We’re talking about a healthcare law projected to strip coverage from millions of Americans and weaken rural hospitals. We’re talking about opening American markets to hundreds of thousands of metric tons of foreign beef. And we’re talking about a war with Iran that has sent diesel and fertilizer costs soaring. And the man the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association reportedly wants representing northern Missouri? He has repeatedly pledged to support President Donald Trump’s agenda. At what point does an agricultural endorsement stop protecting cattle producers and start protecting a political party?

Let’s start with the legislation Republicans call the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Chris Stigall has made his support for Trump’s agenda and tax policies central to his campaign. According to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, the law is projected to reduce federal Medicaid spending by approximately $911 billion over ten years. KFF estimates that rural communities alone will lose approximately $137 billion in federal Medicaid spending over that period. The Congressional Budget Office also projects that the law’s Medicaid changes will leave about 7.5 million additional Americans uninsured by 2034.

Think about that. We’re talking about a law that will pull billions of dollars out of the healthcare systems serving rural communities. This isn't simply a question of people losing Medicaid coverage. The consequences extend throughout rural America. Hospitals will face additional financial pressure as more patients become uninsured. Some could eliminate services, reduce staffing, or close entirely. Rural maternity services, already disappearing across much of America, could face additional pressure. Emergency departments could be stretched thinner. Families could have to drive farther for treatment. And local economies could lose some of their largest employers. The legislation also introduces new Medicaid work-reporting requirements, more frequent eligibility checks, and restrictions on financing mechanisms that states use to support hospitals.

Supporters point to the law’s $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program. But that funding is spread across five years, while the estimated $137 billion rural Medicaid reduction extends over ten years. The funding also serves broader purposes than simply replacing lost hospital revenue. These are not equivalent investments. And what makes this especially frustrating is that Stigall’s own campaign website promises to strengthen rural hospitals. How? How do you strengthen rural hospitals while supporting an administration responsible for legislation that reduces the funding they depend upon? A cattle producer suffering a heart attack doesn’t care about a politician’s party affiliation. A farm family whose child is injured in an accident doesn’t care how many times their congressman has appeared on conservative radio. They care whether an emergency room is open. You cannot claim to defend rural America while refusing to confront policies that threaten the survival of rural healthcare. And I want to know why the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association wouldn’t make this a central issue in evaluating any congressional candidate.

Now let’s talk about something that should concern every cattle producer in Missouri. The Trump administration temporarily eased restrictions on 300,000 metric tons of imported ground beef. That’s approximately 661 million pounds of beef. At a time when American cattle producers have endured years of drought, elevated costs, herd liquidation, and uncertainty, the administration decided that additional foreign beef imports were part of its answer to high grocery prices. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins defended the decision. She argued that imports would help ease tight supplies and high consumer prices, while acknowledging the difficulties American ranchers face. And where does Chris Stigall stand? He stood right beside Brooke Rollins in Northern Missouri and smiled while she bragged about these policies that are devastating agriculture and rural communities. His campaign website explicitly supports Trump’s efforts to expand market access for agricultural products and strengthen domestic food production. But those general promises don’t tell Missouri cattle producers whether he supports or opposes this particular import decision. That distinction matters.

Politically standing with an administration is not the same as economically standing with Missouri cattle producers. There are legitimate arguments for importing lean beef to blend with domestic ground beef. The United States has long imported beef for that purpose. But that doesn’t eliminate American producers' concerns about additional imports, price pressure, market transparency, and whether government intervention will undermine the economics of rebuilding domestic cattle herds. The administration’s decision deserves serious scrutiny. And so does Stigall’s position. Did he publicly challenge Brooke Rollins over the decision? Did he demand evidence that the import plan would meaningfully reduce grocery prices? Did he question what additional foreign competition could mean for independent cattle producers? Or did he simply continue supporting the president’s agricultural agenda? I'd like to see Stigall explain his position on this decision in front of Missouri cattle producers rather than a political audience. Because when Washington talks about bringing down beef prices, Missouri cattle producers deserve to know exactly whose prices the government intends to lower.

Here’s where this endorsement becomes even more difficult to understand. On October 15, 2026, Stigall discussed the ongoing U.S.-Iran war in an interview with KQ2 television. He explicitly supported the military effort, saying, “I support the effort.” Those are his words, not mine. Now let’s look at what that war is costing American agriculture. The conflict has disrupted oil and fertilizer shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important transportation routes for energy and agricultural inputs. The consequences have been severe. According to an October 1 report by KCUR and KBIA, Missouri diesel prices reached approximately $5.91 per gallon in September, roughly $2.50 more than a year earlier. That is a tremendous increase for farmers who rely on diesel to operate tractors, combines, trucks, and other equipment.

And fertilizer prices have also been affected. Natural gas is an essential input in nitrogen fertilizer manufacturing. Disruptions to energy supplies and international fertilizer shipments can drive costs higher throughout the agricultural economy. For cattle producers, those expenses show up everywhere. Higher diesel prices increase the cost of harvesting and hauling hay. Higher fertilizer prices make it more expensive to maintain productive pastures. Higher transportation costs affect moving cattle, feed, and equipment. And higher costs for crop producers eventually ripple through feed markets. This isn’t some abstract geopolitical argument. It’s money coming directly out of farmers’ pockets.

A May report from KY3 in Springfield told the story of a Webster County farming family that reduced its cattle herd because rising fertilizer costs made it harder to maintain enough productive forage. Think about that. A Missouri farmer reduced his cattle numbers because he couldn’t justify the additional expense of fertilizer. And the candidate reportedly endorsed by the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association supports the war, which contributes to those higher costs. According to an October 22 analysis by Democrats on Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, American farmers are on track to spend an additional $2.4 billion on diesel fuel during the 2026 planting and harvest seasons compared with the previous year. That’s an estimate from the committee’s Democratic staff, not a final USDA accounting, but it illustrates the scale of the problem.

Now, reasonable people can disagree about the national security arguments for military action against Iran. But those arguments do not erase the economic consequences. And they certainly don’t relieve a congressional candidate of the responsibility to explain those consequences to his constituents. I want to know what Chris Stigall intends to do about the financial burden this conflict has placed on Missouri agriculture. Does he support additional relief for producers? Does he have a plan to address disruptions in fertilizer supply? How long does he believe farmers should be expected to absorb these extraordinary costs? It’s easy to support a war from behind a microphone. It’s another thing entirely to pay for that war every time you fill a tractor with diesel.

Another part of the Big Beautiful Bill deserves attention. The legislation includes substantial reductions in federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program spending. The Commonwealth Fund estimates that the law's SNAP changes could cause approximately 3 million Americans to lose food assistance. The law also shifts some financial responsibility to states and imposes additional administrative requirements. How does that relate to agriculture? Quite a lot. SNAP helps low-income Americans purchase food, supporting grocery stores, food retailers, and the broader food economy. Rural communities have many families who depend on the program. Agricultural policy isn’t just about how much we produce. It’s also about whether Americans can afford to purchase what we produce.

At the same time, the Big Beautiful Bill includes provisions that benefit parts of agriculture, including improvements to commodity safety-net programs and crop insurance. Those benefits deserve acknowledgment. But cattle producers should ask whether improvements in one part of agricultural policy justify ignoring serious damage to healthcare and food assistance in the communities where they live. A stronger commodity program does not replace a closed hospital. And a tax reduction does not bring back an emergency department.

Here’s another question I would like the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association to answer. What exactly is Chris Stigall’s plan to address concentration in the meatpacking industry? For years, independent cattle producers have raised concerns about the market power of the four dominant beef processors. The issue isn’t whether meatpacking companies should be profitable. Of course they should. The issue is whether cattle producers have access to genuinely competitive markets where prices are determined fairly. The Packers and Stockyards Act exists in part to protect livestock producers from unfair and anticompetitive practices. Would Stigall support stronger enforcement? Would he support meaningful price transparency? Would he challenge large corporations when their business practices threaten independent producers? Would he support efforts to expand regional processing capacity? Or does his philosophy of reducing government regulation extend to the very laws designed to protect cattle producers from market abuse?

Those are important questions. Because cutting regulations isn’t automatically good agricultural policy. Some regulations impose unnecessary burdens. Others protect farmers and ranchers from unfair business practices. A serious congressional candidate ought to know the difference. And a serious cattlemen’s association ought to demand that he explain it.

I want to be clear about something. I respect the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association’s right to endorse candidates. And I respect individual cattle producers' right to vote however they choose. But an agricultural organization that puts its credibility behind a candidate has a responsibility to explain why that candidate is the best choice for its members. That means looking beyond political party labels. It means evaluating the candidate’s positions on rural healthcare, international trade, market concentration, farm input costs, and the economic survival of rural communities. And it means being willing to ask difficult questions of Republicans and Democrats alike.

So here’s what I’d like the association’s leadership to explain. Why endorse a candidate so closely aligned with an administration whose healthcare law is projected to remove $137 billion in federal Medicaid spending from rural communities? Why support a candidate who has not clearly explained his position on the administration’s additional foreign beef imports? Why support a candidate who openly backs a war that is contributing to extraordinary increases in agricultural input costs? And what specific commitments has Stigall made to improve competition in the beef industry and protect independent producers? Did the association evaluate Democratic candidate Josh Smead’s agricultural proposals with the same seriousness? Were members given a meaningful opportunity to weigh in? And most importantly, was this endorsement based on what is best for Missouri cattle producers, or on which candidate was most closely aligned with the Republican establishment?

These are fair questions. And the organization’s members deserve answers.

I’ve traveled through rural communities across this country, and I keep hearing the same concerns. People are worried about healthcare. They’re worried about the cost of living. They worry whether their children will be able to stay in the communities where they grew up. They worry whether family farms will survive another generation. And they’re tired of politicians who spend more time fighting culture wars than solving the problems that threaten their livelihoods.

The Missouri Cattlemen’s Association has an opportunity to demonstrate that it understands those concerns. But that requires evaluating candidates on something more meaningful than their political affiliations. Chris Stigall is an experienced conservative broadcaster. He’s skilled at communicating his political opinions. But Missouri cattle producers need more than another voice defending Donald Trump. They need somebody who will challenge the president when his policies threaten their economic interests. They need someone who will fight for rural hospitals, no matter which political party controls Congress. They need somebody who understands that a farmer’s bottom line matters more than a political talking point. They also need someone who recognizes that the future of American agriculture depends on strong rural communities, not just strong commodity prices.

If Chris Stigall wants to represent Missouri’s cattle producers, he needs to demonstrate that he’s willing to put their interests ahead of Donald Trump’s political agenda. If the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association wants to maintain its members' trust, it should explain why it believes he will.

A cattle producer can’t pay a diesel bill with political loyalty. A rancher can’t rebuild a herd with campaign slogans. A farm family can’t get emergency medical care at a closed hospital. And a young farmer can’t build a future on promises that never become policy. Missouri cattle producers deserve leadership that understands those realities. They deserve an agricultural organization willing to challenge politicians from either party. And they deserve a congressional representative who will put their economic interests ahead of any president.

The Missouri Cattlemen’s Association should fight for cattle producers, not simply help politicians win elections. Because when the next crisis hits rural Missouri, party loyalty won’t keep the hospital lights on. It won’t lower fertilizer prices. It won’t put diesel in the tractor. And it won’t save the family farm.

It’s time to demand something better.

Listen. Learn. And Get to Work!

Will Westmoreland | The Back Forty

Two developments this week illustrate just how far we have fallen. One is unfolding in Ohio, where Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has embraced a deeply personal attack against his Democratic opponent, Dr. Amy Acton. The other is unfolding in Texas, where mysterious mailers invoking transgender children have appeared in family mailboxes, generating outrage and confusion just as early voting begins. The circumstances are different, and important questions about the Texas mailers remain unanswered. But both episodes illustrate a political culture in which fear and personal vulnerability become weapons, and the public’s attention is deliberately pulled away from the issues that ought to determine our elections.

In Ohio, Ramaswamy’s campaign has produced an advertisement featuring Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, accusing her daughter of dishonesty and challenging her accounts of childhood hardship. Acton has publicly described surviving sexual abuse as a child, including abuse by her stepfather, and has spoken about homelessness and the trauma that shaped her early life. Her brother has defended her account and condemned the exploitation of those experiences for political purposes. Rather than retreating from the controversy, Ramaswamy has acknowledged his campaign’s involvement and committed approximately $4 million to airing the advertisement.

Think about that for a moment. Four million dollars to attack a woman through one of the most painful chapters of her childhood. Four million dollars that could have supported a serious conversation about healthcare, education, economic opportunity, or the future of Ohio’s struggling communities. Instead, a candidate seeking one of the most powerful offices in his state has decided that reopening the wounds of childhood abuse is an acceptable political strategy.

There is nothing courageous about that. There is nothing conservative about it in any meaningful moral sense. And there is certainly nothing resembling leadership in it.

A candidate’s public record, policy positions, and qualifications are fair subjects for vigorous debate. Amy Acton’s decisions as Ohio’s former health director deserve scrutiny, just as the decisions of every public official do. But exploiting the trauma of a child who grew into an accomplished physician and public servant is not an argument about governing. It is an attempt to destroy a person’s character by weaponizing her suffering.

What makes the attack particularly troubling is that Acton’s experiences should remind Americans of the resilience we so often claim to admire. We tell children who grow up in poverty, endure abuse, or experience homelessness that their circumstances do not have to define their futures. We encourage them to work hard, seek an education, serve their communities, and build meaningful lives. Yet when one of those children grows up to become a physician, a public health leader, and a candidate for governor, her painful past is turned against her.

What message does that send to the millions of Americans who have survived similar circumstances?

And what does it say about a political movement willing to spend millions of dollars delivering that message?

Meanwhile, in Texas, another deeply disturbing controversy has emerged. Families have received pamphlets appearing to offer guidance to transgender students, including information about seeking assistance without parental involvement and pursuing emancipation. The materials have been attributed to an organization calling itself the Texas Transgender Student Union, a company reportedly formed only weeks earlier in Wyoming. The established Transgender Education Network of Texas has denied involvement, disavowed the materials, and reported threats and harassment following the controversy.

The identity and motives of those responsible for the mailers have not been conclusively established. It would be irresponsible to claim otherwise. But the political exploitation of the controversy is already apparent. Republican voices have used the materials to reinforce frightening narratives about transgender people and the supposed dangers posed to children, even as questions remain about who created and distributed them.

This is how the politics of manufactured fear works. A provocative message appears. Outrage spreads. Political operatives and commentators amplify the controversy. Families become frightened, communities become suspicious, and vulnerable people become targets. Meanwhile, the difficult questions about healthcare, public education, housing, wages, and the economy disappear beneath another avalanche of anger.

Transgender Americans, including children, are human beings. They are our neighbors, classmates, coworkers, sons, daughters, and grandchildren. Their lives should not be reduced to political props. Parents deserve honest information, children deserve protection, and every family deserves dignity. None of those goals is advanced by anonymous political messaging, deliberate confusion, or the exploitation of people’s fears.

And while all this is happening, I cannot help but think about the rural communities I have visited across this country. I think about the small towns where hospitals are struggling to keep their doors open, where young families drive extraordinary distances for medical care, and where expectant mothers worry about whether a delivery room will still be available when their babies are born. I think about the communities where public schools are fighting to retain teachers, where school districts face shrinking enrollment and rising costs, and where children grow up wondering whether they will ever have the opportunity to build a decent life in the place they call home.

I think about the farmers who have spent generations working the same land, only to find themselves squeezed by rising production costs, volatile commodity prices, enormous corporate competitors, and an agricultural economy that increasingly rewards concentration rather than independence. I think about the young people who would love to remain in their hometowns but cannot find a job that pays enough to raise a family, purchase a home, and build a future. I think about the elderly residents who watch their communities slowly lose the pharmacies, grocery stores, medical providers, and businesses that once made everyday life possible.

These are not imaginary problems. They are not manufactured controversies designed to generate campaign donations or social media engagement. They are the daily realities of millions of Americans. And they demand something far more serious than the political circus currently consuming our national attention.

Tell me, how does humiliating Amy Acton improve healthcare access in Appalachian Ohio? How does a multimillion-dollar advertisement about a woman’s childhood trauma keep a rural hospital from closing? How do mysterious transgender mailers in Texas help a family struggling to pay its mortgage? How does frightening parents about transgender children increase a farmer’s profit margin, recruit another teacher to a rural school district, or bring a good-paying job to a town that has lost its largest employer?

The answer is simple. It doesn’t.

And that is precisely the problem.

For too long, politicians have discovered that dividing Americans is easier than governing them. It is easier to identify a vulnerable minority than to confront the corporations consolidating entire industries. It is easier to manufacture outrage over cultural differences than to explain why working families cannot afford health insurance. It is easier to attack a candidate’s personal history than to present a credible plan for rebuilding struggling communities.

Fear is cheap. Cruelty is easy. Governing is hard.

Rural America knows the difference.

