By Bill Barth
Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of Fame.
Everyone has seen those red and blue maps of the United States. It’s a sea of red (marking Republican voting districts) punctuated by dots of blue (Democrat districts).
The maps are misleading. As a matter of geography red areas overwhelm blue. But as a matter of population blue is at least equal if not ahead. That’s not as confusing as it may seem. Red dominates rural and small-town America. Blue dominates cities.
It hasn’t always been like that. I grew up in rural America, born in the 1950s Baby Boom tide following World War II. Nearly everyone in those parts called themselves Democrats. Or, more accurately, Roosevelt Democrats. My maternal grandfather was the county Democrat chair for decades. Edgar County, Illinois, was reflective of most rural areas in the United States.
Blue.
How did the nation get from there to where it is now? It’s not as complicated as you may think.
Roosevelt Democrats felt the powers in government understood their problems and cared about country people. They thought Republicans were the party of business and bosses.
The post-war period accelerated the trend of people leaving farms and small towns to find better-paying jobs in city factories. Rural America moved into a steady slide toward economic contraction. Democrat priorities shifted to cities, where the people were going. Country folks watched jobs disappear, population drop, schools shrink and opportunities diminish while politicians increasingly neglected their interests.
There were other factors, principally the social and civil rights upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, giving rise to the Nixon “southern strategy” that turned blue states red over deep cultural resentments. The more Democrats focused on urban issues the more country people felt abandoned.
Fast forward to today: President Trump did not create the angry, neglected and resentful rural environment. He did master the art of politically capturing those resentments to offset Democrat advantages in big-city America.
As a son of rural America – who made a career in urban America – I would make two observations. One, Democrats have poorly served urban America, where problems only seem to get worse. Two, Republicans have poorly served farm country and small-town America, where downward trends continue.
Here’s my thought, and it’s personal. With my sister, I still own the farm where generations of my family have worked the ground. We have emotional and financial ties to the land.
That steady slide continues in rural America, without regard to which political party holds power. Farmers are lucky to break even. Bankruptcies are soaring. There are more farmers in their 70s than in their 20s. Small towns are wrecked. Larger towns in farm country have more boarded up businesses than thriving enterprises. Younger people have fled. They are not coming back.
As a farm business manager, I do my best to keep up with news and trends that will impact the bottom line. Soybeans that were selling at over $16 a bushel a few years ago are now a little over $11. Corn that sold for $6.50 a bushel is going for $4 and change. Meanwhile, expenses – called inputs in farm lingo – have moved significantly higher. Think seed, fertilizer, herbicide.
Consider recent headlines in farm publications:
“Farmers feeling fertilizer, fuel price pressures.”
“Ag leaders share methods to increase domestic demand.”
“Farmers take fertilizer pleas to Capitol Hill.”
“Will fertilizer volatility impact crop planting?”
“Supercells bring severe weather.” With a picture of an Illinois farmer holding a 5-inch hailstone. “Storm claims rolling in.” The story notes severe weather events are becoming more common. Great.
“Commodity markets focused on Iran war implications.”
That last headline points out Washington’s self-inflicted damage done to farmers. The tariff war killed important markets. China has long been farmers’ biggest and best soybean market. That market dried up over tariffs, with China shifting purchases to America’s biggest soybean competitor, Brazil. Will it ever come back to what it was, let alone grow? When you get mad at a shop over how you are treated and take your business to a competitor, do you return later?
A large percentage of fertilizer products flow through the Persian Gulf. Already prices have spiked over $200 a ton higher over U.S. hostilities with Iran. The cost of fuel has risen sharply over disruptions in supply with shipping at a standstill in the vital Strait of Hormuz.
To add insult to injury Congress and the White House have not passed a crucial farm bill for eight years, instead continuing outdated provisions because partisanship renders them incapable of doing their jobs. The damage in farm country is serious.
You may have read that Washington approved relief payments to farmers. True. The payments fall well short of making up for losses directly traceable to government policies. This is true as well: Farmers are proud people; they want market stability, not government handouts.
So here’s the point. Democrats forfeited rural America’s support by ignoring issues there in pursuit of the urban vote. Republicans swept into rural America on the power of resentments with promises to make things better.
News flash: It’s not better. It’s worse. Country folks know what empty political promises sound like, and they can still do arithmetic.
Bill Barth is the former Editor of the Beloit Daily News, and a member of the Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of Fame. Write to him at bbarth@beloitdailynews.com.
