Originally published at: ‘Abandoned by the President:’ Trump’s Economic Policies Keep Hurting His Rural Base - TPM – Talking Points Memo
On Monday afternoon, Craig Moss was testing out a new silage chopper. The machine can dice up an entire green corn plant into half-inch chunks before the milky pieces are packed tight into what Moss calls “big concrete bunkers” where they’ll ferment and become cow feed. “It’s got a really distinct smell to it,” Moss…
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Good story, but I wish the reporter had pressed Mr. Moss on what he meant by “social values.” I’m tired of these people getting a pass on the fact they voted their hates and their resentments. And I also think it’s important for people who have a thermostatic vision of politics – that voters will ‘vote their pocketbook’ – to realize that as much as this salt of the earth farmer may rue losing the spare $250,000 he has in his pocket (!!), he’ll still pull the bar for the guy who promises to indulge his hates. Because politics isn’t logical. It doesn’t track material interest in any straightforward way. That’s why I cringe every time people assume affordability is the Democratic golden ticket. It’s one way in which they show their condescension to Trump voters. They think these people are misguided. But they’re not. Their calculus of what they want from politics is just different. And to train their ids away from hate voting, we need more messages than “we’ll lower your healthcare premium maybe!”
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Yup
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It’s not just trump they vote for when reflecting their hates it’s the whole republican party.
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Yeah, the social values of a thrice married man with a long history of cheating on every wife with complete impunity. And a family that just stands in front of the feed trough known as Daddy living on all the filth he brings them every day for every corrupt business they can wallow in.
Rural Republicans running for Congress and other posts will lie they support helping farmers. Most of them will in turn vote for them ‘cause they hate Democrats. Once reelected, these MAGA henchmen will proceed to keep screwing their farmer constituents, safe in the knowledge they are too stupid to understand what is happening is because of their own stupidity.
The only hope is enough of these self destructive dummies don’t vote.