Trump impact in my rural area. Local meat producer loses key staff ahead of Trump reign.

[Cirsium]

16. Also here

The same thing is happening here (Michigan). I talked to a grower about this yesterday. The war on farm workers has been going on for a long time and the situation is now critical. I was talking to a MAGA person about this a while back, telling him that there was a serious labor shortage on the farms here. He was quite confused by that. "But they are pouring across the border!" he said.

That idiot Vance was here a while back trying to talk ag. He said food prices are high because other countries are dumping produce here. Uh, no dumping would mean lower prices. Then he went on to say that farmers are not making enough. OK, Mr. Hillbilly genius, prices are too high for consumers, but farmers are not making enough, and Trump is going to fix that? How? By running farm workers out of the country and putting tariffs on imports? The tariffs hurt consumers, the loss of workers hurts the farmers. But Vance said that he is "the baker in the family" so he knows all about this.

The crowd went wild over Vance's remarks. But they weren't farmers, and that is important to understand. Trump and Vance supporters are a bunch of Walter Mittys - "ordinary, often ineffectual persons who indulge in fantastic daydreams of personal triumphs." They imagine themselves to be farmers, ranchers, lumberjacks, jet pilots, and other macho stereotypes, and Trump is a master at appealing to that, better than Reagan or W were. You can see that in his use of Village People's "Y.M.C.A." and in those ridiculous cosplay Trump digital trading cards. Remember, history repeats itself, "the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

I blame Hollywood. Warner Brothers studio head Jack L. Warner wrote "to the Walter Mittys of the world Errol Flynn was all the heroes in one magnificent, sexy, animal package." Trump does not need to actually be "all the heroes in one magnificent, sexy, animal package," he just needs to evoke the fantasies. "He is one us" as so many MAGA folks say, because he is a mediocrity, "an ordinary, often ineffectual person who indulges in fantastic daydreams of personal triumphs," not in spite of that.