As I do every day, I was reading The Guardian online and noticed that there was a new article there by Iowan Art Cullen. Art Cullen was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing (notably on agriculture), is the editor of the Storm Lake Times, and author of the wonderful book (worth a read if you haven’t already) Storm Lake: Change, Resilience, and Hope in America’s Heartland. Even though I now live in Houston, I was raised on a farm in Iowa as were most of my relatives.
The headline of Art Cullen’s article is “Trump must win the Midwest. But out here his breezy reelection gambit falls flat” with the subhead “We’re more concerned about drought, economic uncertainty and Covid than rightwing talking points about crime and socialism”.
Here are some selections from this article, which do not bode well for Trump in Iowa or the other agricultural states in the Midwest. Art Cullen writes better than I could summarize him, so I’ll let his words speak for himself. The article begins:
It’s dry. So dry that my neighbor Steve Drey, the tractor parts man who hears it first, figures that the combines might start rolling through the brown corn in just a week or two. Some farmers are cutting corn for livestock silage, and it’s punky.
One hundred fifty bushels per acre should be the ballpark crop yield around Storm Lake, Iowa, which is in severe drought along with much of the Corn Belt. That’s a 25% yield chop off expectations. It makes farmers itch to start harvesting before the paper-dry corn falls to a freak wind. A hurricane-like derecho wind flattened 14 million acres in the Tall Corn State just a couple weeks ago. This, as corn prices are at their lowest point in a decade.
The cicadas of late August called children back to school where vulnerable teachers and staff awaited them. Most come from meatpacking households – Latino, Asian and African – whose breadwinners were ordered into close working quarters in April by a President who demanded slower virus testing. We were among the hottest spots in the land.
Art talks about the COVID infection rate in Iowa, with its effect on Iowa schools, businesses, meat packing (employing mainly Latinos). School-age children are understanding the effect of COVID on their schools as they get their temperature checked at the school door. Along with their grandparents who often take care of them after school until their parents can pick them up after work or farming.
And it’s not just farmers. Assembly line workers at John Deere plants in Waterloo and Davenport have been laid off with uncertain unemployment benefits while the Dow goes up and up. And all this in a time of climate crisis, crop failures, low grain prices, incompetent government (from both Trump and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds), and civil rights unrest:
Trump simply must win Iowa and Wisconsin. So he cast a convention against this backdrop of anxiety and fear – godless looters are coming for yours – and roped in our governor, former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa to play in the tragedy. Few were inclined to listen. When the corn calls, you are too busy removing fallen trees from your machine shed. Trump dropped into the Cedar Rapids airport for an hour shortly before the convention to promise assistance after the derecho pulverized our Second City. After he left, he approved homeowner and business relief for just one of the 27 counties the governor had requested.
Gov. Reynolds then claimed that “Trump had our back”. I wonder what Trump would do if he didn’t have your back.
And what do the voters of Iowa think? Once reliably Republican Iowa may not be so reliable this time around. Here is how the article concludes:
Farmers are anxious. Latinos are afraid. Unemployed machinists are frustrated. That prized demographic, suburban women in Urbandale next to Des Moines, are encouraging the school board to sue the governor over her in-person school orders.
...
They said their older folks who never saw a reason [to vote] before have finally found one.
Even some of those farmers are wondering about Trump as they dig into a harvest so meager that wraps up as they vote. An ill wind blows for incumbents.
“An ill wind blows for incumbents.” Chilling. I hope this is not a Cassandra call from among the fallen corn of the rural Midwest, but is more like a Delphic prophesy. In any case, this entire article by Art Cullen is worth a read. Art Cullen is an informed incisive writer who keeps a strong pulse on rural Iowa and the rural Midwest.
By the way, my youngest brother who runs our 5th generation family farm in SW Iowa was a Trump supporter in 2016. When we talk we try to avoid harsh politics to keep familial comity (we both know where the other stands), but he has been unusually silent this year about Trump when we do talk. Although his farm was not directly hit by the derecho, he hasn’t escaped this dry drought-like summer and has commented that his corn and soybean production will be down significantly from last year. However, he has been openly contemptuous about Trump’s breaking trading relations with China, which is where my brother sold most of his soybeans (his corn is used to feed his cattle and hogs). This election will be a really important one. (I know, I’m Captain Obvious.)
