Trump’s plans are doomed to fail
Not surprisingly, the bulk of Donald Trump’s support comes from rural areas. The problem for them is that most of Trump’s policies not only don’t favor them, but they harm them. Do they not know this or are they into shooting themselves in the feet? The Atlantic spoke with Nicholas Jacobs, a political scientist at Colby College who wrote a book called “The Rural Voter” in 2023. Jacobs believes that even if they are harmed, rural voters will never vote for a Democrat because of their “disdain for the Democratic Party” in general. Jacobs thinks that depending on how much harm Trump’s policies cause, the rural voters’ outlook may change.
According to the Atlantic, Trump’s rural support has grown, and he won those communities by more than he did in 2016 and 2020. He will inflict direct damage on agriculture producers in these areas with tariffs and deportations. Further, it is believed that hospitals in these areas will also face losses when Medicaid is slashed, as rural communities use a far larger share of Medicaid than larger areas, and schools will suffer as well as Trump wants to provide vouchers for private school. What makes the least sense about all of this is, according to Jacobs, the rural communities believe they have been “left behind” as America continues to change and evolve. Heaven forbids they change and evolve. Trump isn’t going to help them anyway unless they’re billionaires. They have a much higher chance of achieving a better life by voting Democratic, but for some reason, they fail to see that. Jacobs also said that rural residents are extremely responsive to Trump’s “attacks” on the “elites,” which is laughable. Trump is part of the elites. The only attack he’s going to give them is attacking the poor to pay for their tax cuts. Why these people believe the words of a man who consistently lies is interesting.
The last time Trump imposed tariffs, farmers were hurt badly. This time, he wants to impose a 60% tariff on Chinese goods and 25% on Mexico, which will make those countries look elsewhere. China has already said they’ll go to Venezuela for their needs, so American farmers lose 100% of the goods they were shipping to China. At the same time, the Farm lobbies are dead set against Trump’s mass deportations. Agriculture depends on undocumented immigrants more than any other industry, which will ultimately wipe out their competitiveness. They will have to pay American workers (if they can find them) more, which will also drive up the price of groceries. So much for Trump’s declaration that he would lower grocery prices.
It should be clear to anyone who’s paying attention that Trump’s second term promises to be an even bigger disaster than his first. With his cabinet filled with “yes men,” Trump will be even more unscrupulous than before. There will be no one to tell him something is wrong, though Raw Story reported that Rand Paul plans to be a proverbial thorn in Trump’s side. He has come out against virtually every issue on Trump’s agenda. Paul won’t be able to thwart Trump alone, so we’ll see how all this works out.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years