Why Won’t Farmers Rebel Against Trumponomics? Because They’re Rich.
Sarah Taber, a farmer who ran for commissioner of agriculture in North Carolina as a Democrat last year, has a YouTube channel where she talks about these issues. In one recent dispatch, she pushed back on the notion that farmers were deceived. Trump campaigned on starting a trade war by raising tariffs, she said. “Everybody knew this was going to happen,” she said in the video. “Everybody in agriculture knew this was going to happen.”
When she spoke to farmers, they pointed to other benefits in electing Trump. Those included ending increased protections for farm labor under the Biden administration and rolling back environmental regulations. Earlier in the year, farmers celebrated some of the tax changes in the budget reconciliation bill, including an estate tax exemption that allows big farms to pass to future generations tax-free. Trump had also promised to mute the effects of his mass deportation scheme on agriculture.
What’s new is that the more destructive components of Trump’s agenda are hitting them now because they weren’t given special consideration, allowing them to try to pull on America’s heart strings as symbols of an agrarian past that is long gone. Arkansas Senator John Boozman is leading the way for a bailout for farmers this year, and some Democrats are promising help too. In her video, Taber expresses some skepticism: When Trump delivered aid before, he was running for reelection. He may be less dependent on keeping farmers in his corner now. “Here in agriculture, I thought we all knew that story about free milk and a cow. And, uh, he’s got the milk,” she said. “He don’t need to buy the cow.”
