Comment by insane_dreamer
10 hours ago
Quite surprised there wasn't mention of the Trump tariffs on China causing the collapse of China imports of US soybeans, which by the way, has persisted even though the original tariffs were reduced, causing lasting damage to farmers.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2026/01/17/china-pur...
Almost 78% of farmers voted for Trump [1]. These are the guys that got Trump elected. Polls show that support for President Trump among farmers remains high, hovering around 50-60%. That means these are the guys that are keeping Trump in power. When support among farmers drops to 20% level GOP legislators will feel emboldened to remove Trump from power.
[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-farmers-voted-trump-feeling-210...
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjedvwed1xgo
It's just shocking to me how certain demographics are so eager to vote against their own interests.
I mean, name one thing that Trump has done to help farmers more than he hurt them with the tariffs? (Subsidies they already had, regardless of the party in power.)
What are they getting in return for their vote? The safety of knowing that trans athletes are banned and some Guatemalans in far away "liberal" cities have been "gotten rid of"? None of those benefit them in any way. I still can't quite understand.
GOP has long pursued a strategy of getting rural whites to vote against their self interest. This is why they play up cultural issues such as trans people using women's bathrooms and such other topics that uneducated people can readily grasp.
4 replies →
> It's just shocking to me how certain demographics are so eager to vote against their own interests.
Something that's been made very clear over the last few election cycles is that a lot of voters will go against their own interests, as long as it hurts their perceived "enemy" more than themselves.
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> It's just shocking to me how certain demographics are so eager to vote against their own interests.
Nobody votes against their own interests. That is something that only stupid caricatures do, not actual people. If it seems that way to you, that should be a very strong signal to reevaluate your understanding of the situation. Most likely, that means either nobody is representing their interests or you have misunderstood what their interests are.
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I don't really like Trump, but to be fair here, China does things like this all the time. They did the same thing in Canada, because we didn't want their spy-cars in our country.
We'd really be better off if we had zero trade with them. They're poison.