I have to scratch my head and wonder how these farmers can still stand behind a president whose policies are so bad that they are hurting them to the point of bankruptcy.
As bad as this is going to sound... those who live on farming, ranching, in rural communities, etc. have no where else to go politically.
No one can dispute the damage that Trump's policies are having on these communities that center around farming and ranching, the article points out that while we are not quite at the 1980s crisis stage we are getting close to more rounds of critical bankruptcies.
Speaking in economic terms, when global demand for a product continues to climb but any one nation's participation in that supply diminishes we have a real problem. We have always said that tariffs and other means nations take to manipulate their participation in global trade end up picking winners and losers. In this case, Trump's ideals for going after China means using domestic farming and ranching as pawns. Those business models were already difficult in terms of profitability, and removing a large chunk of their output from a market buyer was stupidity on Trump's part.
But politically speaking there is not much alternative for these groups of Americans. Democrats do not want them, and about all they can do is appeal to Senators and House Representatives for help against a President that largely has discarded them. Relief payments to these people from our new trade reality will come to an end.
Now Trump's supporters will claim going up against China was about their trade and currency manipulation, their intellectual property theft, etc. In political terms they have a point, but in economic reality terms going up against China in a trade dispute has real consequence. "Being right" does not give our means of trade a bullet proof vest from global response. The reality is China was going to respond, and it speaks to a point I often get in trouble for around here by saying our economy is linked to China, as our economy is linked to the global economy.
What is happening to our farms and ranches is a direct result of that reality that politics tends to try to argue away, but they really cannot. The bankruptcies trending up we will see, the reduction in farming and ranching output we will see is my evidence. As is this article pointing out the difficulties this segment of the nation faces.
But to your point, who else are they going to turn to? "We want to put them out of business" Democrats? (In fairness, that quote is completely taken out of context and was originally pointed at coal.)