Trump's Agenda Of Sabotage, Plunder, Chaos, And Betrayal Is Coming For Red States And Red Places Too

Join Me Wednesday in DC and St. Paul, Minnesota

Morning all. Both the NYT and Politico have prominent stories this morning about the escalating crisis in America’s farm economy brought about by Trump’s reckless tariffs and mass deportations.

From the NYT (gift link):

On a windy September morning, Josh and Jordan Gackle huddled to discuss the looming crisis facing their North Dakota soybean farm.

For the first time in the history of their 76-year-old operation, their biggest customer — China — had stopped buying soybeans. Their 2,300-acre soybean farm is projected to lose $400,000 in 2025. Soybeans that would normally be harvested and exported to Asia are now set to pile up in large steel bins.

Since President Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese goods in February, Beijing has retaliated by halting all purchases of American soybeans.

That decision has had devastating repercussions for farmers in North Dakota, which exported more than 70 percent of its soybeans to China before Trump unveiled the new tariffs this year. Unless China agrees to restart its purchases as part of a trade deal, farmers that depend on the Chinese market will be facing steep losses that could fuel farm bankruptcies and farm foreclosures around the United States.

…….

Bill Wilson, a professor of agribusiness and applied economics at North Dakota State University, said that China would prefer that agricultural trade with the United States be as unrestricted as possible so that it can have access to American soybeans in the event of a dockworker strike or other disruption that interferes with its supplies in Brazil.

But China appears unlikely let go of its leverage over American farmers, and it may not be easy for them to recover.

“I have never seen as monumental a disruption in agriculture as we’re experiencing now,” said Mr. Wilson, who has been teaching at the university for 43 years. “These are turbulent, turbulent times.”

From Politico: ‘The whole thing is screwed up:’ farmers in Pennsylvania are struggling to find workers:

In Tioga County, where President Donald Trump won 75 percent of the vote in 2024, farmers are losing patience with the White House’s promise of a quick solution for farm workers. Their urgent need is highlighted by stories like those of a multigenerational dairy farm that sold off all its dairy cows because the owner could not find workers and another where a farmer’s job listings have received no responses.

Farmers in the rural region near the New York border say those stories are not unique.

“The whole thing is screwed up,” said John Painter, a three-time Trump voter who runs an organic dairy farm in Westfield. “We need people to do the jobs Americans are too spoiled to do.”

These are the voices Thompson and other farm-state lawmakers are hearing as they discuss potential solutions. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ assurances that American workers and machines can help close the gap ring hollow among farmers who have become reliant on migrant labor that is increasingly hard to find in the face of Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The U.S. agricultural workforce fell by 155,000 — about 7 percent — between March and July, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That tracks with Pew Research Center data that shows total immigrant labor fell by 750,000 from January through July. The labor shortage piles onto an ongoing economic crisis for farmers exacerbated by dwindling export markets that could leave them with crop surpluses.

“People don’t understand that if we don’t get more labor, our cows don’t get milked and our crops don’t get picked,” said Tim Wood, a dairy farmer and a member of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau board of directors

………..

Painter voted for Trump three times, but he said he’s “very disappointed” in how the president has handled immigration policy this term.

“It’s not right, what they’re doing,” he said. “All of us, if we look back in history, including the president, we have somebody that came to this country for the American dream.”

The pain of the Trump agenda is hitting red states and red places hard. The ACA and Medicaid cuts are making health care more expensive and harder to access. Cuts to clean energy investments are increasing electricity and energy costs. The tariffs are cutting off foreign markets, turning foreign countries and consumers against America and raising prices on everything. Interest rates will are almost certainly going to remain too high due to rising inflation and our deteriorating fiscal condition. Mass deportation in a time of full employment has created severe worker shortages throughout rural areas of the country. The end to clean energy subsidies, general economic chaos, and an out of control DHS/ICE will slow investments into red states and red places, lessening opportunities for workers and young people there.

And of course much of this is being done so Trump and his fellow New York and California donors can pay less in taxes……

Trump’s battering of the farm economy is giving Democrats an opportunity now to speak to and connect to communities that have been largely out of reach for us. As we’ve discussed if we are to expand and win back our majorities in the House and Senate we must learn how to win in red states and red places. It’s another reason why Dems should be coming out hard against Trump’s reckless and illegal tariffs and his destructive and maniacal drive to remove tens of millions of people from the US. We need to be on the side of farmers as Trump lays siege to the farm economy across the US.

But there is something deeper happening here, something we saw last week in the tragic killing of Charlie Kirk - the chaos and damage Trump and his extremist politics has brought is not only hitting blue states and Democrats. Red places and Republicans are being harmed too. The young white man who shot Charlie Kirk came from a conservative, MAGA family. The young man who shot at Trump last year expressed right-wing views on social media. It’s been remarkable to hear the governor of Utah these last few days rail against the dangers of the unregulated social media and the unchallenged presence of Russian and Chinese accounts in our domestic discourse as Trump tries to wrest TikTok from the Chinese. In these these stories about struggling farmers there is a persistent expression of shock, abandonment, and betrayal, a repeated expression that we voted for him and now he has turned on us, that this isn’t what we thought we had voted for.

