Ag Policy Blog
Rural America Roars
Farmers and rural America largely got the election they wanted.
While opinion writers at the New York Times and Washington Post are reeling this morning, the election of Donald Trump, with a Republican Congress, was largely a function of rural America overwhelming urban America in the polls.
The morning political shows are asking questions about how nobody saw this, but there were signs. There were so many signs. Trump-Pence and "Clinton for Prison 2016" signs were scattered across the lawns and highways in rural America. Clinton-Kaine signs were fewer and far between.
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Rural America is fed up with immigration changing the dynamics of their communities. They are fed up with Obamacare, its mandates and unfulfilled promises. And they liked what they saw as straight talk from Trump and his arguments that America is going to win again.
Farmers, for their part, see declining prices, a weak safety net and a federal government that appears to be increasingly encroaching on the farm gate.
Trump captured it in his first post-election tweet, "Such a beautiful and important evening! The forgotten man and woman will never be forgotten again. We will all come together as never before."
The forgotten man and woman are blue-collar people, who are always the center of the country in mood and economic feelings. And they resoundingly rejected the current direction of the country, Hillary Clinton and Democratic policies.
Rural America and farmers have now helped lead the charge for a potentially major transformation in the country's direction over the next four years.
Follow me on Twitter @ChrisClaytonDTN
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