Why do American farmers love pushing the big red "destroy me" button

[Angst]

if us farmers hate corporate cartel mergers, hate tariffs, hate having their foreign workers expulsed, and hate socialism - why do they mostly vote for the party that pushes for corporate consolidation, that establishes tariffs esp on export targets, that detains their workers, and hand drips them socialism in grants (all coming from the horse's mouth, mindedly, including that they want socialist government subsidies)

 

[Birdjaguar]

if us farmers hate corporate cartel mergers, hate tariffs, hate having their foreign workers expulsed, and hate socialism - why do they mostly vote for the party that pushes for corporate consolidation, that establishes tariffs esp on export targets, that detains their workers, and hand drips them socialism in grants that don't cover any of it (all coming from the horse's mouth, mindedly, including that they want socialist government subsidies)

Rush Limbaugh taught them to hate the liberals more.

 

[Angst]

Rush Limbaugh taught them to hate the liberals more.

the title and question is reasonably facetious but it only goes so far - i'm actually curious about any rational reason. i'm constantly baffled at the sheer density of this behavior. it's reasonably common among right wing low education demographics to specifically vote for things that punish who they don't like even if it hurts themselves. i understand it's a factor. i kind of don't want it to be that big though. i want to believe there's an actual reason that isn't insane

 

[GenMarshall]

Rush Limbaugh taught them to hate the liberals more.

I was about to guess the "Politics of Spite".

 

[Birdjaguar]

The power of [social] media in the US is huge and it's getting worse [more powerful].

 

[amadeus]

I can’t find any data—I only did a cursory search, looked at a few dozen graphs but didn’t find any that really matched up to the criteria of: family farmers whose main source of income is farming. Those tangentially related that I did find didn’t appear to show any meaningful relationship between administrations.

Another angle to look at it to be what the performance is between the different states: have farmers in states with Democratic governors and legislatures outperformed those in those with Republican governors and legislatures? If and when so, have they done so at a rate greater than the general population?

 

[Birdjaguar]

The many farm bills of the past kept them satisfied with the government, but their politics have been conservative. Trump has upset that applecart with his tariffs.

 

[Angst]

Another angle to look at it to be what the performance is between the different states: have farmers in states with Democratic governors and legislatures outperformed those in those with Republican governors and legislatures? If and when so, have they done so at a rate greater than the general population?

this is a weird question because just states with dem governors and legislatures outperform those with rep governors and legislatures. it's where all the farming subsidies come from. the blue states. and with increased development people just kinda stop farming and people just kinda vote blue. is the tendency

and i accidentally snipped the first part of your post (i'm on a phone) but for that ... yea american farmers are consistently republican. i'm a bit confused because i think you're questioning that? like, you're not able to find a correlation between being a farmer and voting republican, i think you're saying?

 

[amadeus]

this is a weird question because just states with dem governors and legislatures outperform those with rep governors and legislatures. it's where all the farming subsidies come from. the blue states. and with increased development people just kinda stop farming and people just kinda vote blue. is the tendency

I don’t buy into the whole “red state vs. blue state” thing because in addition to being able to further subdivide the country into other units, it won’t necessarily follow that we can state categorically the blue areas are subsidizing red areas, and looking at that data alone won’t tell us necessarily anything of value, I think—how often have we been told that rich Republicans vote? By the nature of how taxes increase as income increases, if one of those is true at all then how can they say both?

As for the subsidies themselves, as in federal transfer payments to states, there’s a number of reasons why some rural states would be considered net beneficiaries and it isn’t because they’re poor.

and i accidentally snipped the first part of your post (i'm on a phone)

No worries!

but for that ... yea american farmers are consistently republican. i'm a bit confused because i think you're questioning that? like, you're not able to find a correlation between being a farmer and voting republican, i think you're saying?

No, I wasn’t—I was trying to look up income data for family farmers by year. I would think this would act as evidence to either support or rebut that claim.

Cursory search says that approximately 75% of farmers supported Trump in 2024. Given that farmer isn’t defined well in these reports I would imagine, but have no evidence to support this, that small farm households dependent on farm income probably followed the same pattern.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Farming is an inherently conservative occupation.

The starting mentality of people who thrive as farmers tends toward favoring stability, the tried-and-true, passing traditions forward, etc. more than toward change, development, progress, novelty.

Your work is to do the same thing every year. New techniques can help marginally but generally not transformatively.

Farmers tend to live in small, culturally homogenous communities, and can be extremely cautious, even frightened, about people who are different in any way. So the cosmopolitanism that is characteristic of a more liberal mindset is foreign if not repellant to them.

Their work is really, really hard, demanding work, so they have little tolerance for accommodating the needs of people who they don't see working that hard.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Liberal Redneck - Why Do Rural Americans Vote For a Party Which So Clearly Hates Them?​

Trae Crowder Rant - Donald Trump (Still) Hates Rural America​

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

was that too harsh?

I guess if you're actually curious there was a book many years ago which came out on this called What's the Matter with Kansas by Thomas Frank. Needless to say it favors resorting to economic determinism to explain away things which ought to be more complex like voting preferences.

 

[Angst]

was that too harsh?

