Posted on 02/18/2020 3:55:27 AM PST by Kaslin
WESTBY, Wisconsin -- Spend any time with people who supported presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016 and you quickly find out that the reasons they voted for Trump had very little to do with him.
It is likely one of the most misunderstood threads among this new conservative populist coalition. To get the real reasons for their support for Trump, you have to be where they are, have no preconceived ideas about who they are and have no prejudice for what you think their motivations are.
Tom Schaub, Ralph Petersheim, Donna Leum, Kris Amundson and Ben Klinkner are all sitting around a large conference table at the Westby Cooperative Creamery in this Vernon County town. There is a pot of coffee and an oversized box of doughnuts. The aroma that only bakery-fresh doughnuts can provide radiates throughout the room.
All four are dairy farmers. Schaub is president of the co-op. Petersheim has been recognized for his water and land conservation efforts by the county, earning him the Outstanding Conservation Farmer Award for his impeccable land efforts. Leum's family owns a 53-cow dairy, and both of her adult children are in different aspects of the dairy agriculture industry. Amundson's family produces 17,200 pounds of milk per cow each year for the cooperative. Klinkner is a sixth-generation farmer on his family's organic dairy farm.
They are all board members of a co-op that was formed over 117 years ago by local dairy farm families searching for a way to develop a sustainable market for their milk and dairy products in their creamery.
Individually, they are superhumans. Not only do they work the dawn-to-dusk hours required to bring you cheese, yogurt, milk, sour cream and any other dairy delight that fills refrigerators (cows are milked twice a day every day of the year); they are devoted conservationists of the soil and water, and are tireless volunteers dedicating countless hours to the 4-H club, local schools, their churches and the co-op board.
They all said their vote for Trump wasn't for him but rather for their communities.
It was an abstract and complicated decision that rarely makes sense to people who don't walk in their shoes, live in their ZIP code or understand how long establishments within both parties have let them down, their parents down, their grandparents down and their children down.
"People who don't know farmers or live near or in a farm community have little idea of why we feel so connected to our place," said Leum. "But they do seem to have strong opinions about who we are, and when they find out we supported Trump, they look at us as that dumb farmer who doesn't know any better."
"Well those dumb farmers, they're an electrician. They're a plumber. They are mechanics, scientists, conservationists. They take care of the crops that fill their cupboards, (who) love and care for the animals who provide dairy and meat for their feasts. They are also vets and engineers," she says with pride and a broad smile. "I mean, we have all these skills because you cannot keep calling repair people, so you do it yourself. So actually, I think we are pretty darn smart."
Overall, there are 68,700 farms in Wisconsin covering 14.4 million acres of land. They provide nearly $90 billion for the state economy every year and employ over 400,000 people statewide.
There are nearly 8,500 dairy farms in Wisconsin. Hundreds of them shuttered in 2019, continuing a 10-year trend the co-op board members said is largely based on a complex pricing system and fixed costs being spread over a wide swath of production.
"On the co-op level, we're given an advance price of what the milk is supposed to be for the month, so we base all of our prices on the products that we're making and selling," explained Schaub. "And then when the final price comes in, it can be a $2 difference."
"Well, that $2 difference. ... There's no way to make that up, so, then you have a loss for that month. Then, you string too many months like that in a row, and that's when things get rough," he said, adding that the eventual result could be bankruptcy.
All five farmers like President Trump's policies. His demeanor? Not so much. But they knew Trump would come through with better trade deals, which he did with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Vernon County is one of the 23 counties that voted for then-President Barack Obama in 2012 and switched to Trump in 2016.
While many national outlets have parachuted into the Vernon Counties of the last presidential race to ask voters about Trump when the trade deal dragged on, when special counsel Robert Mueller's report was released and when Trump was impeached (and acquitted), few journalists ask voters how they got here in the first place. Furthermore, few members of the Republican and Democratic establishments who mock farmers behind closed doors (or openly on social media) have reflected meaningfully about why farmers picked Trump over their establishment candidates.
Despite moans from the chattering class saying there have been too many stories on Trump voters, farmers such as these have a story to tell about lives focused on faith, family and farming. Few who actually know them could argue they're not creating a profound benefit for the entire country.
I like Trump’s policies AND I like his style. He cracks me up.
