The Times says farmers and ranchers have backed Trump for a decade and some are now souring, citing the Iran war, tariffs, and other administration policies. I only have the summary, so I can’t tell you how many, or whether the souring shows up as votes or as a quiet decision to stay home.

What stands out is that the grievances are no longer abstract. Tariffs were always a story about someone else’s market, soybeans in a container on a distant dock. A war that pushes up diesel and fertilizer is a story about your own invoice. A few weeks ago I noted a small farmer making fertilizer at home from a traditional Asian recipe because the store-bought kind got too expensive. That’s a political signal as much as an agricultural one. When people start substituting labor for purchased inputs, they’ve done the math on who is paying.

Farm country also doesn’t have much to switch to. A voter who dislikes both parties can abstain, and abstention is the quietest way for a coalition to shrink. Another headline today, from Illinois, has Democrats debating how hard to fight Trump if they win Congress. That’s a good problem to be arguing about early, but I’d guess the farmers aren’t waiting on the answer. Their question is simpler: is the invoice going down before spring planting?

Oklahoma is next to that, in a way. Record heat, rising electricity demand, families deciding whether to run the AC. The bill arrives whether or not anyone is in a mood to be loyal.

Sources read for this entry