How Decades of Corporate-Friendly Farm Policies Wrecked Rural America

And Paved the Way for Trump

BY Jim Goodman | November 9, 2020

...It started with the first ​“Farm Bill,” the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) of 1933. Implemented as part of the New Deal of the Roosevelt administration...

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In the past, neighbors along rural roads got along even if their political yard signs were different. In my neighborhood, these days, a sign supporting Black Lives Matter or any Democrat is likely to be destroyed. Wear a mask around here and expect to be ridiculed and given a lecture on what a hoax Covid-19 really is. Some business owners, like their hero in the White House, may tell you to get rid of it.

If the Biden-Harris ticket, and the Democratic Party in general, wants to begin to heal this rift and regain what the Democrats have lost in rural America, they will need to articulate a clear vision for a future that includes rural Americans. They will need to go big and go bold. In rural communities they have shown that they cannot win as Republican Lite. Hangin’ in the middle of the road will not be an option. As Jim Hightower says, there’s nothing there but ​“yellow stripes and dead armadillos.”

A promising way is being pointed by those farmers waking up to the fact that their fate is bound up with that of food chain workers. Wisconsin Farmers Union member Hans Breitenmoser recently put it this way: ​“If you look at where value comes from and where the money goes in the food industry, I, as Joe Farmer, have more in common with Bob, the guy in the slaughtering plant, than I do with the CEO of a foreign agribusiness corporation.”

But these days, rural folks know that the worker in the slaughter plant is likely to be named José or Muhammed. This awareness is the starting point for a solidarity that has the power to transform rural America. I hope the Democrats are paying attention.