Summary
Trump’s new tariffs—10% across the board plus duties on 60 countries—threaten U.S. farmers already strained by high inflation, rising loan rates, and falling crop prices.
Unlike 2018, today’s farm economy offers less cushion, with depleted bailout funds and federal budget constraints limiting relief.
While herbicides and fertilizers are exempt, farmers fear retaliatory tariffs and export losses.
Farm groups and lawmakers urge moderation, prompting USDA to launch new trade initiatives. Still, widespread USDA staff cuts and uncertain support leave many farmers anxious, risking political fallout in key red states.
Once everyone is dead who lived through it, and everyone who grew up on their stories, history is effectively lost to everyone but historians. I’ve seen it happening in my own lifetime.
It’s not like we spent a lot of energy making sure our kids understand WW2 lore. It’s presumed irrelevant to their lives so it’s presented as “how we got here” not “this will happen to you.” Hell, we beat the Nazis, right? The subtle shit like hiring them into our countries or displacing an entire people to give (or restore, however you want to look at it but after 100 years I figure everyone is gone who has any kind of claim to the land and that’s that) Jews a homeland—that stuff barely gets a mention.
Point is, I don’t think it’s Americans alone, and I don’t think it’s this generation in particular. The far right is rising globally. We’ve all forgotten. America, as the “sole superpower” might be the worst case, but it’s happening everywhere. And we’re going to create generations of misery because we have to learn the lesson again.
Nazis got very popular in 30s America right? What changed?
Pearl Harbor was the real turning point. Also leadership wanted to support the allies but had to get the public on board. The tide started to turn with Hitler’s invasions of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and especially Poland, but Pearl Harbor was the crucible.
We need an external enemy to distract us from fighting each other and to achieve solidarity.
It’s why we have monuments everywhere, memorials and a few national holidays to reminds us.