The people living in our small towns do not need another politician telling them whom to hate. They need leaders who understand why their hospitals are disappearing, why their children are leaving, why their schools are struggling, and why working harder no longer guarantees economic security. They need leaders willing to challenge the powerful interests that have extracted wealth from rural communities while leaving local families with fewer opportunities and greater uncertainty.

They need a serious conversation about rural healthcare financing, including how we protect hospitals and clinics that serve populations too small to sustain themselves under traditional economic models. They need a commitment to public education that recognizes a rural school is often more than a place where children learn. It is the heart of the community. They need agricultural policies that strengthen independent family farms, enforce fair competition, and restore opportunities for younger generations to enter farming. They need investments in housing, infrastructure, broadband, small businesses, and workforce development that make rural communities places where families can remain and prosper.

And perhaps most importantly, they need elected officials who understand that public service is not supposed to be a contest to see who can inflict the most damage on an opponent.

I have spent years traveling through rural America, listening to people whose lives are shaped by decisions made in state capitals and Washington, D.C. I have met Republicans, Democrats, independents, and people who have given up on politics altogether. Their concerns are often remarkably similar. They want their children to have opportunities. They want affordable healthcare. They want safe communities, good schools, fair markets, and a reasonable chance to enjoy the rewards of their labor.

They may disagree about how to achieve those goals, but they are not asking for more cruelty.

And we should be careful not to confuse the behavior of political operatives with the character of ordinary Republican voters. Many conservatives are decent, compassionate people who would never dream of treating another human being the way some campaigns treat their opponents. Indeed, the attack on Amy Acton has drawn criticism from Republicans as well as Democrats. That matters. Decency should never be a partisan virtue, and condemning cruelty should never require abandoning one’s political beliefs.

But those who lead the Republican Party, finance these campaigns, defend these tactics, and encourage this kind of political behavior deserve to be held accountable. They cannot endlessly claim to represent family values, personal responsibility, faith, and traditional morality while embracing strategies that exploit childhood trauma and turn vulnerable children into objects of fear.

There is a profound contradiction between preaching morality and practicing cruelty.

I grew up in rural America, where people were not always wealthy, where life could be terribly difficult, and where neighbors sometimes disagreed about nearly everything. But I also grew up understanding that character mattered. You were expected to help people when they were hurting. You were expected to stand up for those who could not defend themselves. And you were expected to understand that another person’s suffering was not something to exploit for personal advantage.

Those values are not Republican or Democratic. They are human values. And they are precisely the values our political culture is in danger of abandoning.

I am not suggesting that Democrats are beyond criticism or that one political party has a monopoly on virtue. American politics has a long history of ugly campaigns, personal attacks, and cynical manipulation from across the political spectrum. But acknowledging that history does not require us to pretend that every political tactic is equally defensible. What we are seeing in Ohio, and the exploitation of the controversy in Texas, deserves direct and unequivocal condemnation.

A political party that has meaningful solutions should be eager to discuss them. It should welcome debates about economic development, healthcare, public education, agriculture, and the future of our communities. It should want voters to compare competing visions for the country.

When a campaign instead spends millions attacking a woman’s childhood suffering, or when political figures exploit questionable mailers to stoke fear of transgender children, voters have every right to ask whether the people responsible have anything more constructive to offer.

Because the future of rural America will not be secured through resentment. It will not be rebuilt through humiliation. And it will not be saved by politicians who confuse cruelty with strength.

Our small towns are running out of time to address challenges that have been building for decades. Every hospital that closes, every school that struggles, every farm family forced out of business, and every young person who leaves because opportunity has disappeared represents another warning about what is at stake.

We cannot afford to waste another election arguing over manufactured enemies while the real problems facing our communities continue to grow.

The people of Ohio deserve a campaign about Ohio’s future. The people of Texas deserve an honest conversation about the challenges facing their state. And the people of rural America deserve leaders who spend more time developing solutions than searching for someone to blame.

There is a better way to conduct our politics. It begins with recognizing the humanity of those with whom we disagree. It requires the courage to tell voters difficult truths, the humility to listen to people whose experiences differ from our own, and the discipline to focus on problems that can actually be solved.

That is why I continue to believe in three simple principles: Listen, Learn, and Get to Work.

Listen to the families who are struggling. Learn from the people who understand their communities. And get to work building solutions that give the next generation a fighting chance.

Because America does not need another generation of politicians who know how to win elections by making us hate one another.

We need leaders who know how to make life better for the people they are asking to serve.

And if a political party has nothing left to offer but fear, humiliation, and cruelty, perhaps it is time for the American people to ask whether that party has run out of ideas worth voting for.

Let’s talk about how the conservative talk radio business works. The most successful personalities don’t make their living by finding solutions to complicated problems. They make their living by attracting an audience, keeping that audience emotionally engaged, and convincing people to come back tomorrow for another helping of outrage. Anger attracts attention. Conflict keeps people listening. Fear creates loyalty. And the more controversial the personality, the more opportunities there may be to generate publicity, advertising revenue, and political influence. There are responsible conservative broadcasters who take journalism and public debate seriously, but the outrage-driven wing of the industry has built an extraordinarily successful business model around division. That business model creates some terrible incentives for anyone who eventually wants to govern. A public servant has to understand that the people who voted against them are every bit as deserving of representation as the people who voted for them. A talk radio provocateur can spend an entire career treating half the country like the enemy. A public servant has to listen carefully, evaluate evidence, and sometimes admit that a political opponent has a better idea. A professional provocateur is rewarded for never backing down, never conceding a point, and always finding a way to declare victory. A public servant has to negotiate budgets, understand legislation, work through difficult compromises, and accept responsibility when something goes wrong. A talk show host can simply move on to the next controversy. One profession often rewards the ability to generate conflict. The other requires the ability to resolve it. Those are not the same qualifications.

Think about the people who have traditionally held some of the most important leadership positions in our rural communities. School board members, county commissioners, hospital administrators, small-business owners, farmers, teachers, volunteer firefighters, church leaders, and people who have served on nonprofit boards, managed budgets, hired employees, and spent years trying to solve problems with limited resources. These people understand something that the outrage industry often ignores. Real leadership is hard. You don’t get to scream at a broken water system until it fixes itself. You don’t get to insult your way into keeping a rural hospital open. You don’t get to blame the opposing political party when your school district can’t find enough teachers. You have to sit down with people, understand the problem, develop a plan, find the money, and do the work. Sometimes the people you need to work with are people you don’t particularly like. That’s public service. Now compare that with someone who has spent years sitting behind a microphone, criticizing everyone else’s decisions without ever having to make those decisions themselves. Someone who has built a loyal audience by telling people how incompetent, corrupt, or dangerous their political opponents are. Someone who has never had to balance a public budget, navigate a complicated legislative process, or accept responsibility for the consequences of government policy. Why should we automatically assume that person is qualified to represent us in Congress, a state legislature, or any other elected office? Being good at criticizing government does not mean you know how to run it, and being famous does not make you competent.

This issue is particularly important to me because I’ve spent so much time traveling through rural America, listening to the people who live there and hearing firsthand about the challenges they face. Let me tell you something. The problems facing rural America are not entertainment. When a rural hospital closes, that’s not a political talking point. That’s a mother who may have to drive another hour to deliver her baby. That’s an elderly farmer who suddenly lives farther away from emergency medical care. That’s a community losing good-paying jobs and one of its most important institutions. When a rural school struggles to keep teachers, that’s not an opportunity for another angry monologue about cultural warfare. That’s a generation of children whose educational opportunities may be slipping away. When young families leave small towns because they can’t find decent jobs, affordable housing, reliable healthcare, or quality schools, that’s not something we can fix by finding another group of Americans to blame. These are serious problems requiring serious people. Yet too often, the political conversation in rural America is dominated by the same tired culture-war arguments that have been recycled across conservative talk radio for decades. We’re told to be furious about something happening in Washington, Hollywood, or on a college campus thousands of miles away. Meanwhile, the local hospital is struggling, the school district is losing teachers, downtown businesses are closing, and young people are moving away. The people who have mastered the art of keeping us angry want us to reward them with political power. I have a question. What exactly have they done to make life better for the people they now want to represent? Not what have they said, not how many listeners they have, and not how many Democrats they’ve insulted. What have they actually accomplished?

America has developed a troubling habit of treating celebrity as a qualification for public office. We see someone on television or hear them on the radio long enough, and familiarity begins to feel like credibility. We know their voice, recognize their face, and agree with some of the things they say. Eventually, we start assuming they must know what they’re talking about. But being recognizable is not the same as being knowledgeable, and confidence is not the same as competence. In fact, one of the most dangerous qualities in a public official is the inability to recognize what they don’t know. Government is complicated. Agriculture policy is complicated. Healthcare financing is complicated. Public education, economic development, infrastructure, trade, and national security are complicated. The people who tell you they have a simple answer to every complicated problem should be approached with considerable skepticism. Good leaders ask questions, seek expertise, and understand that governing a diverse nation requires more than repeating the slogans that earned applause from a loyal audience. Good leaders know that sometimes the responsible decision is not the decision that will generate the loudest cheers. The outrage industry has conditioned too many Americans to see compromise as weakness, humility as surrender, and cooperation as betrayal. That is a terrible foundation for democratic government.

There’s another fundamental difference between being a talk show personality and being an elected official. A talk show host gets to choose an audience. A public official doesn’t. If you’re elected to Congress, you represent the farmer who voted Republican and the teacher who voted Democratic. You represent the small-business owner who voted Libertarian and the single mother who didn’t vote at all. You represent the wealthy landowner and the family struggling to make rent. You represent the people who agree with you and the people who can’t stand you. That’s the job. But when someone has spent years building a personal brand around attacking, humiliating, or dismissing people with different political beliefs, we ought to ask whether that person is capable of making the transition from partisan entertainer to public servant. Can they sit down with someone they’ve spent years demonizing? Can they consider a good idea from someone in the opposing party? Can they admit when their own party is wrong? Can they place the interests of their constituents above the demands of their audience? If the answer is no, then they aren’t prepared for public service. They’re simply looking for a bigger microphone.

I want to make something very clear. This isn’t an argument that conservative Americans shouldn’t have conservative representation. Of course they should. Conservative voters deserve thoughtful, principled leaders who understand their communities and are capable of translating their beliefs into responsible public policy. There is nothing wrong with believing in limited government, fiscal responsibility, individual liberty, or traditional values. Those are legitimate political positions deserving of serious discussion. But there is an enormous difference between principled conservatism and the business of perpetual outrage. One is a political philosophy. The other is a marketing strategy. Too often, the marketing strategy has swallowed the philosophy. Conservative voters should be demanding more from candidates who have built careers in partisan media, not less. They should be asking whether those candidates understand agricultural markets, rural hospital financing, school funding, and the economic pressures facing working families. They should be asking for evidence of judgment, integrity, management ability, and a willingness to serve people beyond their political base. If a candidate’s primary qualification is that they spent years making liberals angry, that simply isn’t enough.

Here’s what concerns me most about the relationship between outrage media and modern politics. The people who profit from division have very little incentive to bring us together. If your livelihood depends on convincing Americans that their neighbors are dangerous enemies, what happens when those neighbors start finding common ground? If your political identity depends on perpetual conflict, what happens when a problem actually gets solved? If your popularity depends on convincing people that government can never be trusted, how motivated are you to demonstrate that government can work? This creates a dangerous cycle. Politicians attack government as hopelessly broken. They win elections by promising to fight the people they blame for breaking it. Then, instead of doing the difficult work of governing, they continue performing the same outrage that got them elected. Government becomes less effective, public confidence falls further, and the resulting frustration creates an even bigger audience for the next angry personality promising to burn the whole thing down. Meanwhile, ordinary Americans are left paying the price. That cycle has to end.

I believe Americans need to start asking different questions when someone announces they’re running for office. Instead of asking how entertaining they are, ask how knowledgeable they are. Instead of asking how effectively they can attack the opposing party, ask how effectively they can work with people who disagree with them. Instead of asking how many followers they have, ask how many people they’ve actually helped. Instead of asking whether they’re willing to fight, ask whether they’re capable of solving problems. Instead of treating a career in partisan talk radio as proof of political qualifications, treat it as a reason to ask some very serious questions. Have they demonstrated an ability to listen? Have they ever accepted responsibility for a difficult decision? Have they shown intellectual honesty when the facts challenged their preferred narrative? Have they worked successfully with people outside their ideological circle? Most importantly, can they explain what they intend to accomplish beyond defeating, embarrassing, or punishing their political opponents? A candidate who can’t answer those questions has no business expecting our votes simply because we recognize their voice.

I grew up in rural America. I’ve spent much of my life working in it, and I’ve traveled through communities across this country talking with people who are worried about its future. I’ve met Republicans, Democrats, independents, and people who are so frustrated with politics that they’ve stopped paying attention altogether. Do you know what I’ve learned? Most of those folks have far more in common than the outrage merchants want them to believe. They want their children to have opportunities. They want their parents to have access to healthcare. They want their farms and small businesses to survive. They want decent schools, safe communities, good jobs, and a future worth staying for. They may disagree about how to accomplish those things, but those disagreements shouldn’t prevent us from working together. That’s why I believe the future of rural America depends on something much more meaningful than the next election or the next political controversy. It depends on rebuilding a culture of public service. A culture where listening matters more than shouting, knowledge matters more than celebrity, integrity matters more than party loyalty, and the success of a public official is measured by improvements in people’s lives, not by the number of enemies they’ve made. We don’t need another generation of politicians who know how to make Americans angry. We need a generation of leaders who know how to make America work.

So the next time a conservative talk show personality decides that years of attacking people behind a microphone qualifies them for public office, I hope voters will ask some hard questions. What have you built? What have you managed? What problems have you solved? Whom have you served? What evidence do we have that you can do anything more than talk? Because the microphone isn’t the problem. The problem is mistaking what someone does with that microphone for evidence that they can govern. It’s time to stop rewarding professional provocateurs with positions of public trust. It’s time to turn our backs on the politics of manufactured outrage and elect people who understand that public service is not a performance. It’s a responsibility. Rural America doesn’t need another loudmouth behind a microphone. It needs someone willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work.

Listen. Learn. And Get to Work.

Will Westmoreland

The Back Forty

Not because rural women have stopped having children. Not because childbirth has somehow become less important. But because the economics of our healthcare system have made providing one of the most fundamental medical services financially unsustainable. The latest example comes from Marshall, Missouri, where a hospital that delivered 252 babies last year has stopped providing labor and delivery services. The circumstances surrounding that decision ought to concern every American, regardless of where they live or how they vote.

For generations, Fitzgibbon Hospital in Marshall, Missouri, served as an essential healthcare institution for families in Saline County and surrounding rural communities. It was the kind of hospital rural America depends upon, a place where neighbors worked, families received care, and generations of children entered the world. But financial problems had been building for years. In April 2026, Fitzgibbon filed for bankruptcy protection. The hospital eventually reached an agreement to sell its operations to new ownership. According to an October 8 investigation by Meg Cunningham of The Beacon, just nine days after that sale closed in September, the hospital’s new operator announced it would discontinue inpatient labor and delivery services. The closure took effect September 30.

Nine days. That’s how quickly an entire community learned that the place where many of its children had been born would no longer deliver babies. The new owners, Strawberry Fields REIT, and operator, American Medical Administrators, have maintained prenatal, postpartum, and gynecological services through Marshall Women’s Care. Those services matter, but prenatal appointments and postpartum checkups are not substitutes for a fully staffed labor and delivery unit. A woman can receive excellent prenatal care in Marshall, but when it is time to give birth, she must now travel somewhere else. Families are being directed toward hospitals in Sedalia and Warrensburg, adding approximately 30 minutes to more than an hour of travel, depending on where they live. For some families north of Marshall, the journey could be substantially longer. And anyone who has ever lived in rural Missouri knows that a 60-minute drive on a clear afternoon is not the same as a 60-minute drive during an ice storm, after dark, or when a medical emergency is unfolding.

The new operator says the decision followed a review of the hospital’s finances and long-term sustainability. Fitzgibbon had already eliminated other services before the sale, including intensive care. Those financial difficulties are real and should not be dismissed. But neither should the consequences of closing a maternity ward. Because when a hospital closes its labor and delivery department, the financial burden doesn’t simply disappear. It gets transferred to pregnant women, their families, emergency medical services, and the communities left behind. Sometimes, that burden is measured in something far more consequential than dollars.

What happened in Marshall is not an isolated incident. It is part of a national retreat from rural obstetric care that has been unfolding for years. According to the March of Dimes’ 2026 report, Nowhere to Go: Maternity Care Deserts Across the U.S., approximately 34.6% of American counties are classified as maternity care deserts. These are counties without a hospital or birth center offering obstetric care and without obstetric clinicians. Nearly 2.4 million women of reproductive age live in those counties, where approximately 149,000 babies are born each year. Another 3.4 million women live in counties with limited access to maternity services. More than half of American counties do not have a hospital providing labor and delivery services, and the situation is especially alarming in rural America.