This could have been a great article. It’s thoughtful and includes real reporting. The framing of the story is also great, both describing the place and people and framing of the narrative of supporting Trump because they support their communities. But then after all that setup and framing, the author gives the farmers a total of three quotes, none of which actually directly relates to the conclusion.
Abbreviated version: They gathered a bunch of hard working, both in job and within the community, who aren’t looking for freebies. They don’t like Trump’s style, but everyone else ignores their priorities in simply a fair market.
Cue liberals to talk about paying off some 30 year old’s schooling and doctoral dissertation how homophobic rural people are.
Farming ( .8% of GDP ) is really not that important. The GOP should start caring about line workers, blue collar workers and manufacturing which is 20+% of GDP and represents many, many more voters.
We gotta get over this meme - which reflects lack of self-confidence in his supporters.
What other style would you have anyone adopt who is being attacked by the left and by the treasonous GOP. Stay above the fray? Sorry that's a Bush move. Be bipartisan? Gee that looks like what RINO and not democrats have done for years to take this country down the river.
What "they" don't like is that you can't win by going dirty on him. He punches back. Hard.
You can't get the substance we need without his style. The deepsters won't put up with it.
“Vernon County is one of the 23 counties that voted for then-President Barack Obama in 2012 and switched to Trump in 2016.”
I used to kick around Vernon County back in the day. My friends dad built a cottage there. Spent a lot of weekends up there pounding nails and such. Beautiful country, great hunting, and it’s inhabited by some solid salt of the earth folks.
We got to know a few of the neighbors and helped repair some fences when dairy cattle got loose. Folks up there have long memories when you do them a solid.
L
“I like Trump’s policies AND I like his style. He cracks me up.”
Exactamundo!
A more agreeable, less combative character could not have survived the past four years.
His policies have helped the economy, but it’s his style that has taken a wrecking ball to the swamp, our cultural rot, the styling PC, and the propaganda organs.
In fact, it wouldn’t be hard to make the case that his style has been more positively consequential than his policies.
Farming ( .8% of GDP ) is really not that important...
Maybe to an investor but me I like to eat and would like to keep them solvent.
The alternative to Trump is a Democrat who is OK with snipping the head off an 8 month old baby in the womb to sell it for research.
Trump addresses the things that are on the minds of ordinary Americans. Things that the others won’t even mention. There’s no fear in the guy. The rest are chicken sh, bought and paid for.
Canada produces really good lumber and so does South America. Argentina and Australia produces really good beef and East Europe produces really great grains. Asia has the best rice in the world. I should have open access to these markets/products but I don't. Why is manufacturing (11% of GDP and falling ) thrown under the globalist bus but our pampered farmers ( really corporations ) get subsidies? Hmm? So tell me why?
On the one hand Republicans tell me not to worry where my tires, car parts, TV, computers and almost everything I buy is made ( mostly not made in the USA ) but somehow I should give sh!t where the ear of corn I am about to eat is grown? Why?
Farmers ( 0.8% of GDP )need to get real jobs. Bloomberg is an idiot but he was right about farming. Farming is ghetto.
It took Trump to revel to me how unsophisticated the average Republican voter really is.
I live in Wisconsin, but I’m not a farmer. I have several close friends from church who do farm, and I’d never degrade them. They are among the most skilled, down to earth, always have your back, Christian guys I know. They live out their faith. That being said, I voted for Trump almost exclusively for one reason: Supreme Court pick on the table. His greatest and most long lasting achievement is likely to be moving the courts back to the right to where they are almost balanced. And it while I’ll vote of him again. Give Trump and the Turtle four more years and we’ll have jurisprudence of the kind our Founders envisioned.
“Farmers ( 0.8% of GDP )need to get real jobs. Bloomberg is an idiot but he was right about farming. Farming is ghetto.
“It took Trump to revel to me how unsophisticated the average Republican voter really is.”
I don’t think this line of approach is working for you.
I don't care anymore. The GOP is the stupid party and the Democrats are the evil party. Wake up Republicans, wage earners ARE NOT THE ENEMY.
Union Troll alert!!
93% of wage earners ( 120 million strong ) ARE NOT IN A UNION. Where is the GOP love for them?
I don’t know about anyone else but I voted FOR Trump. I was FOR him from the day he announced.
ML/NJ
Or a RINO who says it’s ok to want whatever the democrats want.
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