Summary
Michigan farmer Rebecca Carlson, a longtime Trump supporter, faces bankruptcy as Trump’s funding freezes stall a $400,000 USDA grant for hiring temporary workers.
Carlson, who hoped Trump’s second term would revive her struggling cherry farm, already spent $200,000 preparing for labor under the H-2A visa program.
With funding halted, she risks losing $200,000 more and can’t move forward with critical hires.
Trump’s new tariffs and immigration crackdowns threaten agriculture costs and labor availability, leaving farmers uncertain and frustrated with unmet promises.
Do you want to hate yourself both literally and philosophically? Seek out the news coverage from your closest Sinclair affiliate. There’s a good chance this is more attributable to the fall of the fourth estate than any sort of ignorance or stupidity. A lot of these people get their news from the local broadcast. And when Sinclair controls all of those they cannot help but be uninformed.
This is actually a chance for us to reach out to them pointing out the failure of the media they relied to be informed with. Or we could choose to not build allies and coalitions and just laugh at them. For things that we ourselves could easily fall victim to
Bullshit. They’ve had way too long to figure out that reality doesn’t match up with the news they’re getting. It’s just easier to not question it
Their reality is legitimately different from your own. And as long as you refuse to acknowledge that. You will just push them to cling to their lies as much as you are clinging to your own.
By virtue of simply being here both of us are not typical or average. A lot of typical average people still don’t use the internet and don’t even rely much on cable. When everything around them tells them that reality is one particular way. And in general it doesn’t often negatively impact them they’ll believe it. Now when the cognitive dissonance is really hitting is the best time to break them from it.
I lived in the rust belt for over a decade and have spent the vast majority of my life in a very conservative district. I literally know farmers personally. I promise you I know what life is like for many of these people. It’s nice to think that we could push or pull them but they’re as willfully deluded as it gets. The number of people I know that could barely afford gas to get to work and then continue to vote Republican in deep red districts for decades as they stripped them of any kind of benefit is insane. There is no reaching out to them they already rejected reality. I’ve had so many conversations with individuals about politics in these areas and you can see them rejecting reality when you point out examples from their real life. They can help being uninformed and choose every day not to. They know the politicians they voted for took they’re benefits and they’re going to vote for them again because that’s easier than facing the reality that they made their own bed. Trying to reach out to them is why the Dems are pushing right and trying to coax Republicans to their side and the willful indoctrination is why that has not, and never will, work. These are proudly ignorant people
Lived in a rural area, cannot confirm.
I’ve lived in a rural area and can confirm. Not all rural areas are in the thrall of propagandists like Sinclair. However far too many are. I know of at least three or four different markets that from personal experience don’t have any news other than Sinclair’s. And I know how much I have to struggle to keep family and friends there informed.
You and I generally agree on most things. And I have a high enough opinion of you that I think that you can recognize and acknowledge that your experience while valid. May not be universal. Also none of this absolves in from their role in any of this. But the best way for us to reach them is with understanding and not accusation here. We’ve got Decades of evidence that contemplation and ridicule is only going to make it worse.
Man, where I lived, the most basic television package had multiple non-conservative news channels, and people always tuned into Fox anyway. They didn’t turn on the radio and tune into nerd shit which was available like NPR, they tuned into Rush Limbaugh screaming about how Muslims were treated with kid gloves in this country (in the mid-2000s, no fucking less).
At some point, you have to accept that these people are not choosing conservative news sources because they don’t have alternatives; they’re choosing conservative news sources because they like what they’re listening to, and because they dislike hearing the opposite.
What ridicule? Fuck, man, conservatives have been given nothing in this country but asspats and ‘agree to disagree’ for as long as I’ve been alive. “T-the mean liberals made fun of people like me on a liberal show…” as all the liberal talking-heads and community members gather 'round and tell them how fucking valid and wholesome they are doesn’t mean jack fucking shit.
Humiliation and isolation is the only weapon that works against fascists, other than violence. We learned that in the 60s and 70s, and then got told otherwise by Very Important People in the 80s, looking for reconciliation with fascist cunts in order to share in the power during a brief revival of right-wing power - which then turned that brief revival into an enduring trend.
The Nazis in Germany weren’t suppressed because the post-war order joined hands with them and told them that they were good boys and girls who just made some mistakes. The Nazis in Germany became verboten when the generation of the 1960s looked at the former generation and said, “My God, you were monsters.”