Nearly 58% of rural counties lack obstetric clinicians, compared with approximately 19% of urban counties. Between January 2024 and May 2026, researchers identified at least 96 labor and delivery unit closures across 35 states. In nearly 60% of the affected counties, the closed unit was the community’s only birthing facility. Those closures increased average travel times to maternity care by approximately 25 minutes in affected communities. Missouri is living this crisis firsthand. More than half of Missouri’s counties are classified as maternity care deserts. Nearly 140,000 Missouri women between the ages of 15 and 44 live in counties without an obstetric doctor or labor and delivery unit, and more than 120,000 Missouri women live over 30 minutes from a hospital that delivers babies.

Those numbers should be considered a public health emergency. Instead, we have become disturbingly accustomed to hearing that another rural hospital has eliminated another essential service. Another community loses maternity care, another family drives farther, another rural healthcare professional leaves, and another piece of the infrastructure that makes rural life sustainable disappears.

There is a fundamental problem with the way America finances rural healthcare. A hospital’s maternity ward must be prepared for emergencies 24 hours a day, seven days a week, whether one baby is born that day or none. That means trained nurses, obstetric clinicians, anesthesia coverage, emergency surgical capabilities, equipment, and the ability to respond immediately when complications arise. Those costs do not disappear on days when no babies are born. In a large metropolitan hospital delivering thousands of babies annually, the costs can be distributed across a much larger patient population. In a small rural hospital delivering a few hundred babies each year, the same basic requirements can become financially overwhelming.

Fitzgibbon delivered 252 babies in 2025. That’s fewer than one birth per day on average, but the hospital still needed to be prepared every day. This is the economic contradiction at the heart of rural obstetric care. The fewer babies a hospital delivers, the harder it becomes to financially justify maintaining the very services those babies need. When those services disappear, families may leave the community, physicians may become harder to recruit, and the local healthcare system becomes even more fragile. It is a vicious cycle, and it raises a question policymakers ought to be asking: Since when did the value of keeping mothers and babies alive depend entirely on whether the service generates an acceptable profit margin?

We don’t expect a rural fire department to turn a profit. We don’t demand that an ambulance service demonstrate a positive return on investment before responding to a heart attack. We understand that certain services must exist because the consequences of their absence are unacceptable. Why do we so often refuse to apply that same principle to rural maternity care? A labor and delivery unit is not simply another department in a hospital. It is essential community infrastructure, and we should finance it accordingly.

For someone who has never lived outside a metropolitan area, driving an extra 30 or 60 minutes to a hospital might sound like an inconvenience. For a pregnant woman experiencing complications, it can be something entirely different. Pregnancy and childbirth are not always predictable. A woman can develop severe bleeding. Her blood pressure can rise dangerously. The placenta can separate prematurely. A baby’s heart rate can deteriorate. An emergency cesarean section can become necessary. In those situations, minutes can matter, and every additional mile between a mother and appropriate medical care creates another obstacle to getting treatment quickly.

Research examining rural obstetric unit closures has associated the loss of local delivery services with increased risks of preterm birth, out-of-hospital birth, and delivery at hospitals without dedicated obstetric units. That doesn’t mean every long drive results in a tragedy. Most births do not become catastrophic emergencies. But it does mean that eliminating local obstetric services can expose families to risks they previously did not face, and those risks are not shared equally. A family with reliable transportation, flexible employment, paid leave, and money for a hotel near a hospital may be able to adapt. A low-income mother working an hourly job may not have those options. She may already be struggling to afford prenatal visits, childcare for her other children, gasoline, and time away from work. Now imagine telling her that the hospital where she planned to deliver has closed its maternity ward and that she must travel another hour to give birth. That isn’t merely an inconvenience. It is another barrier in a healthcare system already filled with them.

To understand why rural maternity care is disappearing, we have to talk about Medicaid. Medicaid finances roughly four out of every ten births nationally. In Missouri, it covers more than 38% of births statewide, and the share exceeds 47% in areas outside metropolitan centers, according to figures cited by The Beacon. That means Medicaid isn’t some peripheral government assistance program when it comes to rural childbirth. It is one of the financial foundations of maternity care. But Medicaid reimbursement often fails to cover the full cost of providing services, particularly at smaller hospitals that must maintain expensive staffing and emergency readiness for relatively few deliveries. Private insurance doesn’t always make up the difference. Meanwhile, hospitals face rising labor costs, shortages of obstetric professionals, expensive liability coverage, and the challenges of operating in communities with smaller and often economically vulnerable populations.

Now add the federal healthcare changes enacted in 2025 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The law’s Medicaid financing reductions and eligibility changes are expected to increase pressure on hospitals and reduce coverage for some patients as provisions take effect. Those pressures are especially concerning for rural facilities operating on narrow margins. We should be precise about the timeline: Fitzgibbon’s financial difficulties and September 2026 maternity closure cannot simply be attributed to Medicaid cuts whose effects are still unfolding. Its problems predated the new law. But that doesn’t make the new federal policy any less concerning. It means an already fragile rural healthcare system is facing additional financial pressure at precisely the wrong time.

Pregnant women may qualify for Medicaid protections, but eligibility rules, enrollment complications, and coverage disruptions can still affect access to care. And when hospitals receive less financial support, the effects extend beyond the patients who lose coverage. The entire community can suffer. You cannot weaken the financial foundation of rural healthcare and then act surprised when rural hospitals begin eliminating essential services. For years, politicians in Washington have promised to protect rural hospitals while supporting policies that can make their survival more difficult. Those promises deserve to be measured against what is actually happening in communities like Marshall, not against campaign speeches or press releases, but against whether a mother can safely deliver her baby close to home.

There is another troubling dimension to the Fitzgibbon story. According to The Beacon, the hospital accepted a $10.5 million purchase offer even though it had reportedly received offers as high as $14.5 million. Part of the reason was the buyers’ expressed commitment to preserving services, maintaining employment, and participating in Medicare. Yet within days of the sale closing, labor and delivery was on the chopping block. The new operator maintains that the hospital’s financial condition made continuing the service impossible. That explanation deserves consideration, especially given the hospital’s history of financial difficulties. But the community deserves answers, too. What commitments were made during the sale? What financial information was available? Were there alternatives to eliminating maternity services? What protections existed for patients who depended on the hospital?

These are reasonable questions, not accusations of wrongdoing. Research discussed in The Beacon’s reporting found that rural hospitals acquired by other organizations were 11% less likely to offer obstetric care five years after acquisition. The researchers cautioned that their findings do not prove acquisitions caused individual closures. Still, the broader pattern deserves scrutiny. When a rural hospital is purchased, the new owner inherits more than buildings, equipment, and accounts receivable. It inherits a responsibility to a community. That responsibility should matter in public policy, particularly when hospitals depend upon taxpayer-supported programs and serve populations with few alternatives. The healthcare needs of rural families should not become an afterthought in a financial transaction.

I grew up in rural Missouri. I know what our small towns mean to the families who call them home. I also know that rural communities are interconnected in ways that people who have never lived in them may not fully understand. When a rural hospital loses an important service, the consequences extend beyond the hospital walls. Consider a young couple deciding where to raise their family. They may love their small town. They may want their children to grow up around grandparents, attend the local school, and experience the same rural traditions they enjoyed. But they also have to consider whether adequate healthcare will be available when they need it. If the nearest hospital delivering babies is an hour away, that becomes part of their decision. If pediatric care is difficult to access, that becomes another consideration. If the local hospital continues losing departments and medical professionals, the uncertainty grows.

Eventually, families may decide they simply cannot take the risk. And when young families leave rural communities, schools lose students, businesses lose customers, churches lose members, and local governments lose taxpayers. The loss of maternity care can become part of a much larger pattern of rural decline. We spend enormous amounts of time talking about bringing jobs back to rural America, encouraging economic development, and attracting young families. But what good is a new manufacturing facility if the people working there cannot access basic healthcare? What good is a rural economic development strategy that ignores whether a mother can safely deliver her child? You cannot rebuild rural America while dismantling the services that make it possible to live there.

The solution cannot simply be telling rural hospitals to become more efficient. Many have spent decades cutting costs, consolidating departments, and struggling to recruit medical professionals. Efficiency alone cannot solve a problem rooted in the economics of serving smaller populations. We need a fundamental change in how America approaches rural obstetric care, beginning with Medicaid reimbursement policies that recognize the actual cost of providing maternity services in low-volume rural hospitals. A facility that must maintain emergency readiness around the clock should not be compensated as though childbirth were simply another procedure billed by the patient.

Congress should establish a dedicated rural maternity care stabilization program that helps hospitals maintain essential obstetric services. Funding should reflect geographic isolation, emergency readiness, and community need, not simply the number of deliveries performed. We also need stronger incentives to recruit and retain obstetricians, family physicians trained in obstetrics, certified nurse-midwives, anesthesiology professionals, and specialized nurses in rural communities. That includes loan repayment programs, rural residency training, workforce partnerships, and support for the professional teams necessary to deliver babies safely.

States and the federal government should strengthen emergency maternity transportation networks. When a local labor and delivery unit cannot remain open, there must be reliable emergency transportation, clearly established transfer agreements, and adequately trained personnel to respond when a mother cannot reach a distant hospital in time. We also need greater accountability when rural hospitals change ownership. Communities deserve transparency about proposed service reductions, meaningful opportunities for public input, and enforceable commitments when preservation of essential services is part of a purchase agreement.

Finally, we need to protect and strengthen the healthcare coverage programs that rural hospitals depend upon. Cutting coverage and weakening reimbursement while expecting rural facilities to maintain expensive, essential services is a contradiction policymakers must confront. Telehealth, mobile maternity programs, regional partnerships, and expanded prenatal services can all help. They deserve investment. But no video appointment can perform an emergency cesarean section, and no mobile health clinic can replace a fully equipped hospital when a mother experiences life-threatening complications during delivery. We must stop pretending that partial substitutes are always adequate replacements for the services rural communities are losing.

There is something especially disturbing about the fact that America continues to debate whether rural maternity care is financially sustainable while simultaneously claiming to place enormous value on families and children. Politicians across the ideological spectrum speak passionately about supporting families. They campaign on protecting children. They celebrate rural values and the importance of small-town America. But those words ring hollow when the policies necessary to sustain maternal healthcare are neglected. If we truly value mothers, we should care whether they can receive appropriate medical attention during pregnancy. If we truly value children, we should care whether they can enter the world in a safe medical environment. If we truly value rural America, we should care whether families can continue living there without accepting unnecessary risks to their health.

This should not be a partisan issue. Republican mothers and Democratic mothers experience the same pregnancy complications. Babies born into conservative families need the same emergency care as babies born into progressive families. A hemorrhage doesn’t ask how someone voted. A premature baby doesn’t care which political party controls Congress. And an ambulance traveling 70 miles to the nearest maternity hospital doesn’t move any faster because a politician delivered a speech about family values. We need less political theater and more actual investment in the health and survival of rural families.

The story of Fitzgibbon Hospital should be a wake-up call. The hospital’s new operator says it is maintaining emergency obstetric capabilities and hopes eventually to restore labor and delivery services. That would be a welcome development, but there is no announced timetable. Until then, families must plan around the absence of a local delivery unit. And Marshall is far from alone. Across rural America, maternity wards are disappearing, obstetric professionals are becoming harder to find, and families are being asked to travel farther for services that previous generations could often receive close to home.

We cannot keep treating each closure as an isolated business decision. This is a systemic failure. It is a failure of healthcare financing, a failure of rural policy, and ultimately a failure to recognize that access to essential medical care should not depend upon a community’s ability to generate enough revenue to satisfy a balance sheet. The babies who were born at Fitzgibbon last year were not line items on a financial statement. They were the future of their community. They were future farmers, teachers, nurses, firefighters, business owners, and parents. And the mothers who delivered them deserved a healthcare system prepared to protect their lives. So will the mothers and babies who come next.

A country that cannot provide a safe place for rural mothers to give birth has no business claiming it has solved the challenges facing rural America. We can do better than this, and we must do better than this. Because the future of rural America doesn’t begin in a boardroom in Washington or on Wall Street. It begins in communities like Marshall, Missouri, and sometimes it begins in a delivery room.

If we want rural America to have a future, we had better make sure rural America still has a place to bring that future into the world.

Will Westmoreland is the founder of The Back Forty and Back Forty Action, advocating for rural healthcare, education, and economic opportunity across America.

They sit alongside life and liberty as part of the promise at the heart of the American experiment. But there is something we don’t talk about nearly enough. Before a person can meaningfully pursue happiness, they have to eat.

Before a child can concentrate in a classroom, that child needs breakfast. Before a mother can build a better life for her family, she needs to know there will be enough food in the kitchen tomorrow. Before a worker can pursue opportunity, a senior can enjoy retirement, or a family can build something better for the next generation, their most basic human needs have to be met.

Food security isn’t explicitly guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration is not a benefits statute, and the phrase “pursuit of Happiness” does not create a constitutional right to food assistance. But as a statement of American ideals, its meaning raises an important question, “How meaningful is the pursuit of happiness when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from?”

That question has become increasingly important because the 2025 reconciliation law commonly called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act made some of the largest changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in decades.

And those changes are beginning to reshape America’s food-security system. This Isn’t a Talking Point. It’s in the Numbers. According to the Congressional Budget Office, changes made by the 2025 reconciliation law are projected to reduce federal SNAP spending by approximately $211 billion through 2035 compared with what CBO previously projected.

That happens through several mechanisms. The law expands work requirements. It restricts states’ ability to waive those requirements in certain areas. It changes how SNAP benefits are calculated. It limits eligibility for certain populations. It changes how SNAP administrative expenses are divided between Washington and the states.

And beginning in 2028, states with SNAP payment error rates of 6 percent or higher can be required to pay part of the actual cost of benefits—a cost that historically has been paid entirely by the federal government. CBO says the result will be fewer people receiving SNAP and smaller average benefits.

The Congressional Research Service reaches the same basic conclusion: provisions of the law are expected to reduce some households’ monthly benefits and make it more difficult for some people to qualify for SNAP. Those aren’t predictions from a political campaign. Those are analyses from institutions that Congress itself relies upon.

The People With the Least Stand to Lose Resources

CBO examined the entire law—not simply SNAP—and found something else Americans should understand. Households toward the bottom of America’s income distribution are projected to lose resources, while households in the middle and toward the top generally gain resources.

Why do lower-income households lose? CBO says a major reason is reduced benefits from programs including SNAP and Medicaid. Think about what that means in everyday life. Food assistance isn’t an abstract line in the federal budget. It’s milk. Eggs. Bread. Peanut butter. Ground beef. Cereal. Fresh vegetables.It’s groceries sitting on a kitchen table.

When those resources disappear, hunger doesn’t disappear with them. The responsibility simply moves somewhere else. Maybe Mom skips dinner. Maybe Grandma stretches her Social Security check further. Maybe the church food pantry gets another family in line. Maybe the local food bank has to purchase more food. Maybe somebody puts groceries on a credit card. And sometimes there simply isn’t enough.

Rural America Should Pay Particular Attention

This conversation matters everywhere, but it deserves special attention in rural America. Rural communities already struggle with many of the conditions that make food insecurity difficult to escape: persistent poverty in some regions, fewer employers, transportation barriers, aging populations and long distances to services.

And there is a cruel irony here. Some of the people living closest to America’s agricultural production can still struggle to afford food. The farmer can produce it. The trucker can haul it. The grocery worker can stock it. And the family living a few miles down the road can still struggle to buy it.

That’s why food security should be understood as part of rural infrastructure. We readily understand why a community needs roads, electricity, schools, hospitals and clean water.

A functioning food system belongs in that conversation too.

The State Cost Shift Could Be Enormously Important One of the least discussed provisions of the law may eventually prove to be one of the most consequential. Historically, the federal government paid the cost of SNAP benefits while states shared administrative expenses.

The new law changes that arrangement.

Beginning in 2028, states with sufficiently high SNAP payment error rates can be required to contribute toward benefit costs. The law also increases states’ share of administrative expenses from 50 percent to 75 percent. CBO expects states to respond differently. Some may absorb the additional expense. Others may modify their programs. And CBO explicitly anticipates the possibility that some states could leave SNAP altogether.

Consider what that could mean for a poor rural county. A federal budget decision gets passed to the state. The state faces a new financial obligation. State officials have to decide whether to raise revenue, cut something else, change SNAP administration or reduce participation. Eventually that budget decision reaches a kitchen table hundreds of miles from Washington. That is how federal policy becomes personal.

Work Requirements Sound Simpler Than They Are

Supporters of expanded work requirements argue that able-bodied adults who receive public assistance should work when they are capable of doing so. CBO itself estimates that the SNAP provisions slightly increase incentives to work. That’s an argument worth taking seriously.

But rural America should also understand the practical problem. A work requirement doesn’t create a job. It doesn’t create transportation. It doesn’t create childcare. It doesn’t make a seasonal job year-round. It doesn’t put an employer in a county that has been losing businesses for twenty years.