I guess if you're actually curious there was a book many years ago which came out on this called What's the Matter with Kansas by Thomas Frank. Needless to say it favors resorting to economic determinism to explain away things which ought to be more complex like voting preferences.

i am actually curious. facetious as the op indeed is, everything the american rural does is fully aware of the self-destructive behavior, in that they're saddled with debt, encroached by corp mergers, and perform poorly on a global market, and all of that is something rep politicians love, as they keep pushing policy to ensure stuff like that continue. it's donor stuff. farmers ain't stupid about farming, they know the numbers when it comes down to it, they know who does the policy so they are getting exactly what they're asking for. yet, they keep reaching out to the rest of the country for sympathy for themselves.

the summaries of the book i found framed it somewhat different than you did. it mirrored most of the takes in this thread. that they're well aware their party is screwing them over more than the opposition, yet still vote as they do because at least something something abortion and gays and the liberal elite. and that is specific to kansas, according to the notes i found; elsewhere, naturally, the grievances extend to also getting to see mexicans deported on tv. they will ruin their own generations-old family farms for the short dopamine hit of seeing someone unrelated gets punished on television. got one over on the deplorables, oops, monsanto now owns my organs. time to go whine about it on SoMe.

i'm looking for a rational reason. something that isn't grievance voting, politics by spite, sexual insecurity or straight out racism.

this thread is a bid for american rurals to show why they should have actual sympathy from anyone. if you don't like the big red destroy me button, why do you keep pushing it

 

[really]

Farming is an inherently conservative occupation.

The starting mentality of people who thrive as farmers tends toward favoring stability, the tried-and-true, passing traditions forward, etc. more than toward change, development, progress, novelty.

Your work is to do the same thing every year. New techniques can help marginally but generally not transformatively.

Farmers tend to live in small, culturally homogenous communities, and can be extremely cautious, even frightened, about people who are different in any way. So the cosmopolitanism that is characteristic of a more liberal mindset is foreign if not repellant to them.

Their work is really, really hard, demanding work, so they have little tolerance for accommodating the needs of people who they don't see working that hard.

With small margins and limited opportunities to correct decisions made that turn out to be bad, change that doesn't work out could be disastrous.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yes, I could happily add "rightly": farmers are rightly conservative by temperament.

 

[Lexicus]

The American population generally is the largest concentration of Hitlerites in human history, and the rural population in particular is completely delusional about its place in the world - its self-image as rugged individualists who are the only hard workers in the world is the complete opposite of reality, where the American rural population's lifestyle is only made possible by subsidies, taking advantage of public goods, and externalizing the costs of their activities onto others (mostly people in the global south who will have to eat the consequences of fossil fuel use).

The idea the "American farmers" work harder than anyone else is a complete joke, the migrant workers being terrorized by the administration the farm owners voted for do all the real work while the white Yankees mostly sit on their tractors.

Their land was given to them by the government driving off the Indians, they are only economically viable because of the government's Farm Bill, they support the most hyper-capitalist political party in the world and then blame powerless scapegoats for ruin that capitalism brings to their communities. To be clear most of these criticisms apply to Americans in general but rural ones tend to be the most insufferably delusional.

 

[Farm Boy]

Your work is to do the same thing every year.

Thread too stupid to engage with seriously, just noticed it while passing through for a message.

But no. Your job is to do the same thing better every year, just like everyone else. Drones, biochemistry, mechanical engineering, accounting, finance, operations, animal husbandry, but outside! So it seems uncivilized to the uneducated. <shrug>

I've found the innate bigotries even in a political purple swirl of the country are generally too big to tackle when not in person and based on existent trust, so it's mostly just meaningless masturbation.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

I don’t think farmers are particularly unique here, but I also think it’s instructive to know that lots of people make value decisions when they do vote. The median American voter - farmer or otherwise - knows almost nothing about the policies and values of who they vote for. Particularly among GOP voters there is a large disconnect between economic reality, understanding of party policy, and having a variety of different ideological news sources. A majority of GOP voters in 2024 were repeatedly wrong when polled about everything from immigration rates, unemployment rate, stock market numbers, crime rates, demographic numbers including ethnicity and queerness, and inflation rate. But there are also just simply a lot of Americans who truly do support welfare or clean water or whatever, but not if said welfare goes to black people, or they have to hear people talking Spanish on the bus, or whatever. It’s a ranking in which whiteness or Christianity is above economic stability.

Plenty of middle upper class car dealership owners or wealthy CEOs make this same choice. Obviously they don’t have the same economic precariousness, but there was literally a quote post election from a wealthy Wall Streeter who was glad he gets to “say the r word again” even though he has at this point probably lost half his hair because of tariffs. People talk themselves into all kinds of weird beliefs and values. Imagine sacrificing business stability for slurs. I can’t, but lots apparently like that trade.

I have had the privilege of traveling the world, living with foreign families, going to school in other countries, and while there are plenty of things Americans actually do right, I am increasingly convinced the population is unique in its dislike of community and its enjoyment of cruelty and selfishness.

 

[EnglishEdward]

What does the Democratic party offer US farmers ?

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

What does the Democratic party offer US farmers ?

For four straight years in Michigan, there was a state fund for free mental health treatment for farmers. Farmers have a suicide rate almost 4 times higher than the state average. After Republicans retook the state house, that funding was cut from the state budget.