As I wrote yesterday this loss of faith in him and his agenda, even among his voters, has been showing up in public polling for many months now, and that a reckoning for the damage and the chaos he’s brought has begun across the country. It is showing up in our consistent overperformance in local and special elections this year, in our sturdy leads in New Jersey and Virginia, and in this new encouraging poll from North Carolina:

All of this is giving Democrats and our allies in the broader pro-democracy movement an extraordinary chance to lead, to offer a better path, to stand up for Americans across the country who are being so badly led and who want normalcy not chaos. The White House appears to be headed in a different direction, and rather than leading, and finding a better path, they are contemplating a full on assault against their political opposition. They have come to see the killing of Charlie Kirk as a way to blame us for the troubles in America that have almost been entirely caused by them, and this terrible, terrible regime is making far worse. It feels desperate and unhinged because it is, like so much of what he is doing now - the manic attempt to take over the Fed, the escalation in Venezuela, the invasion of Democratic cities, the siding with Putin in the war against Ukraine and Europe. His ongoing failures, his declining health, his extraordinary unpopularity, the danger of the Trump-Epstein affair are all driving him to even more dangerous spectaculars which in turn push him further and further away from an electorate looking for lower prices, greater opportunity, access to affordable, quality health care and far, far less chaos and danger.

Where all goes is hard to know but I believe the failure of Trump to deliver what he promised has given us a big political opening, even in red states and red places, and we need to seize it, together.

Hopium in DC and St Paul On Wednesday - Friends, I will be speaking at two events on Wednesday:

The Stand Up For Science Rally in DC, 8am. Register here, invite your friends and join us!

And then I head to St. Paul, Minnesota for an event with the Democratic Party. I wanted to go to Minnesota as a way of expressing my solidarity with proud patriots whose leaders were recently hunted down and assassinated by a right wing extremist. If you live in Minnesota, please join us on Wednesday and consider supporting this event even if you can’t make it in person.

Now, Let’s Get To Work Everyone!

Support Our November, 2025 Candidates

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Our updated fundraising goals are now for the end of the year, December 31st, except for the 2025 races, which are now for Election Day, 2025. For more on Hopium’s approach to elections check out 1) the many important wins we had together last cycle 2) my big recommendations to the family coming out of the 2024 elections about what we need to do now 3) my latest thinking on where we are and the path forward for the Hopium community.

Take Action, Express Your Love Of Country And Strengthen Our Democracy Through Good Works - We are prioritizing two actions today:

1 - Call Your Senators and Member Of The House And Demand They Act Upon Our Four-Part Agenda - We need to be loud people, very, very loud and make the case for our our emerging four part agenda. Demand that your reps work to

1. Roll back Trump’s terrible, illegal tariffs that are re-igniting inflation, driving up prices, shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to working people, hurting small businesses and farmers, reviving tyrannical “taxation without representation,” and alienating governments and people throughout the world

2. Block the expansion of ICE, restore due process, and end the use of the military on our streets and the occupations of our cities

3. Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse - not delay - the cuts to the ACA and Medicaid; demand the removal of extremist Robert Kennedy from HHS

4. Stand with Ukraine and our European allies, and far more forcefully challenge Trump’s traitorous efforts to sell out the US and the West to Russia and China

2 - Bring “Resolutions Of Condemnation” To Your Community - Inspired by the tactics of our Founders learn about how Hopium members are advancing “Resolutions of Condemnation” in their communities across the country and consider bringing this initiative to your state, country or city/town. Be sure to check out our new discussion with Deborah Potter and Rachel Poliner who have passed resolutions in New Mexico and Boston, and offer advice on how to get a resolution passed in your own community.

Remarkably, members of this community are now advancing 79 (!!!!) resolutions projects in 22 states + DC. Can we get to all 50 states by the fall election?

Last Tuesday night the town council of Corrales, New Mexico debated and passed a resolution of condemnation. A preview of the resolution can be found in this article from a local new site. In considering the resolution Councilor Bill Woldman said:

"I want to thank the Mayor and administration for the comprehensive and important statement on our democracy. This is not a partisan statement, but rather an acknowledgment of a significant deviation from 250 years of practice of the Separation of Powers. While all politics may not be local, it is important for local governmental bodies to acknowledge threats when they exist and support our Congressional Representatives in their resistance to executive branch overreach. Thank you."

Keep up the great work proud, plucky patriots of the Hopium community!!!!

Finally, please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder! Been impressive to see how many of you remain involved in local, in person protests of all kinds in your communities. Great to see!

Keep working hard all, and let’s go out and win the fall, together - Simon