And paperwork doesn’t measure hunger. Someone can be genuinely eligible for assistance and still lose benefits because they missed documentation, didn’t understand a reporting requirement or couldn’t navigate an administrative process.

The policy question therefore shouldn’t simply be, “Should people work?” Of course people who can work should have the opportunity and incentive to work. The better question is, “Does taking food away from someone actually remove the barriers keeping that person from employment?” Those are two very different propositions.

Food Assistance Is Also Local Economic Activity

When SNAP benefits are spent, they don’t vanish into Washington. They are spent at grocery stores, supermarkets and authorized retailers across America. That matters particularly in communities where grocery stores already operate on thin margins.

Food assistance therefore has two effects at the same time. It helps a family purchase dinner. And it creates demand for food. That demand ultimately moves backward through the food system from retailer to wholesaler to processor and, eventually, to American agriculture. That’s why nutrition policy and agricultural policy have historically occupied the same Farm Bill. Farm policy helps Americans produce food. Nutrition policy helps Americans afford it.

Those two goals aren’t enemies. They’re two halves of food security. America Can Debate How SNAP Should Work There are legitimate policy disagreements about SNAP. We can debate eligibility. We can debate work requirements. We can debate fraud prevention. We can debate payment errors. We can debate what foods should qualify. We can debate federal versus state responsibility.

And government absolutely has an obligation to make sure taxpayer dollars are administered properly. But we should never confuse improving a program with simply making fewer people eligible for food assistance. Those aren’t necessarily the same thing. CBO now projects SNAP spending falling from $106 billion in 2025 to $100 billion in 2026 and $94 billion by 2028, with changes from the reconciliation law contributing to that decline.

The real measure of success shouldn’t simply be whether Washington spends less money. It should be whether fewer Americans are hungry. The Pursuit of Happiness Begins With Human Dignity Our founders wrote about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in 1776. They didn’t create a perfect country. They didn’t extend those ideals equally to everyone. Generations of Americans have spent the centuries since trying to bring the country closer to the promise contained in those words.

And perhaps that’s the responsibility of every generation. To ask what those ideals require of us now. I believe food security belongs in that conversation. A hungry child isn’t thinking about the pursuit of happiness. He’s thinking about lunch.

A mother standing in a grocery aisle putting food back because she doesn’t have enough money isn’t thinking about economic liberty. She’s calculating which meal her children can do without. A senior deciding between groceries and medicine isn’t experiencing freedom in any meaningful everyday sense.

We can disagree about the size of government. We can disagree about taxes. We can disagree about the exact structure of SNAP. But America ought to be capable of agreeing on something much more fundamental: No child in the richest country on Earth should have to wonder whether there will be dinner tonight.

Food security doesn’t guarantee happiness. Government can’t guarantee happiness. That’s why the Declaration speaks of its pursuit. But hunger can certainly stand in its way. And if we believe those words written nearly 250 years ago still mean something, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then making sure Americans have a realistic opportunity to pursue them should matter too.

Because liberty means considerably less when your stomach is empty. And before Americans can pursue happiness, they need a fair chance to pursue tomorrow.

That is the voting-rights fight unfolding across the United States in 2026. Republican officials usually describe these policies with reassuring language: “election integrity,” “citizenship verification,” “clean voter rolls” and “ballot security.” Those are legitimate objectives. Only eligible citizens should vote, voter rolls should be accurate and election laws should be enforced. But the important question is not what politicians call a policy. The important question is what the policy actually does to eligible voters.

And the cumulative effect of Republican-backed changes around the country is unmistakable: voting is becoming more complicated for millions of legitimate American citizens.

The numbers alone should get our attention. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, from January 2025 through the spring of 2026, states enacted 44 laws it classified as restrictive to voting access, already surpassing the previous two-year high recorded after the 2020 election. During just the first four months of 2026, lawmakers in at least 41 states considered more than 300 bills containing restrictive provisions. Nine states had already enacted 12 restrictive laws, most scheduled to affect the 2026 midterm elections.

Think about what that means. This is not one voter-ID bill in one state. It is a nationwide movement involving registration requirements, identification rules, voter-roll challenges, citizenship checks, mail-ballot restrictions and increasingly aggressive verification systems.

One of the most consequential proposals is documentary proof of citizenship. Let’s establish something important first: noncitizens are already prohibited from voting in federal elections. It is already illegal. Federal law already provides criminal penalties for doing it. The debate is therefore not over whether noncitizens should vote. They cannot legally vote.

The question is whether every American citizen should now have to produce additional government-approved paperwork proving citizenship before being allowed to register.

Congressional Republicans have pursued the SAVE America Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship for federal voter registration and photo identification for voting. Supporters argue that this creates an additional safeguard against noncitizen participation. But the Bipartisan Policy Center, which is hardly a Democratic campaign organization, says documented instances of noncitizen voting are rare and that less burdensome ways exist to improve citizenship verification.

Here is where the suppression effect becomes impossible to ignore. The Bipartisan Policy Center estimates that approximately 12 percent of registered voters, roughly 28.4 million voting-age American citizens, do not have ready access to the kinds of documents most likely to satisfy documentary-proof requirements, such as a passport or an acceptable combination involving a birth certificate and photo identification. Lower-income and less-educated Americans are significantly less likely to possess commonly accepted documentation.

Twenty-eight million American citizens. Not undocumented immigrants. Not people sneaking across a border to vote. American citizens. A policy supposedly designed to stop an already rare form of illegal voting could therefore place a new bureaucratic hurdle in front of tens of millions of lawful voters.

And this is not some theoretical federal proposal sitting on a shelf. Republican-led states are already moving in this direction. South Dakota and Utah enacted laws requiring prospective voters to show documents such as passports or birth certificates to register in state and local elections. Utah also established a review process under which certain voters may have only 30 days to respond with documentation before being removed from the rolls. According to the Brennan Center, Utah conducted a review before adopting the new requirements and found zero instances of noncitizen voting.

That should force us to ask an uncomfortable question. If your election system investigates the problem and finds zero illegal votes, but your response is nevertheless to impose additional documentation requirements on legitimate voters, what exactly are you fixing?

Other Republican-led states have enacted variations of the same idea. Kentucky authorized arrangements allowing federal agencies to review voter lists and flag people believed to be noncitizens. Mississippi expanded circumstances under which voters can be required to prove citizenship. Florida adopted additional citizenship-verification requirements affecting some voters.

These rules can sound harmless when described from a podium. “Just prove you’re a citizen.” But government paperwork is rarely that simple. Consider a 72-year-old woman born in a rural county whose birth certificate carries her maiden name but whose driver’s license carries the married name she has used for 50 years. Consider somebody born hundreds of miles away who no longer has a certified copy of a birth certificate. Consider a low-income worker without a passport. Consider a rural voter living 40 miles from the nearest government office that can help obtain replacement documentation.

To a politician, that is a paperwork requirement. To the voter, it may be a day off work, transportation, fees, phone calls, government offices and deadlines just to prove a citizenship status the government may already know.

That is what suppression often looks like in the twenty-first century. Not a sheriff standing at the polling-place door. Friction. One extra document. One extra trip. One extra deadline. One extra opportunity for an eligible voter to fall out of the process.

Voter-identification laws can work the same way. Requiring identification is broadly popular, and identification requirements themselves are not automatically voter suppression. But the details determine the burden. Florida has removed certain previously accepted forms of identification, including student and public-assistance IDs. New Hampshire removed student identification from its acceptable list. Utah eliminated some alternative documents previously available to voters. Nebraska shortened the time available for certain provisional voters to come back and prove their identity.

Every one of those decisions narrows the doorway. A person who could legally vote yesterday may still legally be eligible today, but now has another hurdle between himself and the ballot. That distinction matters. Eligibility has not changed. Access has.

Mail voting is being squeezed from another direction. Republicans have aggressively litigated mail-ballot deadlines and procedures, arguing that election laws must be strictly enforced and that ballots arriving after Election Day should not necessarily count even when voters mailed them beforehand.

There is a legitimate policy debate over when an election should be considered complete. But consider the effect on the voter. An eligible American can fill out a lawful ballot, follow the instructions, place it in the United States mail before Election Day and still have that ballot rejected because the Postal Service delivered it too late.

The voter did everything right. The ballot still does not count. That issue has particular importance in rural America. People in sparsely populated counties may live substantial distances from election offices or ballot-return locations. Mail service can be slower and less frequent. Elderly people, disabled people, agricultural workers during harvest, military families and citizens without reliable transportation can depend disproportionately on absentee voting.

A rule written in a state capitol can therefore impose a very different burden on somebody living five blocks from an election office than on somebody living 45 miles away.

The Trump administration has now brought the federal government directly into this struggle. On March 31, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security, working with the Social Security Administration, to create state citizenship lists using federal citizenship, naturalization, Social Security and immigration records. The order also directed changes affecting mail and absentee ballot procedures and ordered federal agencies to prioritize enforcement related to election eligibility. The White House says the purpose is to verify citizenship, prevent illegal voting and strengthen confidence in elections.

But enormous databases are not infallible. And when an ordinary commercial database makes an error, perhaps you receive the wrong advertisement. When a voter-eligibility database makes an error, you can lose your vote. That danger is no longer hypothetical. Reuters reported in September that the expanded federal SAVE verification system has produced disputes involving naturalized American citizens who were wrongly flagged. The Supreme Court allowed continued use of the expanded system while litigation proceeds, meaning states can continue conducting large-scale citizenship checks using Social Security numbers and federal records.

Read that carefully. Naturalized citizens. American citizens. People who followed the immigration process, became Americans legally and possess exactly the same constitutional voting rights as citizens born in Missouri, Ohio, Texas or Iowa.

If a government database incorrectly identifies one of them and the burden then shifts onto that citizen to prove the government wrong before an election deadline, that is not simply “cleaning the voter rolls.” For that citizen, it is a barrier between an eligible voter and the ballot.

Reuters has also reported that the administration has continued pressing states for voter information as part of a broad effort to identify potential noncitizens on registration lists, even as courts have raised concerns about privacy, federal authority and the accuracy of the underlying systems.

The Department of Justice, meanwhile, has sued states seeking access to voter-registration information. DOJ argues that federal law gives it authority to inspect election records and that accurate voter rolls are essential to election integrity.

Again, maintaining accurate voter rolls is legitimate. But there is an enormous difference between carefully removing a person who is definitively ineligible and running millions of Americans through databases that can produce false matches and then forcing individual citizens to prove the machine got them wrong.

One protects elections. The other can suppress legitimate votes. This distinction is especially important because the evidence does not show an epidemic of noncitizens casting ballots. The Bipartisan Policy Center describes noncitizen voting as rare. Even the Brennan Center’s much more forceful voting-rights analysis emphasizes that citizenship is already required and that states already possess mechanisms designed to enforce it.

So proportionality matters. If you design a policy to stop an extremely small number of illegal votes but that policy places substantial new burdens on thousands, or millions, of legitimate voters, Americans ought to ask whether the cure creates a larger democratic problem than the disease.

There is another aspect of voter suppression that gets far too little attention: people who are wrongly knocked out of the process often do not simply return next time. Voting is a habit. Participation is a habit.

If somebody shows up after working all day and discovers there is a problem with a registration, needs another identification document, gets sent somewhere else, misses a deadline or learns that a mailed ballot was discarded, there is no guarantee that person keeps fighting through the bureaucracy. Some people simply stop participating. And that is why we should stop imagining voter suppression solely through the lens of the Jim Crow era.

Modern suppression can be administrative. It can arrive in an envelope. It can appear as a database flag. It can be buried in a deadline. It can hide inside a 60-page election bill. It can tell a citizen, “Of course you have the right to vote. You just need to complete these additional steps first.”

Then another step. Then another. Then another. Until some Americans make it through and others do not. Perhaps most importantly, these barriers do not exclusively hurt Democrats.

Research from the Bipartisan Policy Center found Republicans and Democrats roughly equally likely to possess at least one qualifying citizenship document under commonly discussed federal requirements, and Republican voters may actually face particular difficulties when relying on birth certificates rather than passports.

That matters enormously in rural America. The person hurt by stricter documentation might be an elderly Republican farmer. The person whose absentee ballot arrives late might be a conservative military veteran. The person wrongly flagged by a database might be a naturalized citizen who votes Republican. The person without a passport might be a Democratic single mother.

Voting rights should not depend on which one of those people we expect to support our side. A democracy worthy of the name protects all four. That is why the most revealing question in this entire debate is not, “Can government impose this requirement?” It is, “Why is this requirement necessary, and how many legitimate voters will pay the price for it?”

If there is credible evidence of illegal voting, investigate it. If somebody knowingly votes illegally, prosecute the case. If a person dies or moves away, update the voter rolls. If election officials discover a genuine duplicate registration, fix it.

But America should be profoundly skeptical whenever politicians respond to rare or hypothetical election problems by placing broad new obstacles in front of millions of lawful voters.

Because election integrity has two sides. An illegal ballot should not be counted. But an eligible citizen’s lawful ballot should not be prevented from being cast or counted either. You cannot defend election integrity by protecting one half of that equation and ignoring the other.

And that is the danger in the Republican voting agenda now moving through state legislatures, Congress, federal agencies and the courts. Whatever supporters say the motivation is, many of these policies share the same practical direction: more documents, more verification, fewer acceptable IDs, tighter deadlines, more voter challenges and more opportunities for an eligible citizen to be knocked out of the process.

Call it election integrity if you want. Call it citizenship verification. Call it voter-roll maintenance. But when an eligible American citizen who could vote under yesterday’s rules cannot successfully vote under tomorrow’s rules because politicians added another unnecessary hurdle, the effect is voter suppression. And Americans should be willing to say so.

The right to vote should never depend on whether you own a passport, whether the Postal Service moved quickly enough, whether two government databases spelled your name the same way, whether you can drive 40 miles to an election office or whether you managed to answer a government notice before a bureaucratic deadline. A citizen is either eligible to vote or not.

The job of government should be to accurately determine that eligibility, prevent genuine fraud and then make damn sure every eligible American can exercise the right. Anything less does not strengthen democracy. It shrinks the number of Americans participating in it.

You don’t ask what church they attend. You don’t ask whether they are Republican, Democrat, or independent. You don’t check their bumper stickers.

You grab a bucket.

Because out here, we have always understood something that Washington seems to have forgotten: when our neighbors hurt, our community hurts with them. And right now, a whole lot of our neighbors are hurting. Not somewhere far away. Not in some abstract government report.

Right here in rural America.

Behind the statistics are children sitting in classrooms trying to learn while they are hungry. They are farmers postponing a doctor’s appointment because another bill came due. They are working parents staring at the refrigerator on Thursday night wondering how they’re going to stretch what is left until payday. They are grandparents driving an hour or more for medical care because the services they once relied upon disappeared.

And they are young people packing their belongings and leaving the towns where they grew up because they cannot see a future there.

The numbers tell a story we cannot afford to ignore.

USDA reported that about 6 million rural Americans, 13.6% of the rural population, were living below the poverty line in 2023, compared with 10.7% in urban America. Think about that. Six million rural Americans living in poverty. Our People!

And the burden falls especially hard on children. Nearly one in five rural children under 16 lived in poverty, and among rural children younger than five, the poverty rate was 20.9%. These aren’t numbers on a spreadsheet. Those are kids. They ride our school buses. They sit in our Sunday school classes. Their parents work beside us. Their families shop at the same grocery stores and sit in the same high-school bleachers we do.

And then there is hunger. Feeding America reports that food insecurity is more prevalent in rural America than metropolitan America. Its current national information puts rural food insecurity at roughly 15.9%, and its research consistently finds that the counties experiencing America’s worst food insecurity are disproportionately rural.

USDA defines food insecurity as households sometimes being unable to acquire enough food for everyone because they lack sufficient money or other resources. Put away the bureaucratic language for a minute. It means people are hungry. It means a mother skips dinner so her children can eat.

It means a senior stretches groceries until the Social Security check arrives. It means a child goes to bed without enough food and then gets on a school bus the next morning and is expected to learn multiplication tables. And then we wonder why some children struggle in school.

You cannot separate education from hunger.

You cannot separate healthcare from poverty. You cannot separate economic opportunity from whether a community has a hospital, a school, decent broadband, affordable housing and jobs that pay enough for families to build a life. These problems are connected. Healthcare may demonstrate that better than anything.

KFF’s 2024 data estimate approximately 4.63 million rural Americans lacked health insurance and that equals about 8.5% of the rural population in its dataset. Again, our people!

And simply possessing an insurance card doesn’t mean healthcare is accessible. Rural communities have fewer healthcare professionals and residents often must travel farther for treatment. Rural populations also experience higher rates of chronic illness and worse health outcomes than their urban counterparts. That means millions of Americans live in communities where getting sick can mean deciding whether the problem is serious enough to justify the drive, the missed work and the bill. That isn’t simply a healthcare problem.