Right there. There’s your problem. For most of these people there’s only one TV package and that’s ABC, CbS, NBC, and whatever couple of quirky local UHF stations they still get. And when two if not three out of those three major network stations are owned by Sinclair. Then they get no alternatives. Plenty of places don’t get cable and tv packages. Plenty of places can only get satellite and it’s spotty at best. Even then if that is also an extreme luxury.
Satellite was always the expensive option where I lived, in one of the poorest regions of the country. Satellite, furthermore, covers less than 10% of households, and that includes people opting for satellite as the more expensive option in cable-accessible areas.
Nowadays, ~95% of the country has internet access - in actuality, not ‘could get it if they wanted’.
At some point you have to accept that people are choosing the information sources they want to listen to, not simply restricted by the machinations of others.
You’re still arguing past the point though. What does the internet do for most of these people that local radio and TV technically hasn’t or couldn’t?
Also possibility of access is drastically different from actually having access. Having access is also drastically different from actually using. I have friends and acquaintances that 100% unironically use their phone for phone calls only. Outside of using it as a camera some. I guarantee that their service plans all have data included.
Further, people can and often do still live without owning a computer or accessing the internet. I don’t know how. I can’t. They’ll continue to do so until all traditional broadcasting is ended. Yes the internet can replace all of that. But it hasn’t. Even then it’s a wickedly double edged sword which has led even more into even more extreme indoctrination. So it’s hardly a panacea.
Right now many of these people are struggling with the biggest case of cognitive dissonance they’ve ever had. It’s the perfect time to strike. And plant the concept that they’re being lied to, by all their local broadcasters. The evidence is there, they’re seeing it. We could talk to them about it like adults. Or we could accuse them of things they aren’t doing. Gloat and ridicule them for internet points. Causing them to retreat and double down, being just as bad as they are. Letting the oligarchs continue to divide us and win.
Nothing. That’s my point. They have access to other news sources. They choose the ones that they like to hear.
Some 5% in this country. I somehow doubt they’re the majority of conservatives in this country. I, in fact, would go so far as to doubt that they’re significant politically at all.
That’s the line that I’ve been hearing for at least 20 fucking years now. It didn’t work when Iraq was proven to be based on lies, it didn’t work when Obamacare fearmongering was proven to be based on lies, it didn’t work when Trump’s entire first administration was proven to be built on lies. It didn’t work with COVID - it didn’t work with antivaxxing, it hasn’t worked with jack fucking shit.
We’ve tried talking to them like adults. Again and again and again. “One more time” is the motto of the fucking Dem Party on this issue, and that’s been failing for 30 years.
Maybe “We just need to sit down and have a talk with literal Nazis” isn’t the winning strategy it sounds like.
Bruh, every accusation I’ve leveled thus far is absolutely things they are doing.
Maybe validating the ones simping for the oligarchs isn’t actually fighting “The oligarchs continue to divide us and win”, but actually strengthening their hand? Just a thought.
Then share your citation. That’s a broad specious claim. There absolutely are some like that yes. But I have yet to see any studies showing anything remotely similar.
Again, citation for this?
Which is why, if you’ll note. I never suggested that.
I never claimed otherwise. Just that those sorts are not as representative as they’re being portrayed.
I know for a fact that ridiculing those acknowledging the cognitive dissonance. Will 100% divide us and push them back into the arms of the propagandists.
No one is suggesting we do this to any conservative / Republican Congressman or elected official. Fuck each and every one of them completely. They 100% know what they’re doing. Or any conservative personality for broadcaster. They’re even worse generally. Or any gleeful little cult member. But only to those average people who acknowledge a Divergence in what they were told and reality. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. And while this leopards/faces thing is silly and cathartic. It absolutely will not reach any of the reasonable still reachable ones. Of which there are plenty. Just making enemies of them all the more sure
Nope, it’s a choice to uninformed. Stop making excuse for dumb asses.
Plenty of people choose to actually be informed on actual policy, and use critical thinking to figure out what it means for society.
They’re racist, anti intellectuals who choose to be fed bullshit cos it’s fits with their poisonous, dumb ass racist ideology of “immigrant bad”
Stop making excuses for them.