It is difficult to ignore the frustration many people feel when farmers demand public sympathy for the hardships affecting their livelihoods while appearing indifferent to the suffering of other communities in the past. When workers, families, and vulnerable groups faced rising costs, unfair policies, displacement, or economic insecurity, their concerns were often dismissed, minimized, or met with silence from the Republican Party.

Now that farmers are experiencing serious pressure themselves, they are asking society to stand with them. Everyone deserves support when they are struggling, including farmers, but solidarity cannot be selective. If we expect people to care about our hardships, we must also be willing to recognize and care about theirs. Real compassion is not something we demand only when our own interests are threatened; it is a principle we practice consistently, even when the suffering belongs to people outside our own community.

This is not an argument against farmers or a dismissal of the challenges they face. It is a call for accountability and mutual understanding.

Imagine spending years railing against "socialism" only to watch your family farm get liquidated because the bailout checks you were promised never showed up. Handing generational acreage over to venture capital and mega-institutions just to "own the libs" might be the most expensive participation trophy in American history. 

Slogans don't balance balance sheets when institutional buyers and corporate entities sweep in to acquire distressed agricultural acreage for pennies on the dollar. While rural communities carry the economic fallout of unfulfilled subsidy rhetoric, corporate buyers from private equity to institutional real estate trusts leverage the squeeze to convert independent family operators into minimum-wage farmhands on their own former dirt. 

Best of luck applying to work the back forty you used to own. 

To support blue dot farmers:

https://bluedotfarms.com/

Wonder how differently 2024 might have gone if the consequences had been communicated this clearly.

And them farmers were voting for this.