That is an economic-development problem.

Because here’s a question we don’t ask often enough: Why would a young family stay? Why would a young couple raise children in a community where the hospital is disappearing? Why stay somewhere without adequate childcare? Why build a business somewhere that can’t attract workers? Why remain in a town where the school keeps losing programs because enrollment and resources keep shrinking? Why stay if the best economic advice we can offer a talented 18-year-old is: Leave.

For generations, rural America helped build this country. We grew its food. We raised its livestock. We mined its resources. We built its factories. We sent our sons and daughters to fight its wars. We powered its cities. And we asked for something remarkably simple in return:

Give our children a fair chance to build a good life here. That shouldn’t be a Republican idea. It shouldn’t be a Democratic idea. It should be an American idea. We need rural hospitals that can keep their doors open. We need doctors, nurses, dentists and mental-health professionals willing and able to practice in small communities.

We need strong public schools. We need career and technical education. We need community colleges and apprenticeships. We need affordable broadband. We need infrastructure. We need family farmers and small businesses to have a fighting chance. We need wages that allow working people to raise families. And we need economic policies designed around something more ambitious than merely helping rural America survive.

We should be helping rural America thrive.

That is why I believe we have to stop treating politics like a football game where our only responsibility is cheering for whichever team happens to be wearing our colors. Before you support a candidate, ask them some simple questions. What are you going to do about rural hospitals? What are you going to do about hungry children? What are you going to do about rural schools? What are you going to do about the shortage of doctors and nurses? What are you going to do to help family farms and rural small businesses survive? What are you going to do so our children can afford to stay here?

Then listen carefully to the answers. Not the slogans. Not the culture-war talking points. Not the campaign commercials. The answers.

Look at their policies. Look at their votes. Look at what they have actually done. Then make your own decision. Because rural America cannot afford another generation of politicians who discover us three months before an election and forget about us three months afterward.

This is also why I am asking you to support the work of Back Forty Action. We are working to make rural healthcare, education and economic opportunity impossible for policymakers to ignore and to build a movement where rural Americans have a meaningful voice in decisions affecting our communities.

If you believe rural Americans deserve access to healthcare. If you believe a child’s ZIP code shouldn’t determine the quality of their education… If you believe working people should be able to earn enough to raise a family… If you believe family farms and rural small businesses deserve a future.

And if you believe our children shouldn’t have to abandon their hometowns simply to build decent lives.

I am asking you to stand with us. Visit Back Forty Action⁠ and support our work. Support candidates who demonstrate through their policies and records that they will work to improve rural healthcare, strengthen education and expand economic opportunity—and hold every one of them accountable once the election is over.

Because this fight was never supposed to be about Democrats versus Republicans. It is about whether the places we call home will still be places our grandchildren can call home. Six million rural Americans living in poverty should matter to us.

Millions struggling with food insecurity should matter to us. More than four and a half million rural Americans without health insurance should matter to us. A child going to bed hungry tonight should matter to us. A hospital struggling to keep its doors open should matter to us. A farmer wondering whether this will be the generation that loses the family farm should matter to us.

A young person believing there is no future in their hometown should matter to us. Because they aren’t statistics. They’re our neighbors. And when your neighbor’s barn is burning, you don’t stand at the fence arguing about politics.

You grab a bucket.

Rural America’s barn is burning.

It’s time for all of us to grab a bucket.

What happens to a small town when its young people decide there is no future there?

Because that may ultimately be one of the most consequential effects of this law.

We talk about Medicaid cuts in billions of dollars. We talk about SNAP reductions, hospitals, insurance premiums, clinics, budgets and federal spending.

But behind all those numbers are young people making decisions. Where will I go to college? Where can I find a decent-paying job? Where can my wife safely have our baby? Can we afford health insurance? Will there be a hospital nearby if our child gets sick? Can we afford groceries, childcare and a house? Is this a place where I can actually build a life?

And increasingly, rural America is giving them an answer we cannot afford: Maybe you should leave.

Rural America Was Already Fighting to Keep Its Young People

The decline of many rural communities didn’t begin with the One Big Beautiful Bill.

For decades, small towns have struggled with population loss, aging residents, hospital closures, declining birth rates, consolidation of farms and businesses, limited childcare, housing shortages and the disappearance of good-paying local jobs.

Young people leave for college or work and too often never come home. That creates a vicious cycle. Fewer young families mean fewer children in the school. Fewer students eventually mean consolidation or closure. Fewer families mean fewer customers for local businesses. Fewer businesses mean fewer jobs. Fewer jobs push another generation toward the interstate.

And every time that happens, another little piece of the community disappears. That is why federal policy should be helping rural communities break that cycle. Instead, the One Big Beautiful Bill risks accelerating it.

Start With Healthcare

Nothing tells a young family whether a community has a future quite like healthcare.

You can talk about economic development all day long, but convincing a 28-year-old couple to move home becomes much harder when the nearest place to deliver a baby is an hour away.

It becomes harder when there isn’t a pediatrician nearby. It becomes harder when the local emergency room is struggling. And it becomes harder when health insurance itself becomes less accessible.

The One Big Beautiful Bill made enormous changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the law would reduce federal Medicaid spending by roughly $900 billion over ten years and ultimately increase the number of uninsured Americans by about 10 million, including roughly 7.5 million attributable to Medicaid changes.

Rural America is particularly exposed because Medicaid is woven into the financial structure of rural healthcare. Nearly half of rural births are paid for by Medicaid. Think about what that means. We say we want young people to stay in rural communities. We say we want young couples to get married, buy homes, start families and raise children in small towns. Then we weaken one of the primary financing mechanisms keeping maternity care available in those same communities. That isn’t a coherent rural development strategy.

A Hospital Is More Than a Hospital

When people in Washington talk about a rural hospital, they often discuss it as though it were simply another line on a healthcare spreadsheet.

People who live in rural America know better. The hospital is often one of the largest employers in the county. It employs nurses, technicians, receptionists, maintenance workers, therapists, administrators and food-service workers. Those employees buy houses. Their children attend local schools. They shop at the grocery store. They eat at local restaurants. They pay taxes. And the hospital itself is part of the infrastructure employers consider when deciding whether to locate in a community.

So when healthcare funding disappears, the consequences don’t stop at the emergency-room doors. They ripple down Main Street. A 2026 Commonwealth Fund analysis estimated that the health and nutrition funding changes associated with H.R. 1 and related coverage changes could result in 229,000 fewer jobs nationally in 2026. By 2029, the analysis projects 1.65 million fewer jobs, with Medicaid reductions responsible for much of that effect.

That is why the debate about rural healthcare cannot be separated from the debate about rural economic development. Healthcare is economic development.

Then There Is Food

The same law doesn’t stop with healthcare. It also makes major changes to SNAP. Again, Washington talks about these programs using acronyms and budget scores.

A rural mother doesn’t experience SNAP as an acronym. She experiences it at the checkout counter. A child experiences it as breakfast. A grocery store experiences it as revenue. And a struggling rural community experiences those dollars circulating through its local economy.

CBO’s distributional analysis found that the law reduces resources for households near the bottom of the income distribution while increasing resources for households in the middle and toward the top.

The Commonwealth Fund estimates the law reduces federal funding for Medicaid, ACA marketplaces and SNAP by approximately $1.3 trillion, while creating a $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program.

That $50 billion rural fund is real, and it should be acknowledged. CMS says the program provides $10 billion annually from fiscal years 2026 through 2030 for states to improve rural healthcare, including workforce development, chronic-disease management, technology and payments to providers. Those investments could help.

But they don’t erase the much larger reductions occurring elsewhere. FactCheck.org recently reviewed competing political claims about the law and concluded that while predictions about specific hospital closures should be treated cautiously, the Medicaid reductions are expected to outweigh the rural healthcare fund’s assistance overall.

That distinction matters. We shouldn’t exaggerate what we know. We don’t know exactly which hospital will close because of this law. We don’t know precisely how many young families will leave a particular county because maternity care disappears. But we absolutely know the direction of the pressure. And rural America was already under enormous pressure.

Imagine Being 25 Years Old in a Small Town

Forget Washington for a moment. Imagine you’re 25. You grew up in a town of 3,000 people. You love it. Your grandparents live there. Your parents live there. You know everybody at the grocery store. You want your children to grow up knowing their grandparents. You would actually like to stay. But you and your spouse start looking around. There aren’t enough good-paying jobs.

Childcare is difficult to find. The hospital has reduced services. The maternity ward is gone. Your health insurance is increasingly expensive. Housing isn’t nearly as cheap as outsiders assume. The school district is struggling because enrollment keeps declining. The local grocery store is barely hanging on. Suddenly the city two hours away doesn’t look like abandoning your hometown. It looks like taking care of your family. So you leave. Then your sister leaves. Then three of your classmates leave. Then somebody wonders why kindergarten enrollment fell again. Ten years later, somebody in Washington commissions a study asking why rural counties are losing population.

We know why.

You Cannot Save Rural America With Slogans

For years politicians have told rural Americans that they love small towns. Fine. Then prove it. If we want young people to stay, rural communities need the basic infrastructure of a decent life. That means a hospital within reasonable driving distance. It means maternity care. It means mental healthcare. It means affordable insurance.

It means childcare. It means strong public schools. It means broadband. It means housing people can afford. It means opportunities for young people who don’t want to leave home just to earn a living. And yes, it means making sure children have enough food to eat. Those aren’t giveaways.

They are infrastructure for human beings.

We would never recruit a factory to a town without electricity, water or roads. Why do we expect young families to build their lives in communities without healthcare, childcare, education and economic opportunity?

The Most Valuable Crop Rural America Produces

I’ve spent a lot of time traveling through small towns across this country. And I have become convinced of something. The most valuable thing rural America produces isn’t corn. It isn’t soybeans. It isn’t cattle. It isn’t timber. It isn’t coal.

It’s people. Teachers. Farmers. Nurses. Mechanics. Entrepreneurs. Doctors. Welders. Small-business owners. Mothers and fathers. Kids who grow up understanding community because they lived somewhere that still knew what the word meant.

For generations, rural America has raised remarkable young people—and then watched them leave. We cannot continue doing that and expect these communities to survive. A town cannot survive indefinitely by exporting its children.

This Is About 2040, Not Just 2026

That is what bothers me most about the One Big Beautiful Bill. The consequences shouldn’t be measured only in next year’s federal budget. We should measure them in who is still living in rural America fifteen years from now.

The child growing up in a small Missouri town today will be entering adulthood in the 2030s. Will there be a hospital there? Will there be a school? Will there be jobs? Will there be a grocery store? Will there be a place to raise a family? Or will we tell another generation that if they want healthcare, opportunity and economic security, they need to leave the communities that raised them?

Because once that generation leaves, getting them back is extraordinarily difficult. Businesses follow workers. Healthcare professionals follow population. Retail follows customers. Schools follow children. Population decline feeds upon itself. And eventually a community reaches a point where rebuilding becomes harder than preventing the decline would have been in the first place.

Rural America Doesn’t Need Charity

It needs investment. It needs policies built around a simple objective:

Make rural communities places where young people can build a good life.

Every major policy affecting rural America should face that test. Does this make it easier or harder for a 25-year-old to stay? Does it make it easier or harder to start a family? Does it make healthcare more accessible? Does it strengthen the local economy Does it keep the school open? Does it create opportunity? Does it give young people a reason to come home?

Because the greatest threat facing rural America isn’t simply losing another hospital, another grocery store or another business. It is losing another generation.

And if we allow that to happen, someday we may discover that the price of rebuilding rural America is far greater than what it would have cost simply to give its young people a reason to stay.

Voting for the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” should be one of those votes.

Any member of Congress who supported this law should have to answer for it every time they ask rural Americans for another term. They should not be allowed to hide behind slogans, party loyalty, culture-war distractions, or a handful of carefully selected provisions.

They voted for the entire bill. They voted for its Medicaid cuts. They voted for its healthcare coverage losses. They voted for its cuts to food assistance. They voted to shift enormous costs onto state governments.

They voted for policies that could weaken rural hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, grocery stores, and local economies.

And they arranged many of the law’s most painful consequences to arrive gradually—after the political celebration was over and, in several cases, after the next election. That vote should be disqualifying in rural America.

Rural healthcare was already in crisis

Before this law passed, rural America was already struggling with hospital closures, maternity-care deserts, physician shortages, long ambulance rides, and families traveling hours for specialty care.

Medicaid is one of the financial pillars holding this fragile system together. It covers children, pregnant women, people with disabilities, nursing-home residents, low-income workers, and many people working in jobs that do not provide affordable insurance.

It also pays rural hospitals and clinics for care they are already providing. When patients lose coverage, their medical needs do not disappear. They simply arrive at hospitals later, sicker, and frequently unable to pay.

The One Big Beautiful Bill is estimated to reduce federal Medicaid spending by approximately $911 billion over ten years. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the law itself would leave 10 million more Americans uninsured by 2034, including approximately 7.5 million because of Medicaid changes.

Those numbers are not abstract budget figures. They represent real people postponing cancer screenings, rationing medication, missing prenatal appointments, and waiting until an illness becomes an emergency.

They also represent unpaid bills arriving at rural hospitals that are already operating on thin or negative margins.

The National Rural Health Association warned that the law’s Medicaid reductions threaten both rural patients and the facilities that serve them. The Association estimated that rural hospitals could lose roughly 21 cents of every Medicaid dollar they otherwise would have received.

Congress added a temporary $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program and then used it as proof that rural hospitals had been protected. But the math tells a different story.

KFF estimated that rural areas could lose approximately $137 billion in federal Medicaid spending over ten years. The entire $50 billion rural fund, not all of which is guaranteed to go directly to hospitals, would offset only about 37 percent of those estimated rural Medicaid reductions. The fund is temporary; the Medicaid changes are much larger and more enduring. KFF’s examination of the rural fund makes that imbalance clear.

You do not rescue rural healthcare by removing $137 billion and returning $50 billion with strings attached. That is not a lifeline. It is a partial reimbursement for damage Congress deliberately created.

One Kansas farmer put it to me this way: “It’s like someone robbing everything in your house and then dropping a $5 bill on the floor on the way out to cover your inconvenience!”

The law punishes people who are already working

Supporters describe the Medicaid changes as “work requirements,” hoping rural voters will assume the law affects only people who refuse to work. That description ignores how rural economies actually function.

Many rural workers are employed in farming, construction, caregiving, hospitality, retail, food processing, and other industries where hours fluctuate and paperwork from employers may be difficult to obtain. Some people work seasonally. Some care for aging parents or disabled relatives. Others are between jobs, recovering from an illness, or living in a place where employment opportunities are scarce.

The law does not create a good job, provide transportation, supply childcare, or bring an employer to a struggling rural county. It creates reporting requirements.

People can lose coverage because they missed a notice, could not upload a document, changed addresses, had their hours reduced, or became trapped in an administrative mistake.

A farmer knows the difference between failing to do the work and failing to complete the paperwork. This law often treats them as though they are the same.

It takes food away from families

The law also imposes the largest federal reductions to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the program’s history. CBO’s estimates put the SNAP reduction at approximately $186 billion over ten years.

It expands time limits and work-reporting requirements, narrows exemptions, increases the administrative burden on states, and eventually forces states to assume part of the cost of SNAP benefits based on their payment-error rates.

Beginning in fiscal year 2027, states’ share of SNAP administrative costs rises from 50 percent to 75 percent. Beginning in fiscal year 2028, some states may also be required to pay as much as 15 percent of benefit costs. State and local government organizations have warned that the shift could cost individual states hundreds of millions—or even billions—of dollars.

State governments will then face a terrible choice: raise revenue, cut other services, reduce access to SNAP, or absorb costs that Washington previously paid. Rural communities will feel every option.

SNAP does not only help the person using an electronic benefit card. Those dollars are spent at local grocery stores, farmers markets, convenience stores, and other businesses. In small towns where grocery stores already survive on narrow margins, removing food dollars from the community can threaten the store everyone depends upon.

When a rural grocery store closes, the entire community loses—not only families receiving assistance.

It puts more pressure on states, counties, schools, and local taxpayers

Washington politicians often brag about “cutting federal spending” when what they have really done is send the bill down the road.

When federal Medicaid and SNAP support is reduced, the costs do not vanish. They move. They move to state budgets. They move to county governments. They move to hospital charity-care accounts. They move to food banks and churches. They move to public schools trying to help hungry children. They move to nursing homes already struggling to hire workers. They move to families caring for relatives who can no longer obtain services. And they eventually move to local taxpayers.

This is especially dangerous in rural states with limited tax bases. A wealthy metropolitan area may have the resources to replace some lost federal assistance. A declining rural county often does not.

The same lawmakers who created these shortfalls will eventually blame governors, state legislators, hospital administrators, and local officials for the service cuts that follow. Rural voters should remember who created the problem.

It threatens nursing homes and care for older Americans

Medicaid is not simply a health-insurance program for poor children and working-age adults. It is also the nation’s largest payer for long-term care.

