May, 2019
Lincoln -- While driving a few miles northward from Lincoln to visit the farming community of my youth, where I still have deep roots, I heard Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts come on the radio to tell a national audience what Nebraska farmers were thinking about the collapse of Trump's trade talks with China.
The governor said Nebraska farmers were telling him to support the president, even if it hurts them. The sacrifice is worth it, to make China stop stealing intellectual property, according to Nebraska farmers to whom the governor talks. The governor also assured the radio audience (twice) that low crop prices were not the result of the trade war, as prices had been low since 2013. Not to worry about the trade war's effect on prices, so to speak.
To my ears, this was the most incredible statement made by a Nebraska governor about farmers since Norbert Tiemann. When asked if farmers were happy with the Nixon Administration's economic policies, Tiemann said he had "never seen any happy farmers any time." Which may have cost Tiemann the next election.
Nebraska farmers I talk to are not all that informed about intellectual property issues with China, let alone willing to lose their farms because of them. Most farmers had never heard of the issue until they were told it was their patriotic duty to be a pawn in the fight over such matters as copyrights and knock-off products. If they claimed otherwise, let alone said they'd willingly risk their farms over it, they'd be taken for liars or fools, and everybody knew it.
And they don't think low prices should be written off so casually by the governor or anyone else, as if prices were merely something farmers grumble about, rather than something to be urgently addressed.
The farmers I talk to are more knowledgeable about how they are being squeezed, as evidenced in this article from the Lincoln JournalStar:
A...report released Thursday by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City shows that agricultural credit conditions continue to deteriorate in the seven states served by the bank.
In fact, some of the worst conditions were in Nebraska, which had the second-biggest year-over-year drop in farm income, the largest drop in capital spending, the biggest drop in farmland values and the largest percentage of ag producers struggling to produce enough cash flow to service their debt.
But my farmer friends and colleagues also know that the Democratic Party is not sure it cares about what is happening in rural America or not. Some within the party are pleased to see the distress visited by President Trump on the voters who supported him. Some believe Democrats should work only on their urban base and not challenge Republicans on rural issues.
This is not only misguided but a sure way for Democrats to lose the next elections at all levels. Are these Democrats even remotely aware of the pain Republicans are inflicting on rural America?
Rural voters have only so much patience before tipping elections away from those who have hurt them so much for so little. China trade practices could have been handled more easily through WTO, TPP, and our allies. If only that had been the chosen course. Farmers know that.
What farmers of all stripes – conservatives especially – are really thinking is at what point do they call a halt to support for a president who repeatedly damages their economic interests, let alone violates on so many occasions their basic sense of values and decency. That point is soon approaching.
