Trump’s Assault on Rural America

Farmers are getting hammered the hardest. Under current plans, the Department of Agriculture will lose over one-third of its employees. These include major reductions in agricultural research and marketing services. Cuts to meteorological services and programs that track the impacts of climate change will reduce the information available to farmers to plan for adverse weather events.

Reductions in food aid abroad, SNAP (food stamps) at home, and school nutrition programs all reduce demand for farm goods. Not to mention that low-income rural communities themselves rely heavily on SNAP funding. Trump’s tariff wars risk retaliation by other countries against U.S. agricultural exports. Plus, higher tariffs will raise the cost to farmers of imported agricultural inputs, as well as many consumer goods.

Iowa farmers profit from the placement of wind turbines on their land, yet Trump’s elimination of Federal incentives to further expand wind energy will choke off this income source. And, like city dwellers, rural people will pay higher electricity bills as many low-cost wind and solar projects stall. Since 80% of the green energy projects planned under the previous administration’s Inflation Reduction Act funding were to be sited in Red States, many rural areas will lose access to the good-paying manufacturing jobs that would have been created had funding not been cut in Trump’s recent budget bill.

Cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will lead to the closure of many public television and radio stations in rural news deserts, where there are few other outlets for covering local news. Similarly, the loss of funding for Planned Parenthood will reduce the availability of low-cost reproductive and women’s health services.

Rural communities also disproportionately rely upon Medicaid, so the $1 trillion cut to that program will hit these areas hard. Beyond the harm caused when individuals lose Medicaid coverage, the Medicaid cutbacks will force the closure of many rural hospitals. Thus, even many people who have private insurance or Medicare will now have to travel great distances to obtain medical services.

In short, the coming years will bring severe economic pain and social distress to communities that are already reeling. These disruptions will be directly attributable to Donald Trump’s assault on rural America. So what will be the political fallout?

If rural voters were swayed by pocketbook issues, then Republicans would pay a heavy political price for the policies and impacts reviewed above. Yet voters have become more and more deeply attached to tribal identities rooted in cultural divides. Rural resentment toward urban America, which is equated with the Democratic Party, and its values, drives political allegiances. Beyond this, many have developed intense loyalty toward Donald Trump, not because he has delivered for them in material terms, but because he positions himself as their defender against groups and forces that many people find threatening. Moreover, many voters, whether urban or rural, have a difficult time connecting adverse developments in their lives and communities to the political sources that are responsible for those problems.

Despite this reality, the dire consequences of Trump’s policies for rural America need only trim his support among rural voters by modest amounts to make a difference to electoral outcomes in swing states and districts. For Democrats, the challenge is to develop a strategy that clearly assigns responsibility for rural woes to Republican policies and offers positive alternatives for rebuilding rural economies. Democrats would also be wise to mute cultural issues and while building a big tent that can attract and welcome people to the party who do not agree with the Democratic mainstream on every issue.