Many older Americans spend their savings paying for care before becoming eligible for Medicaid. Rural nursing homes depend heavily on those reimbursements, yet many are already dealing with staffing shortages, rising costs, and inadequate payment rates.

When states lose federal Medicaid funding, they may reduce provider payments, restrict services, or tighten eligibility. Any of those responses can place additional pressure on rural nursing homes and home-based care.

A politician cannot claim to honor rural seniors while voting to weaken the program that pays for much of their long-term care.

The law rewards wealth while demanding sacrifice from rural families

Supporters point to tax provisions, higher farm-program reference prices, and crop-insurance changes as evidence that the law helps rural America. Some farmers and rural businesses may benefit from particular provisions.

Those provisions deserve to be evaluated honestly.

But a benefit in one section does not erase the damage in another. A higher reference price does not keep a hospital emergency room open. A tax deduction does not replace a closed maternity ward.

A crop-insurance improvement does not help a rural child who loses food assistance. An estate-tax provision does nothing for the family farm that fails because a medical crisis leaves the family buried in debt.

Rural Americans should reject the idea that we must trade our hospitals, healthcare, nursing homes, and hungry families for a collection of provisions politicians can advertise as “wins.”

We are allowed to demand an agricultural safety net and healthcare. We are allowed to demand support for family farms and food for children. We are allowed to demand tax fairness and functioning rural hospitals.

Rural America should not have to sacrifice one basic necessity to obtain another.

Accountability begins with the roll-call vote

This law was not an accident. Members of Congress had access to the warnings. Rural-health organizations told them what Medicaid reductions would mean. Hunger organizations explained what the SNAP changes would do. Hospitals warned about closures and service reductions. Budget analysts documented the coverage losses and costs.

They knew, or should have known, what they were voting for.

That is why the question for every incumbent who supported this law should be simple:

Why should rural America send you back to Washington after you voted to make our healthcare system weaker, our families less secure, and our communities more vulnerable?

Do not let them answer by changing the subject.

Do not let them blame immigrants, bureaucrats, governors, hospital administrators, or struggling families.

Do not let them take credit for a temporary rural fund without acknowledging the much larger Medicaid reductions surrounding it.

And do not let them pretend they were protecting rural America when their own recorded vote says otherwise.

If a politician was willing to gamble with our hospitals, our nursing homes, our children’s food, and our neighbors’ healthcare to satisfy party leadership, that politician has already told us where rural America ranks among their priorities.

We should believe them.

The next time these lawmakers return home wearing boots, standing beside tractors, shaking hands at county fairs, and telling us how much they love rural America, ask them about this vote.

Ask them what happens when the nearest hospital eliminates another service. Ask them what happens when a nursing home closes. Ask them what happens when a working parent loses Medicaid over paperwork. Ask them what happens when a state cannot afford its new SNAP obligation. Ask them why the harshest consequences were delayed while the political talking points arrived immediately.

Then remember this:

Standing with rural America is not a photograph. It is not a slogan. It is not a campaign advertisement. It is a voting record.

Anyone who voted for the Big Beautiful Bill voted against the long-term health and stability of rural America.

That vote should be a disqualifier.

Learn more about the fight for better rural healthcare, education, and economic opportunity by visiting BackFortyAction.org today!

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Sometimes it is a room full of people whose politics are very different from mine. Sometimes it is an event where I know what I am about to say will make people uncomfortable.

Other times, I am walking through the ha…

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That isn’t an exaggeration.

When I was 12 years old, I was involved in a farm accident. Like a lot of kids who grow up on farms, I learned very early that agriculture can be a wonderful way of life, but it can also be an incredibly dangerous one. An accident can happen in seconds, and sometimes the consequences don’t end when the wounds heal.

Mine didn’t.

The injuries I suffered as a kid contributed to a lifetime of problems with my back, arthritis, and nerve pain. There have been good days and bad days. There have been days when the pain has been background noise and days when it has been almost impossible to ignore.

Eventually, pain becomes something you learn to live around.

Then, at 47 years old, I received another diagnosis: diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis, or DISH.

That explained a lot.

What the heck is DISH?

DISH is a form of arthritis in which ligaments, tendons, and other soft tissues connected to the skeleton become hardened and calcified. It most commonly affects the spine. Calcium deposits can eventually lead to ossification—essentially bone forming where flexible tissue ought to be.

In my case, doctors told me that the ligaments in my back were approximately 40 percent calcified.

Think about what that means mechanically.

Your spine isn’t supposed to be a solid pole. Ligaments and joints allow it to bend, twist, and absorb the movements of everyday life. DISH progressively takes away some of that flexibility.

Cleveland Clinic explains that DISH commonly causes back and neck pain, stiffness, and loss of range of motion. Bone overgrowth can sometimes press against nerves, producing pain, numbness, tingling, or weakness. In severe cases, DISH can contribute to spinal cord compression. A spine made rigid by DISH can also be more vulnerable to fractures, sometimes even following relatively minor trauma.

There is currently no cure that simply makes DISH disappear.

And that brings me to something I’ve had to learn over the years.

Living with chronic pain and curing chronic pain are two very different things.

For many of us, the goal cannot always be getting to zero.

The goal becomes living.

Don’t let pain shrink your world

This may be the most important lesson I’ve learned.

Pain encourages you to stop doing things.

Your back hurts, so you don’t walk.

Moving hurts, so you sit.

Going somewhere requires more effort, so you stay home.

Eventually, the world can become smaller and smaller.

Unfortunately, complete inactivity can make the situation worse. Cleveland Clinic’s chronic-pain rehabilitation program warns that people in chronic pain sometimes restrict their activities so much that they lose physical conditioning. Eventually, even relatively minor activity can cause more pain.

That creates a terrible cycle:

Pain leads to inactivity.

Inactivity leads to weakness and reduced conditioning.

Reduced conditioning makes movement harder.

Harder movement creates more pain.

And more pain leads to even less activity.

Breaking that cycle doesn’t mean ignoring your body and pushing through dangerous pain. It means working with healthcare professionals to determine what level of movement your body can safely tolerate.

For someone like me, that’s particularly important because DISH can make the spine more vulnerable to injury.

Cleveland Clinic specifically recommends regular low-impact exercise for people with DISH to help maintain flexibility and strength. Physical therapy can help improve range of motion and teach appropriate exercises.

Mayo Clinic makes a similar point about chronic pain more generally. Walking, cycling, swimming, stretching, and appropriate strength training can help people manage chronic pain. Exercise strengthens muscles and ligaments and can reduce stress on painful joints.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do when you hurt is exactly what your body needs within safe limits:

Move.

Physical therapy isn’t just rehabilitation after surgery

I used to think of physical therapy primarily as something you did after an operation or an injury.

I’ve come to understand that for people living with chronic musculoskeletal pain, physical therapy can be part of long-term maintenance.

Mayo Clinic’s Pain Rehabilitation Center incorporates strengthening, stretching, and aerobic conditioning. Physical therapists also teach posture, body mechanics, and proper lifting techniques.

Those things sound simple until you’ve spent decades compensating for pain.

When one part of your body hurts, you change how you move. You favor one side. You bend differently. You stand differently. You avoid certain motions.

Those adaptations can create problems of their own.

A good physical therapist can help identify them.

Chronic pain isn’t only happening in your back

This is an area where I think we need to reduce some stigma.

Acknowledging the psychological component of chronic pain does not mean the pain is imaginary.

My arthritis is real.

My nerve pain is real.

The calcification in my spine is real.

But pain doesn’t exist independently of the brain and nervous system. Stress, fear, anxiety, exhaustion, and depression can influence how we experience it.

Cleveland Clinic recommends psychological approaches, including cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and mindfulness, as part of chronic pain treatment. These approaches aren’t designed to convince you that you don’t hurt. They teach skills for coping with the emotional burden of hurting.

Mayo Clinic’s pain rehabilitation programs similarly use cognitive behavioral therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy alongside physical therapy, occupational therapy, biofeedback, medication management, and pain education.

In other words, treating chronic pain sometimes means treating the entire person instead of simply treating the painful joint.

Sleep matters more than you think

Pain destroys sleep.

And poor sleep can make pain worse.

That can become another vicious cycle.

Mayo Clinic notes that sleep deprivation can worsen the experience of pain, while uncontrolled pain can interfere with sleep.

I’ve learned not to treat sleep as wasted time.

For someone living with chronic pain, sleep is part of taking care of yourself.

That means talking to your doctor when pain consistently prevents you from sleeping instead of simply accepting exhaustion as another unavoidable part of getting older.

Stress management isn’t nonsense

I know how some rural folks react when somebody starts talking about meditation, breathing exercises, and mindfulness.

I probably would have rolled my eyes at some of it myself when I was younger.

But there is legitimate medicine behind this.

Mayo Clinic recommends breathing exercises, mindfulness, and meaningful activities as tools that can be incorporated into chronic-pain management. Stress can intensify our experience of pain.

That doesn’t mean you can meditate arthritis away.

You can’t.

It means that if stress turns the volume knob on pain upward, learning to control stress can sometimes turn that knob back down.

That’s worth doing.

Medication can help—but it shouldn’t necessarily be the whole plan

There are certainly times when medication is appropriate. I do not take narcotics for pain on a daily basis. It is impossible given what I do every day.

Cleveland Clinic notes that treatments for chronic pain can include medications such as NSAIDs and muscle relaxers, along with injections, TENS, physical therapy, psychological therapy, and other approaches depending upon the underlying condition. For DISH specifically, treatment can include pain relievers and targeted corticosteroid injections, while surgery may sometimes become necessary when bone growth compresses nerves or other structures.

But one of the clearest lessons from modern pain medicine is that there isn’t one magic treatment.

Cleveland Clinic says research supports combining therapies rather than relying exclusively on a single treatment.

That’s an important shift in thinking.

The question isn’t necessarily:

What pill will make this stop?

It might be:

What combination of treatments will help me function better?

Medication might be part of that answer. So might physical therapy, exercise, better sleep, injections, occupational therapy, weight management, stress reduction, or psychological treatment.

And because medications have different risks and interactions, those decisions belong between an individual and their healthcare professionals.

Learn the difference between hurting and harming

This has been one of the hardest lessons for me.

When you’ve lived with pain for decades, you have to become a student of your own body.

Sometimes discomfort comes from using stiff muscles and joints that need appropriate movement.

Other times pain is your body screaming:

Stop. Something is wrong.

Those aren’t necessarily the same thing.

That’s particularly important with DISH. Cleveland Clinic warns that the rigid spine associated with advanced DISH can be more susceptible to fractures. New nerve symptoms can also indicate compression.

So I don’t believe in the old idea that you’re supposed to prove how tough you are by ignoring everything your body tells you.

There is nothing tough about turning a treatable injury into a permanent disability because you were too stubborn to see a doctor.

Keep doing things that give your life meaning

This one may be more important than all the others.

Mayo Clinic specifically recommends continuing meaningful activities as part of coping with chronic pain.

I understand why.

Pain has taken some things from me.

There are things my body simply doesn’t do the way it did when I was 20.

But I’m still a farmer.

I’m still a grandfather.

I’m still traveling.

I’m still speaking.

I’m still making videos.

I’m still working.

I’m still learning.

I’m still trying to make a difference.

And I’m still here.

I refuse to allow pain to become the most interesting thing about me.

Give yourself permission to do things differently

This may be especially difficult for people who grew up as I did.

On a farm, you learn to work.

Something needs lifted, you lift it.

Something needs to be carried; you carry it.

Something breaks, you fix it.

Something hurts, you finish the job anyway.

There is something admirable about that work ethic.

There can also be something destructive about it.

Occupational therapy is actually designed in part to help people figure out different ways to accomplish ordinary tasks when pain or disability interferes. That can include changing movements, modifying your environment, or using assistive devices.

Using a tool instead of brute force isn’t weakness.

Taking two trips instead of carrying everything at once isn’t weakness.

Sitting down when your body tells you it needs a break isn’t weakness.

Asking somebody to help you isn’t weakness.

Sometimes wisdom is simply learning that your 60-year-old body doesn’t have to prove something your 20-year-old body already proved.

The goal isn’t a pain-free life

I wish I could end this by giving you the secret that makes chronic pain disappear.

I can’t.

Neither can Mayo Clinic or Cleveland Clinic.

There are conditions for which medicine can identify and correct the underlying cause of pain. But for many people with chronic conditions, completely eliminating pain isn’t realistic. Cleveland Clinic describes successful chronic pain management as finding the right combination of treatments to reduce pain and improve quality of life.

I’ve been dealing with the consequences of an accident since I was 12 years old.

I’ve dealt with arthritis.

I’ve dealt with nerve pain.

At 47, I learned that I had DISH and that an extraordinary amount of the connective tissue along my spine had already calcified.

There have been surgeries, doctors, treatments, setbacks, and some miserable days along the way.

And yet I have lived a pretty remarkable life in this imperfect body.

Maybe that’s the lesson I want to leave with anyone else dealing with chronic pain.

Don’t make the mistake of postponing your life until the day you don’t hurt anymore.

Get medical help. Find good doctors. Move your body safely. Consider physical therapy. Protect your sleep. Manage your stress. Take medications appropriately. Pay attention when your symptoms change. Find ways to keep doing the things you love, even when you have to do them differently.

Most importantly, measure progress by more than the number on the pain scale.

Sometimes success isn’t waking up one morning to find your pain gone.

Sometimes success is waking up hurting—and still finding something worth getting out of bed for.

The referendum will appear on the November 3 ballot as Proposition A. A “yes” vote would approve the 2025 map contained in House Bill 1. A “no” vote would reject it.

The court also held that the new map cannot be used in the November 2026 general election. Instead, Missouri must conduct the election using the congressional districts adopted in 2022—the same districts used during the 2022 and 2024 elections.

That creates an unusual situation. Missouri conducted its August primary under the disputed 2025 map, but the November general election will be held under the 2022 districts.

Republican officials and candidates argue that changing maps between the primary and general elections creates confusion and could leave voters with nominees they did not select. That is a legitimate practical concern, particularly in the dramatically altered Fifth Congressional District.

But the Supreme Court’s decision makes another fact equally important: this dispute reached its decisive stage so late because Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins waited nearly eight months—and until the final afternoon permitted by law—to reject the referendum petition.

Why Missouri Was Redistricted Again

Congressional districts are normally redrawn once every ten years following the census. Missouri adopted a new congressional map in 2022 using population data from the 2020 census.

That map divided Missouri into six districts represented by Republicans and two represented by Democrats.

In 2025, President Donald Trump encouraged Republican-controlled states to redraw their congressional districts before the 2026 midterm elections. Republican Governor Mike Kehoe called Missouri lawmakers into a special session, during which the Republican-controlled Legislature passed House Bill 1.

The new map was designed to make the Kansas City-based Fifth Congressional District substantially more favorable to Republicans. The district is currently represented by Democrat Emanuel Cleaver.

Under House Bill 1, the district was extended eastward into heavily Republican rural areas. An Associated Press analysis estimated that approximately 59 percent of the voters in the reconstructed district had not previously been part of Cleaver’s district.

The proposed change could have shifted Missouri’s congressional delegation from its current six-to-two Republican advantage to a potential seven-to-one advantage. Unlike the 2022 redistricting, this change was not prompted by a new census or a change in Missouri’s number of congressional seats. It was part of a national mid-decade redistricting campaign connected to control of the closely divided United States House.

Missourians Turned to the Referendum Process

Missouri’s Constitution reserves referendum power to the people. Through that process, citizens can collect enough valid signatures to place a law passed by the General Assembly before voters.

Governor Kehoe signed House Bill 1 on September 28, 2025. The referendum campaign filed its proposal the following day.

Secretary Hoskins approved the petition for circulation on October 15. On that same day, however, Hoskins, the Legislature and the attorney general went to court arguing that the referendum power did not apply to congressional redistricting legislation.

A judge dismissed that initial lawsuit on December 8.

On December 9—two days before House Bill 1 was scheduled to take effect—People Not Politicians submitted more than 305,000 signatures supporting the referendum.

The number of valid signatures required depended on the congressional districts in which they were collected, but the required total was estimated to fall between 106,384 and 115,720. The campaign therefore submitted nearly three times the potential minimum requirement.

Hoskins did not issue his final decision in December.

The petition remained under review throughout the following months. On August 4, 2026—the day of Missouri’s primary election—Hoskins waited until 4 p.m. on the final statutory deadline to reject it.

Hoskins did not reject the petition because it lacked enough verified signatures. He concluded that Missouri’s constitutional referendum process could not legally be used to challenge a congressional redistricting act.

That decision led to another lawsuit and, ultimately, the Missouri Supreme Court ruling.

What the Supreme Court Decided

The seven-member Missouri Supreme Court unanimously reversed the lower court and rejected Hoskins’ legal interpretation.

“The referendum petition was legal, sufficient, and timely, and the secretary incorrectly concluded otherwise,” the court wrote.

