Summary
Michigan farmer Rebecca Carlson, a longtime Trump supporter, faces bankruptcy as Trump’s funding freezes stall a $400,000 USDA grant for hiring temporary workers.
Carlson, who hoped Trump’s second term would revive her struggling cherry farm, already spent $200,000 preparing for labor under the H-2A visa program.
With funding halted, she risks losing $200,000 more and can’t move forward with critical hires.
Trump’s new tariffs and immigration crackdowns threaten agriculture costs and labor availability, leaving farmers uncertain and frustrated with unmet promises.
So let me get this straight: she had everything planned and set up under the policies of the Biden administration, everything was working fine and a large part of the plan were immigrant workers. So naturally she voted for Trump. I struggle to empathize, tbh.
Struggle to empathize? I’m reading this with glee.
In Dutch we have a saying: “Wie zijn billen brand moet op de blaren zitten” ->( if you burn your asscheeks, you have to sit on the blisters). It means that if you do something stupid, you have to suffer the consequences
I like that
In the english speaking world, we say, fuck around and find out. I feel sorry for people like this… until i realise this is literally what they voted for. Suck shit arsewipes.
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It’s only half-topical, but let me say one thing: farmers are romanticised waaay too much in my opinion. Yes, they usually have a more precarious business, and agriculture as such is, of course, very much the foundation of our societies and very lives.
But don’t be blinded by the image of homesteading and such - most farmers are basically just business owners, with their class interests often removing them from a large part of the population. Many of the seasonal workers for example have shit pay on top of shit conditions, and they are notoriously overrepresented with some kind of “rurally wholesome” image, when they can be just as much business assholes, that mainly own a piece of land and the machinery necessary to use it for agriculture.
This will only get worse, because bankruptcy like this has one main effect: consolidation, even more farmland operated by big business, even though I personally think small business like this one is clearly already not as good as people tend to make it out as.
People romanticize farming because it was the basis of society and its economy 100 years ago. Agriculture was key to human survival for millenia before that.
In our increasingly tech driven lives, there’s something pure about your work being dedicated to cultivating the earth and bringing sustenance to people.
But there are modern US farm owners that harken the image of plantation owners during America’s chattel slavery era. Exploiting undocumented workers with undignified working conditions and paying them insufficiently in exchange for irreversibly wearing down their bodies.
Agreed, and to add to this, I grew up in farmland and have never met a broke farmer. These folks are typically quite wealthy thanks to massive government subsidies. Huge modern home, brand new cars, plenty of toys like ATVs. They’re not living the same life as the standard working class.
The fundamental weakness of Western Civilization is empathy, after all…
Lol
Why do you say that?
Its a musk quote. Pretty sure others have said it before him though.
Ahh, I didn’t know.
Terrifying lol
Do you want to hate yourself both literally and philosophically? Seek out the news coverage from your closest Sinclair affiliate. There’s a good chance this is more attributable to the fall of the fourth estate than any sort of ignorance or stupidity. A lot of these people get their news from the local broadcast. And when Sinclair controls all of those they cannot help but be uninformed.
This is actually a chance for us to reach out to them pointing out the failure of the media they relied to be informed with. Or we could choose to not build allies and coalitions and just laugh at them. For things that we ourselves could easily fall victim to
Bullshit. They’ve had way too long to figure out that reality doesn’t match up with the news they’re getting. It’s just easier to not question it
Their reality is legitimately different from your own. And as long as you refuse to acknowledge that. You will just push them to cling to their lies as much as you are clinging to your own.
By virtue of simply being here both of us are not typical or average. A lot of typical average people still don’t use the internet and don’t even rely much on cable. When everything around them tells them that reality is one particular way. And in general it doesn’t often negatively impact them they’ll believe it. Now when the cognitive dissonance is really hitting is the best time to break them from it.
I lived in the rust belt for over a decade and have spent the vast majority of my life in a very conservative district. I literally know farmers personally. I promise you I know what life is like for many of these people. It’s nice to think that we could push or pull them but they’re as willfully deluded as it gets. The number of people I know that could barely afford gas to get to work and then continue to vote Republican in deep red districts for decades as they stripped them of any kind of benefit is insane. There is no reaching out to them they already rejected reality. I’ve had so many conversations with individuals about politics in these areas and you can see them rejecting reality when you point out examples from their real life. They can help being uninformed and choose every day not to. They know the politicians they voted for took they’re benefits and they’re going to vote for them again because that’s easier than facing the reality that they made their own bed. Trying to reach out to them is why the Dems are pushing right and trying to coax Republicans to their side and the willful indoctrination is why that has not, and never will, work. These are proudly ignorant people
Nope, it’s a choice to uninformed. Stop making excuse for dumb asses.
Plenty of people choose to actually be informed on actual policy, and use critical thinking to figure out what it means for society.
They’re racist, anti intellectuals who choose to be fed bullshit cos it’s fits with their poisonous, dumb ass racist ideology of “immigrant bad”
Stop making excuses for them.
I don’t struggle to empathize. I’m downright gleeful these people are getting the instant karma they so rightfully deserve.