force economic conditions that will force them off the lands and their lands into the hands of the wealthy.
Indeed, on that last item, they've voted for people who share nothing in common with them whatsoever and would just as soon see them out of business, or simply don't care what happens to them.
They've voted, frankly, stupidly.
Well, nothing cures stupidly more than a giant dope slap from life, and they're getting one right now. The question is whether they'll vote in 2026 and 2028 to be bent over, or start to ask some questions.
We're going to post those questions here.
1. What connection does the candidate have with agriculture?
They might not have any and still be a good candidate, but if they're running around in a plaid shirt pretending to be a 19th Century man of the soil, they should be dropped.
They should also be dropped if they're like Scott Bessent, who pretends to be a soybean farmer when he's actually a major league investor. Indeed, big money is the enemy of agriculture and always has been.
I'd also note that refugees from agriculture should be suspect. The law is full of them, people who were sent off to law school by their farmer and rancher parents who believed, and in their heart of hearts still believe, that lawyers, doctors and dentist, indeed everyone in town, don't really work. All of these refugees live sad lives, but some of them spend time in their sad lives on political crusades that are sort of a cry out to their parents "please love me".
I know that sounds radical, but it's true.
2. What will they do to keep agricultural lands in family hands, and out of absentee landlord hands?
And the answer better not be a "well I'm concerned about that". The answer needs to be real.
From an agrarian prospective, no solution that isn't a massive trend reversing one makes for a satisfactory answer to this question. Ranches being bought up by the extremely wealthy are destroying the ability of regular people to even dare to hope to be in agriculture. This can be reversed, and it should be, but simply being "concerned" won't do it.
3. What is your view on public lands?
If the answer involves transferring them out of public hand, it indicates a love of money that's ultimately always destructive to agriculture in the end.
Indeed, in agricultural camps there remains an unabated lust for the public lands even though transferring them into private hands, whether directly or as a brief stop over in state hands, would utterly destroy nearly ever farm and ranch in local and family ownership . The change in value of the operations would be unsustainable, and things would be sold rapidly.
Public lands need to stay in public hands.
4. How do you make your money?
People think nothing of asking farmers "how many acres do you have" or ranchers "how many cattle do you have", both of which is the same as asking "how much money do you have".
Knowing how politicians make their money is a critical thing to know. No farmer or rancher, for example, has anything in common with how the Trump family makes money, and there's no reason to suppose that they view land as anything other than to be forced into developers hands and sold.
5. What is your position on global warming?
If its any variety of "global warming is a fib", they don't deserve a vote.
6. What is your position on a land ethnic?
If they don't know what that means, they don't deserve a vote.
7. What's on your dinner table, and who prepares it?
That may sound really odd, and we don't mean for it to be a judgment on what people eat. . . sort of. But all agriculturalist are producing food for the table. . . for the most part, if we ignore crops like cotton, or other agricultural derived textiles, of which there are a bunch, and if we ignore products like ethanol.
Anyhow, I'll be frank. If a guy is touring cattle country and gives an uneasy chuckle and says, "well, I don't eat much meat anymore" do you suppose he really cares about ranching? If you do, you need your head checked.
You probably really need it checked if the candidate doesn't every grill their own steak but has some sort of professional prepare their dinner every night. That would mean that they really have very little chance of grasping
8. What's your understanding of local agriculture?
That's a pretty broad question, but I'm defining agriculture very broadly here. Indeed, what I mean is the candidates understanding of the local use of nature, to include farming and ranching, but to also include hunting, fishing and commercial fishing.
Indeed, on the latter, only the commercial fishing industry seems to have politicians that really truly care what happens to them. How that happened isn't clear, but it does seem to be the case.
Otherwise, what most politicians seem to think is that farmers wear plaid flannel shirts. I see lots of them wondering around in photographs looking at corrals, or oil platforms, but I never see one actually do any work. . . of pretty much any kind. That is, I don't expect to see Chuck Gray flaking a calf, for example.
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