The court’s unanimity is notable because five of its seven judges were appointed by Republican governors.

Republican officials had argued that the federal Constitution gives state legislatures authority over congressional elections and prevents voters from using a referendum to reject a legislatively drawn map.

The Missouri Supreme Court disagreed. Missouri’s Constitution allows voters to use a referendum against “any act” of the General Assembly except for specifically listed categories. Congressional redistricting is not among those exceptions.

The court consequently determined that House Bill 1 did not take effect and cannot take effect unless Missouri voters approve it.

That legal conclusion explains why Missouri must return to the 2022 districts for the general election. The court did not independently select a map or draw new boundaries. It ruled that the 2022 map remains the only legally operative congressional map because House Bill 1 never took effect.

The secretary subsequently asked the court to pause its decision, but the Missouri Supreme Court denied that request. Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway has said she intends to seek relief from the United States Supreme Court.

Who Is Responsible for the Late Change?

Governor Kehoe, President Trump, Attorney General Hanaway and several Republican candidates have criticized the ruling. They argue that changing districts after the primary disrupts the election and affects voters who selected candidates under the House Bill 1 boundaries.

Republican Rick Brattin won his primary in the reconstructed Fifth District. He contends that returning to the previous boundaries disenfranchises primary voters who could now find themselves placed in different districts.

The disruption is undeniable. But the Supreme Court specifically addressed the argument that the case was decided too close to the general election.

Hoskins received the referendum signatures in December 2025. He did not reject the petition until nearly eight months later, at 4 p.m. on August 4, 2026—the final deadline and the day of the primary.

Reuters reported that the court placed responsibility for the timing “squarely on Hoskins.” In other words, the court concluded that state officials could not rely on problems created by the delay as a reason to deny Missourians their constitutional referendum rights.

Had Hoskins ruled on the petition months earlier, the legal challenge could also have begun months earlier. Instead, Missouri held its primary while the referendum’s legal status remained unresolved.

The late change was therefore not simply the product of a court unexpectedly intervening after an election. It followed an eight-month administrative process controlled by the Republican secretary of state, an adverse decision issued on the final deadline and the litigation that followed.

What Proposition A Will Decide

Unless a federal court intervenes, the November 2026 congressional election will be held under Missouri’s 2022 districts.

Proposition A will determine whether House Bill 1 and its replacement map may take effect for future elections:

• A “yes” vote approves the 2025 congressional map.

• A “no” vote rejects the 2025 congressional map and keeps it from taking effect.

That distinction is important. The vote on Proposition A will not determine which map is used in the November 2026 election. The Missouri Supreme Court has already ruled that the 2022 map governs that election because House Bill 1 never legally took effect.

The larger principle is that Missouri’s Constitution gives citizens a direct role in reviewing acts of the General Assembly. More than 305,000 Missourians signed petitions asking for a statewide vote on the new congressional boundaries.

Republican lawmakers had the authority to pass House Bill 1. But Missouri voters also had the constitutional authority to challenge it through a referendum.

The Missouri Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling preserves both parts of that process. Legislators may enact a congressional map, but when citizens satisfy Missouri’s referendum requirements, the final decision belongs to the voters.

It isn’t really a story about Donald Trump.

It is a story about us.

It is about whether ordinary Americans still have the power to stand up to a president, challenge the federal government, defend their constitutional rights, and force the most powerful people in the country to obey the law.

And the answer, at least so far, is yes.

Over the last year and a half, the Trump administration has pursued an extraordinary collection of efforts involving voter registration, proof of citizenship, mail ballots, state voter rolls, federal voter databases, and federal control over election administration.

Whatever your political affiliation, there is an important constitutional principle underneath these fights: a president does not get to rewrite American election law by himself.

The Constitution divides that power primarily between the states and Congress.

And when the administration has attempted to go beyond those boundaries, states, nonprofit organizations, voting-rights groups and individual citizens have gone to court.

Again and again, they have won.

That should remind every American of something we desperately need to remember:

The president is powerful. The people are more powerful.

It Started With Trump’s 2025 Election Executive Order

On March 25, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order seeking sweeping changes to federal elections.

Among its most controversial provisions was a requirement that people using the national voter-registration form provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship, such as a passport or other qualifying document.

Trump argued these measures were necessary to protect election integrity.

His opponents argued that the president simply did not possess the constitutional authority to impose them.

The courts repeatedly agreed with the challengers.

A federal judge initially blocked the documentary proof-of-citizenship provision in April 2025. Another federal court subsequently blocked additional provisions. By October 2025, a federal court had permanently barred the Election Assistance Commission from carrying out Trump’s documentary-proof requirement.

The basic constitutional problem was straightforward: the president cannot simply assume powers over elections that the Constitution gives to Congress and the states. (cbsnews.com⁠)

And it didn’t stop there.

Military Families and Americans Overseas Won Too

Trump’s order also sought to impose additional documentary citizenship requirements on members of the military and other Americans living overseas who use the Federal Post Card Application to register and request absentee ballots.

Think about who we’re talking about.

An American service member stationed overseas.

A military spouse living with that service member.

An American citizen temporarily living abroad.

Congress already created a federal system specifically designed to help these Americans participate in elections.

The Trump administration attempted to add another federal requirement.

A federal court permanently blocked that provision as well, concluding that the president lacked the authority to impose it and that Congress had deliberately created the overseas voting system to remove procedural barriers rather than create additional ones. (brennancenter.org⁠, law.justia.com⁠)

Then Came the Fight Over Mail Ballots

Trump’s 2025 executive order also targeted states that allow mail ballots to be counted when they arrive shortly after Election Day, provided the ballots were cast according to state law.

Federal courts blocked enforcement of that portion of the order against numerous states that challenged it.

The issue wasn’t whether someone personally likes mail voting.

The issue was who gets to write election law.

States have enormous constitutional authority over the mechanics of their elections, while Congress has specifically enumerated powers to regulate federal elections.

The president does not possess a free-standing constitutional power to replace those rules with his own.

That distinction has repeatedly mattered in court. (brennancenter.org⁠)

Then the Justice Department Went After State Voter Rolls

The administration opened another enormous front.

The Justice Department demanded extensive voter-registration information from states across the country, including data that states argued contained sensitive personal information.

When states refused, DOJ sued.

And this is where the scale of the resistance becomes remarkable.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, as of August 18, federal courts had dismissed the initial DOJ voter-list cases against:

Arizona.
California.
Colorado.
Connecticut.
Illinois.
Kentucky.
Maine.
Maryland.
Massachusetts.
Michigan.
Minnesota.
Nevada.
New Hampshire.
New Jersey.
New Mexico.
New York.
Oregon.
Pennsylvania.
Rhode Island.
Virginia.
West Virginia.
Wisconsin.

That’s 22 states where initial cases had been dismissed.

Many of those cases are being appealed, meaning the legal battle isn’t necessarily finished. Other DOJ voter-data cases remain pending. But the district-court record has nevertheless been striking. (ncsl.org⁠)

And understand something else about these decisions.

This hasn’t simply been Democratic judges protecting Democratic states.

For example, the federal judge who dismissed the government’s case against Colorado was Philip Brimmer, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush. (axios.com⁠)

That matters.

Because constitutional limits aren’t supposed to belong to Democrats or Republicans.

They belong to Americans.

Then the Federal Voter Database Was Blocked

The administration also dramatically expanded the federal SAVE system — originally designed to help government agencies verify immigration status for benefit eligibility — for checking voter citizenship.

The revamped system allowed massive batches of voter records to be checked against federal information.

But there was a serious problem.

American citizens could be incorrectly flagged.

That wasn’t merely theoretical.

One naturalized American citizen in Texas was temporarily removed from the voter rolls after the system incorrectly identified him as a potential noncitizen.

In June 2026, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan blocked the revamped system.

Her decision focused heavily on federal privacy protections and evidence that American citizens could be incorrectly identified and removed from voter rolls.

The judge wrote that the federal government had violated Americans’ privacy in a way that threatened voting rights. (texastribune.org⁠, apnews.com⁠)

Again, Americans challenged their government.

And they won.

Trump Tried Again in 2026

Then came another extraordinary escalation.

On March 31, 2026, Trump issued another election executive order.

This one sought to create federal citizenship lists and dramatically expand the federal government’s role in mail voting.

Among other things, the order envisioned a system in which the Postal Service would not transmit certain mail ballots unless voters appeared on federally approved lists.

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia challenged major portions of the order.

In June, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ruled against major provisions.

Her conclusion went to the heart of this entire constitutional fight: election administration cannot simply be transferred from the states to the executive branch because the president wants it there. (washingtonpost.com⁠, docs.justia.com⁠)

The administration appealed.

The First Circuit initially upheld the lower court’s restrictions. (cbsnews.com⁠)

Then the dispute reached the Supreme Court.

And this part is important because we shouldn’t pretend every ruling has gone one direction.

On August 24, the Supreme Court handed the administration a procedural victory, allowing implementation efforts to proceed while emphasizing issues involving the timing and procedural posture of the litigation rather than finally resolving whether Trump’s underlying election system is lawful. (supremecourt.gov⁠)

The administration subsequently moved forward with Postal Service rules implementing its policy.

So the states went right back to court.

And on August 27, Judge Talwani blocked the new rule for two weeks, just as mail ballots are preparing to go out for the 2026 midterm elections.

The next major hearing is scheduled for September 3.

So this particular fight is very much alive. (apnews.com⁠)

And that may be the most important lesson of all.

Democracy Isn’t Something That Happens to Us

We have developed a terrible habit in America.

We talk about government as though it is some distant force over which ordinary people have no control.

We say:

“They’ll do whatever they want.”

“Nothing can stop them.”

“My vote doesn’t matter.”

“The system is rigged.”

“There’s nothing ordinary people can do.”

But look at what actually happened.

A president signed an executive order.

Americans challenged it.

A court blocked it.

The administration tried another approach.

States challenged that.

Another court blocked major portions of it.

The federal government demanded sensitive voter information.

States said no.

The Justice Department sued.

Court after court dismissed those cases.

The federal government expanded a massive citizenship-checking database.

Citizens and organizations challenged it.

A judge blocked it.

The administration tried to change the rules governing mail ballots.

States sued again.

And as of this writing, another federal judge has again temporarily stopped the latest implementation effort.

This isn’t evidence that American democracy is indestructible.

It isn’t.

It is evidence that American democracy works when Americans work it.

The Constitution Is Just Paper Without People

There is something we sometimes misunderstand about the Constitution.

We talk about it almost as though the document itself protects us.

It doesn’t.

It’s paper.

The First Amendment is paper.

The right to vote is words printed on paper.

Separation of powers is an idea written on paper.

Federalism is an idea written on paper.

None of those things can walk into a courthouse.

None can file a lawsuit.

None can organize a community.

None can register a voter.

None can become an election worker.

None can call a legislator.

None can stand before a judge and say:

The government has exceeded its authority.

People have to do that.

Institutions only survive when people are willing to defend them.

And That Is Why Voting Matters So Much

Here’s the irony.

Every fight over voting ultimately reminds us why voting matters.

Politicians don’t spend enormous amounts of money fighting over election rules because your vote is meaningless.

Political parties don’t employ armies of lawyers fighting over ballots because voting doesn’t matter.

Campaigns don’t spend billions of dollars trying to persuade you because citizens don’t have power.

They do it precisely because you do.

There are roughly 340 million Americans.

There is one president.

There are 535 voting members of Congress.

There are nine Supreme Court justices.

And there are millions upon millions of ordinary Americans who decide who governs this country.

That is where the ultimate power of the American system resides.

Not in Washington.

Not in a political party.

Not in a television studio.

Not in a billionaire’s bank account.

In the people.

This Isn’t About Whether You Like Donald Trump

And I want to make something very clear.

This principle cannot depend upon who occupies the White House.

If a Democratic president attempted to seize election powers that the Constitution gives to Congress and the states, conservatives should challenge that president.

If a Republican president does it, liberals should challenge him.

And independents should demand the same constitutional boundaries from both.

Because once we decide constitutional limits only matter when the other political party controls the government, they aren’t constitutional limits anymore.

They’re political weapons.

The test is simple:

Would you be comfortable giving the same power to a president you absolutely despise?

If the answer is no, then you probably shouldn’t give it to the president you love either.

The People Still Have the Power

America is angry right now.

We are divided.

We are exhausted.

A lot of people have simply checked out.

And cynicism may be one of the greatest dangers facing the country because cynicism convinces people to surrender their power voluntarily.

Don’t.

You don’t have to agree with your neighbor about Donald Trump.

You don’t have to agree about immigration.

You don’t have to agree about abortion, guns, taxes, healthcare or agriculture.

But surely we can still agree on this:

Presidents are not kings.

Laws matter.

Courts matter.

States matter.

Congress matters.

Free speech matters.

Peaceful protest matters.

And voting matters.

The extraordinary string of election-law defeats and setbacks the Trump administration has suffered demonstrates something bigger than one president.

It demonstrates that the machinery of American constitutional government is still capable of saying no.

But that machinery doesn’t operate by magic.

People filed those lawsuits.

People organized those challenges.

State officials refused demands they believed were unlawful.

Lawyers walked into courtrooms.

Judges — appointed by presidents from both parties — applied the law.

Citizens paid attention.

And millions of Americans will soon walk into voting booths and make their own decisions about who should govern them.

That’s democracy.

Messy.

Frustrating.

Slow.

Imperfect.

But extraordinarily powerful.

So the next time somebody tells you there’s nothing you can do, remember what has happened in courtrooms across this country.

Remember the states that stood their ground.

Remember the citizens who challenged their government.

Remember the judges who told the executive branch that there are constitutional boundaries it cannot cross.

And above all, remember this:

The government does not grant the American people their power.

The American people grant the government its power.

And when enough Americans remember that simple fact, there is no president, no Congress, no political party and no billionaire more powerful than the people of the United States of America.

We still have the power.

The only question is whether we will use it.

People are hurting.

Not just politically. Not just economically. Not just because the price of fertilizer went up, the hospital cut another service, the grocery bill got bigger, or another family farm is struggling to make the numbers work.

People are hurting emotionally.

And I think we need to start saying that out loud.

Because behind every statistic we talk about at The Back Forty, there is a human being.

Behind the farm bankruptcy number is somebody sitting at the kitchen table after everyone else has gone to bed, staring at bills and wondering how they’re going to keep land that’s been in the family for generations.

Behind the rural hospital closure is a grandmother wondering how she’s going to make a two-hour drive for treatment.

Behind the healthcare cuts is a parent wondering whether they can afford to take their child to the doctor.

Behind the price of groceries is somebody standing in a store putting things back on the shelf.

Behind the economic statistics are marriages under strain, families arguing about money, people losing sleep, and folks quietly wondering whether the future they spent their entire lives building is slipping away.

Those stories matter.

Rural America Has Been Carrying a Heavy Load

For years, rural Americans have been told to be tough.

We’re supposed to work harder.

Make do.

Fix it ourselves.

Keep going.

Don’t complain.

And there is something admirable about that kind of resilience. It helped build rural communities in the first place.

But there’s a difference between being strong and pretending something doesn’t hurt.

You can love your farm and admit you’re scared of losing it.

You can be grateful for your family and admit you’re worried about paying the bills.

You can be a person of faith and still have days when you’re frightened, angry, exhausted or confused.

You can be the person everybody else depends on and still occasionally need somebody to lean on yourself.

Strength isn’t pretending the load isn’t heavy. Sometimes strength is finally telling somebody how heavy it has become.

We Have to Start Telling Our Stories

One of the most important things we can do right now is tell the truth about what is happening in our lives.

Not somebody else’s talking points.

Not what a politician tells us we’re supposed to believe.

Our stories.

Tell people what happened when your hospital eliminated a service.

Tell them what your health insurance costs.

Tell them what you’re paying for seed, fertilizer, fuel and equipment.

Tell them what cattle brought.

Tell them what corn brought.

Tell them what your grocery bill looks like.

Tell them what happened to your school.

Tell them what it’s like watching your hometown lose businesses, young families and opportunities.

And don’t stop with the economics.

Tell people what it feels like.

Because spreadsheets can explain what is happening to rural America.

Stories explain what it is doing to rural Americans.

There is enormous power in saying:

This happened to me.

This happened to my family.

This happened to my farm.

This happened to my town.

Once thousands of people begin telling those stories, it becomes much harder for anyone in power to pretend everything is fine.

We Need Each Other Again

There is another lesson rural America used to understand better than almost anybody:

Nobody makes it entirely on their own.

Neighbors helped neighbors put up hay.

People brought casseroles when somebody got sick.

Churches passed the plate when a family lost everything.

Someone’s tractor broke down and another farmer showed up.

A barn burned and half the county came to help.

A family buried somebody they loved and the community surrounded them.

That wasn’t weakness.

That was rural America.

Maybe one of the things this difficult period is reminding us is how badly we still need one another.

Call your friends.

Check on your neighbors.

