L et me say, right up front, that my knowledge of agriculture is minimal. Food grows in supermarkets. But I have done some homework to back up a suspicion of mine, which is that in terms of existential peril wrought by the Trump regime, there is no single group — with the glaring exception of our immigrant population — being bludgeoned as cruelly as the nation's farmers. Yes, there is deep irony in knowing that farmers voted overwhelmingly for Trump, many of them three times. Yes, it’s another FAFO moment — one of many coming fast and furious now. The problem is that we’re talking about our food supply here. We need those farmers — dumbshit Trump voters or not — to keep growing stuff for us to eat too much of. So it is of some concern to all of us that farm bankruptcies are up 36% since Trump took office. Underlying that figure is the grim fact that the market prices of virtually every major crop grown in this country are lower than the costs required to gr...
Life and Politics in the Age of Covid