Farmers and truckers: When it comes to Trump, you should have known!
Diesel fuel prices zooming past six dollars a gallon have pushed farmers and truckers over the edge. Reports are full of those folks saying they now understand their support for Donald Trump and his Republican MAGA followers may have been a mistake. Many are admitting it - all are feeling the effects of it.
To those erstwhile loyal Trumpies, the great majority of the country says “What took you so long?”
It wasn’t enough to see Trump send an invasion mob to the Capitol (and pardon them all), not enough to see his tariffs destroy agriculture markets, not enough to see him alienate friendly nations and make friends of dictators, not enough to watch the amateur hour war on Iran, not enough to see him as a crude and cruel disgrace and embarrassment despoiling the office. The untold thousands of lies did not turn them off.
And they were not perceptive enough to see through the butt kissing and bootlicking theater played out by our guys in Washington, D.C. and in Pierre.
The farmers and truckers should have known.
Trump is notorious for betraying those who work with and support him. He stiffed construction unions, didn’t pay contractors, declared bankruptcy leaving others with losses. He collected donations for his “foundation” a court ruled a fraud. “Trump University” was a total scam on those who enrolled. Cheated on his wives, cheated on his golf partners, put his Vice President in danger, etc., etc.,etc.
Everybody knows some or all of this. Why have farmers and truckers been solid MAGA backers and voters?
Only two possible reasons:
1. They really, really didn’t know the kind of man they were voting for. Incredibly unlikely, but possible, I guess.
2. There was something Trump promised they liked so much it overwhelmed all of his history of failure, lying, and documented personal faults: Saving white America.
Ascribing motives to any individual is unfair. We’d like to think our farmers and truckers did not look past all the Trump baggage and vote for him mostly because he promised to “Build a Wall” and launch a campaign to rid the country of undocumented immigrants.
However, opinion sampling shows that was at or near the top among reasons people did vote for him.
Even that has been bungled by Trump and our own Kristi Noem; the poorly trained, mismanaged ICE troops have made it a polling negative.
Did lots of low and middle income white Christian men and women stick us all with the MAGA experience just so they could get it over on immigrants they don’t like? Do they now regret it because the whole Trump effect hits them personally? Polls show things are moving that way.
Better late than never - if they do now understand the need to vote out candidates who helped make this national affliction possible. The mid-term is one more chance to vote against this failed President by ousting those who have been his apologists and enablers. Literally anything will be better than what we have now.
Mike Levsen is a former mayor of Aberdeen
Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons
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