Farmers are reliable Republican voters. They once embraced the Tea Party. Today, they are fully paid-up members of the MAGA cult. However, Trump is causing some of them to worry and possibly question their political choices.
Joe Del Bosque might one of them. He was interviewed by France 24. This farmer did not offer Trump a ringing endorsement. The video of the interview starts with an unremarkable white pick-up passing a sign, and turning into a farm. The sign says:
2024 TRUMP
END THIS HELL
SAVE AMERICA NOW
The video caption says:
“As Donald Trump prepares to take office ...
It goes on
… “Farmers like Joe Del Bosque are worried
They fear the President-elect’s plan to deport millions of migrants
Could cripple America’s agricultural industry.”
The image switches to Del Bosque talking. He offers a warning that Trump’s immigration dumbassery will be ruinous for the supply and price of food.
“We can’t have deportations here because it would disrupt our food supply for the country.
We really don't think anybody wants that.”
Video captions then state:
“US farming is heavily dependent on migrant workers particularly for seasonal tasks, such as hand-picking crops at harvest time.
Of the 2.4 million people working in farming in the US, some 44 percent are undocumented migrants, according to the Department of Labor.”
Del Bosque adds what is obvious to all but a MAGA and others who have little idea how the world works. In his words:
“Without our people, our farms will come to a stop. We will not be able to harvest our fruits and vegetables and nuts. And that will interrupt the food chain for Americans.
And it would possibly increase food prices tremendously too.”
New captions appear to make another obvious point:
“Farmers say the often difficult and low-wage jobs migrants perform are unlikely to be taken up by American workers”
The voiceover kicks back in. A dairy farmer, Tom Barcellos, offers a far more optimistic take on Trump’s threats:
“If you wanted to say, OK, everybody’s going to get taken away, which I don’t think is going to happen, and I have to emphasize that, mechanization is coming. Mechanization is already here.
There’s already automatic milkers basically in the barn. But there are new milkers that actually attach the machine and they don’t need employees.
Captions return.
Trump has vowed to carry out “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history, with an estimated 11 million undocumented migrants at risk
I am not an expert on farming. But I suspect that Barcellos can afford to be blasé about Trump’s immigrant-bashing, as dairy farms are indeed already highly automated. Cows even milk themselves. I know. I’ve seen the YouTube.
I cannot say that Barcellos is a MAGA — I’ve never met the man — but with his “I’m all right, Jack. Fuck the farmers who still need human workers”, he certainly sounds like one.
He should know, as Del Bosque does, that some agricultural products are too delicate for mechanical harvesting and must still be picked by hand. It’s why, after decades of technology have made many crops machine-harvestable, American farmers still need 2.4 million human workers.
I suspect that Del Bosque will still have his hard-working, undocumented aliens doing what needs to be done in 2025 and beyond. But the stress of not knowing that for certain must cause him some angst.
However, if Trump’s inflated ego and toxic narcissism blinds him to common sense — it wouldn't be the first time — and the petulant man-child pursues his sadistic racism, Del Bosque will not be the only farmer to discover that backing a clueless moron is bad for business. Perhaps the agricultural vote will stop being so monolithically Republican.
Del Bosque may be on the fence — if he hasn’t already switched teams. He farms in Firebaugh, CA in California’s 13th congressional district. That District was the last in the nation to determine their Representative as it was 2024’s closest race — and CA is slow counting at the best of times.
More notably, Democrat Adam Gray flipped the seat by beating GOP incumbent, John Duarte. Duarte happens to be a farmer. Make of that what you will. At the very least, even as Trump was outperforming expectations, one farming county was making better choices than before.