Sit down with your parents.

Talk to your children.

Have coffee with somebody you’ve been meaning to see.

If somebody tells you they’re struggling, don’t immediately try to solve everything. Sometimes people just need another human being to listen.

And if you’re the one struggling, tell somebody.

There is no medal waiting for the person who carries every burden alone.

And For Many of Us, There Is Faith

For generations, spiritual belief has helped rural families endure things that seemed impossible.

Drought.

Flood.

War.

Disease.

Depression.

Crop failures.

Accidents.

Death.

And periods of tremendous economic uncertainty.

Faith doesn’t mean believing nothing bad will happen.

It means believing that hardship does not get the final word.

Different people find that spiritual strength in different traditions and different ways. But for millions of rural Americans, prayer, worship, scripture, fellowship and the belief that our lives have meaning beyond today’s troubles remain powerful sources of hope.

Sometimes faith doesn’t move the mountain.

Sometimes it gives us enough strength to climb it.

And sometimes it reminds us to grab somebody else’s hand along the way.

Something Is Changing

For all the difficult stories I’ve heard, I am also increasingly hopeful.

Because attitudes in rural America are changing.

People are asking different questions.

They’re looking more closely at who actually benefits from government policy.

They’re questioning whether policies advertised as helping working people actually reach working people.

They’re asking why enormous corporations can prosper while independent producers struggle.

They’re asking why rural hospitals keep disappearing.

They’re asking why schools are expected to accomplish more with less.

They’re asking why people who work hard their entire lives can still be one illness, one drought, one bad crop year or one economic downturn away from disaster.

Most importantly, people are talking to one another.

That’s where change begins.

Not in Washington.

Not on cable television.

Not inside some political consulting firm.

It begins around kitchen tables.

In sale barns.

At coffee shops.

In churches.

At county fairs.

At school ballgames.

On front porches.

And increasingly, online, where people from communities hundreds of miles apart are discovering:

“Wait a minute. This isn’t just happening to me.”

That realization is powerful.

Because isolation tells us our problems are personal failures.

Community helps us recognize when they are shared problems requiring shared solutions.

Rural America Has Been Through Worse

Our grandparents and great-grandparents survived things most of us can barely imagine.

They survived depressions and droughts.

They survived wars.

They survived epidemics.

They watched crops fail and banks close.

They buried people they loved.

And somehow they planted again the next spring.

That’s the part of rural America I refuse to give up on.

We don’t need to romanticize suffering. Poverty isn’t noble. Losing a farm isn’t character building. Being unable to afford healthcare isn’t some test of personal responsibility.

We should fight like hell to change policies that make people’s lives unnecessarily difficult.

But while we’re fighting to change those things, we also have to take care of each other.

Because policy eventually changes.

Elections come and go.

Markets rise and fall.

Hard times don’t last forever.

People can rebuild.

Communities can recover.

And America can choose a different direction.

There Is Light Ahead

I know some people don’t feel that right now.

I understand why.

When you’re standing in the middle of a storm, somebody telling you the sun will eventually shine doesn’t make you any less wet.

But I’ve traveled through rural America. I’ve talked with people in towns large and small. I’ve listened to farmers, healthcare workers, teachers, parents, retirees, business owners and people who simply want their communities to have a fighting chance.

And underneath the frustration, I keep finding something else.

Hope.

People haven’t given up.

They’re paying attention.

They’re organizing.

They’re speaking up.

They’re finding each other.

They’re realizing that loving rural America means demanding something better for it.

And that gives me tremendous hope.

So if you’re struggling tonight, don’t convince yourself you’re the only one.

Talk to somebody you trust.

Lean on your family.

Lean on your friends.

Lean on your neighbors.

Lean on your faith.

And tomorrow, get up and keep going.

Tell your story.

Listen to somebody else’s.

Help somebody when you can.

Accept help when you need it.

And remember that generations of rural Americans walked difficult roads before us and somehow found their way through.

We will too.

The road may be rough.

The hill may be steep.

But attitudes are changing. People are waking up. Communities are finding their voices again.

And somewhere beyond this difficult stretch of road, there is light.

Keep walking toward it.

For immediate help from a caring, skilled counselor, please call or text 988 to speak with someone from 988lifeline.org

(if we can use our platform at The Back Forty to help you get your personal story out there for others to hear. Just send us an email at thebackfortyfamily@gmail.com)

That isn’t exactly breaking news. People don’t trust politicians. They don’t trust political parties. They don’t trust cable news. Increasingly, they don’t trust the institutions that are supposed to tell them what is true.

And I understand why.

We live in an age when practically anybody can pull out a phone, make a confident-sounding claim, slap some dramatic music behind it, and send it to hundreds of thousands of people before anyone bothers to ask the most important question:

Is it true?

That question matters to me.

It matters because The Back Forty talks about things that have real consequences for real people: agriculture, rural healthcare, education, trade, farm policy, hospitals, food assistance, energy costs, and the economic future of rural America.

These aren’t abstract political arguments.

When a rural hospital closes, somebody has to drive another 40 miles to an emergency room.

When fertilizer prices rise, somebody has to figure out whether they can afford to plant the same number of acres next spring.

When a school district loses funding, somebody’s kid loses a teacher, a bus route, a program, or an opportunity.

When policymakers change Medicaid or SNAP, the consequences don’t stay inside the Beltway.

They eventually arrive on Main Street.

That’s why I want to explain something that I don’t talk about nearly enough:

How The Back Forty does its research—and why you should hold us accountable for getting it right.

We Start With Sources, Not Talking Points

There is an enormous difference between researching an issue and looking for evidence to support something you already believe.

The second one is easy.

Pick your conclusion first, search the internet until you find somebody who agrees with you, and declare victory.

That’s not what we’re trying to do here.

When we’re looking at an issue affecting rural America, we try to start with the underlying information.

That means government statistics. Agency reports. Academic research. Agricultural economists. Healthcare researchers. Congressional documents. Legislation. Industry data. University extension programs. And reporting from journalists and publications that specialize in the subject we’re discussing.

If we’re talking about rural healthcare, for example, I don’t want to base an argument on somebody’s Facebook meme.

I want to know what the federal data says. I want to know what rural-health researchers say. I want to know what hospitals themselves are reporting. I want to know what the demographics look like and what the numbers tell us about access to care.

The same principle applies to agriculture.

If we’re talking about soybeans, cattle, fertilizer, farm debt, exports, or commodity prices, there are enormous amounts of publicly available data.

Let’s look at it.

Showing the Receipts Matters

One of the phrases we’ve embraced around The Back Forty is:

Show me the receipts.

There’s a reason for that.

You shouldn’t believe something simply because I said it.

You should be able to examine the evidence yourself.

Whenever possible, I want our content to point people toward the original information. If I tell you a number came from USDA, you ought to be able to find the USDA data. If I’m discussing rural healthcare statistics, you ought to be able to see where those numbers originated.

And if the evidence doesn’t support what I’m saying?

Then you shouldn’t accept my argument.

That’s how this is supposed to work.

The goal isn’t to create another tribe of people who automatically believe everything their favorite media personality tells them.

America already has plenty of that.

The goal is to create better-informed citizens who know where to look for information and aren’t afraid to challenge the people giving it to them—including me.

Data Doesn’t Have a Political Party

One of the strangest developments in modern politics is our tendency to treat basic facts as though they belong to one political party or another.

They don’t.

A corn price isn’t Republican or Democratic.

A hospital balance sheet doesn’t vote.

A farmer’s operating loan doesn’t care which cable-news network you watch.

Neither does the distance between your house and the nearest emergency room.

Rural America has serious problems, and those problems deserve more than partisan reflexes.

Sometimes the facts are going to make Republicans uncomfortable.

Sometimes they’re going to make Democrats uncomfortable.

Sometimes they’re going to challenge something I’ve previously believed.

Good.

That’s what evidence is supposed to do.

If your research can never possibly change your mind, you aren’t researching.

You’re recruiting.

Being Wrong Is Different From Being Dishonest

I also want to make something clear.

The Back Forty is not infallible.

I’m not infallible.

We are going to make mistakes.

Anyone producing this much material about complicated subjects eventually will.

The important question isn’t whether somebody ever gets something wrong.

The important question is what they do when they discover it.

If we get a fact wrong, I want to correct it.

If better evidence becomes available, I want to incorporate it.

If somebody can show that I’ve misunderstood a study, misinterpreted a statistic, or overlooked important context, I want to know.

That isn’t weakness.

That’s how credible research works.

Science changes when new evidence appears. Economic forecasts change when new numbers arrive. Government statistics get revised. Policies change. Markets move.

Our understanding should be capable of changing too.

Rural America Deserves Better Information

There is another reason I’m so serious about this.

For decades, rural Americans have often been treated as an audience to be persuaded rather than people to be informed.

Politicians show up and tell us what they think we want to hear.

Advocacy groups send us carefully tested messages.

Political consultants turn complicated economic problems into slogans.

Then everybody disappears until the next election.

Meanwhile, the hospital is still struggling.

The school is still cutting programs.

The farmer is still trying to make the operating note.

The town is still losing population.

The grocery store is still hanging on.

And the kids are still wondering whether there is enough opportunity at home to stay.

Those problems aren’t going to be solved by another viral political meme.

They’re going to require serious policy.

And serious policy requires serious information.

The Back Forty Has a Point of View

None of this means The Back Forty doesn’t have values.

We absolutely do.

We believe rural Americans deserve access to quality healthcare.

We believe family farmers deserve a fighting chance.

We believe rural children deserve good schools.

We believe small towns deserve economic opportunity.

We believe concentrated corporate power deserves scrutiny when it hurts producers or consumers.

We believe government policy should be judged by what it actually does to people—not by which political party proposed it.

And above all, we believe rural Americans deserve a seat at the table where decisions about their future are being made.

Those values influence the questions we ask.

But they should never give us permission to manufacture the answers.

That’s the distinction that matters.

Don’t Just Trust The Back Forty

So when somebody asks me, “Why should I trust The Back Forty?” my answer is actually pretty simple.

Don’t just trust us.

Check us.

Read the sources.

Look at the numbers.

Follow the citations.

Challenge our conclusions.

Tell us when you think we’re wrong.

And demand the same thing from everybody else asking for your attention.

Because the future of rural America is too important to build on misinformation—regardless of whether that misinformation comes from the left, the right, a politician, a corporation, a television network, or somebody with a smartphone and a million followers.

We can disagree about policy.

We can disagree about politics.

We can disagree about what the solution ought to be.

But we ought to at least make an effort to begin the conversation with the same set of facts.

That’s what we’re trying to build with The Back Forty.

Not another echo chamber.

Not another place where you’re told what to think.

A place where rural America can talk honestly about what’s happening, look at the evidence, and figure out what the hell we’re going to do about it.

Because rural America deserves nothing less.

Show me the receipts.

How many times are we going to let a billionaire convince working people that he’s the working man’s candidate?

Vivek Ramaswamy wants Ohioans to believe he’s riding into politics to take on the establishment. He talks about farmers. He talks about small towns. He talks about freedom, bureaucracy and government waste.

But rural voters shouldn’t buy a political sales pitch without looking underneath the hood.

Because there is a big difference between talking like a populist and governing like one.

At the heart of Ramaswamy’s economic philosophy is a familiar prescription: shrink government, cut taxes, deregulate and put more faith in the market.

Rural America has been running that experiment for decades.

The market consolidated meatpacking. The market helped move businesses and jobs out of small towns. The market determined that many rural communities weren’t profitable enough to support hospitals, grocery stores, pharmacies, and broadband investment.

Yet every few election cycles, another wealthy politician arrives in farm country promising that giving the people at the top even more economic freedom and power will somehow rescue the people at the bottom.

Rural Ohio should be asking harder questions.

What Happens When You Take a Chainsaw to Government?

During his presidential campaign, Ramaswamy proposed eliminating more than 75 percent of the federal civilian workforce.

That sounds terrific in a campaign speech about Washington bureaucrats.

It sounds a little different when you’re standing in a farm field after a drought.

Who administers disaster assistance?

Who handles farm loans?

Who administers conservation programs?

Who monitors animal disease?

Who conducts agricultural research?

Who helps administer the programs farmers depend on when commodity prices collapse, or Mother Nature wipes out a crop?

Government employees do.

There is plenty of waste in government, and taxpayers should demand efficiency and accountability. Employees who don’t do their jobs should be held accountable, and programs that don’t work should be changed or eliminated.

But there is a difference between reforming government and simply gutting it.

You can’t fire three out of every four people and magically keep all the work getting done.

That distinction matters enormously in rural America.

Rural America Doesn’t Fit Neatly on a Billionaire’s Spreadsheet

One of the great economic realities of rural America is something politicians rarely acknowledge:

Rural America isn’t always profitable.

Consider a water system serving 500 families compared with one serving 50,000 people.

Think about laying miles of fiber-optic cable down country roads to reach a few dozen homes versus wiring an apartment complex containing hundreds of customers.

Consider operating an ambulance service covering hundreds of square miles versus one serving a densely populated city.

Rural communities depend upon public investment precisely because there are services the private market either cannot or will not provide profitably.

That’s why rural Americans ought to get nervous whenever politicians promise to run government exactly like a business.

If rural America were judged exclusively by quarterly earnings expectations, enormous portions of rural America would simply be closed.

A community isn’t a corporation.

Sometimes society decides that something is worth doing even when there isn’t a profit in doing it.

Medicaid Isn’t Just a Line on a Spreadsheet

Ramaswamy has talked about attacking fraud and waste in Medicaid.

Good.

Go after it.

Every dollar stolen from taxpayers should be pursued, and people defrauding public programs should be prosecuted.

But rural Ohio should ask the next question:

What happens if eliminating fraud doesn’t produce all the savings politicians promised?

Because Medicaid isn’t an abstract Washington spending program when you live in rural Ohio.

It helps pay rural doctors.

It helps sustain rural hospitals.

It helps support nursing homes.

It provides healthcare for people living in communities where the healthcare infrastructure may already be hanging by a thread.

The legitimate debate isn’t whether fraud should be eliminated. Of course it should.

The question is whether promises to eliminate “waste, fraud and abuse” eventually become a justification for reducing legitimate healthcare spending when the promised savings don’t materialize.

Rural Ohio should demand a simple guarantee:

Not one legitimate patient should lose healthcare, and not one rural hospital should be financially squeezed because politicians promised savings they couldn’t actually find.

Property-Tax Relief Sounds Great. What Gets Cut?

Here’s an area where Ramaswamy’s message deserves consideration.

He wants to reduce property taxes.

Farmers have legitimate reasons to listen.

Land values and assessments can rise dramatically even when the actual income generated from farming that land doesn’t rise along with them. A farmer can become wealthier on paper while becoming poorer in the checking account.

Farmers deserve meaningful property-tax relief.

But tax cuts aren’t the end of the conversation.

They’re the beginning.

Your rural school doesn’t disappear when the tax bill goes down.

Your sheriff still needs deputies.

Somebody still maintains county roads.

Somebody answers 911.

Your volunteer fire department still needs equipment.

And rural communities often lack the enormous commercial tax bases found in wealthier metropolitan and suburban areas.

A suburb might have corporate headquarters, shopping centers, large developments and thousands of businesses contributing revenue.

A small farm town might have a gas station, grain elevator and Dollar General.

So don’t simply tell rural Ohio you’re cutting taxes.

Tell rural Ohio what gets cut when the revenue disappears.

Somebody eventually pays the bill.

School Choice Isn’t Much of a Choice When There’s Nowhere Else to Go

“School choice” sounds simple until you apply it to rural geography.

A family in a metropolitan area might have several private schools within a short drive.

What happens when the nearest alternative school is 30 or 40 miles away?

What happens when both parents work?

What happens when the family doesn’t have reliable transportation?

Meanwhile, the local public school still has to operate.

The buses still travel country roads.

The roof still needs replacing.

The building still needs heat.

Teachers still have to be paid.

And the school still educates the children who walk through its doors.

A voucher theoretically giving a family the ability to attend another school isn’t necessarily a meaningful choice if that school is 40 miles away.

Rural Ohio should demand that policymakers explain how their education policies work in actual rural communities, not just on a whiteboard in Columbus.

Corn Farmers Need Markets, Not Philosophy Lectures

Ramaswamy’s positions on biofuels also deserve scrutiny.

During his presidential campaign, he opposed preserving biofuel tax credits while expressing support for expanded biofuel use.

That raises an obvious question for Ohio agriculture:

Where is the replacement market?

American corn farmers don’t need another lecture about theoretical free markets while commodity prices are struggling.

They need customers.

Ethanol created tremendous domestic demand for American corn. Renewable fuels potentially offer additional markets for both corn and soybeans.

If government incentives supporting those markets are going away, farmers deserve to know where the replacement demand is coming from.

Don’t remove a market and then ask farmers to applaud your commitment to agriculture.

Show them the customers.

Property Rights and Carbon Pipelines

There is another issue where Ramaswamy has taken a position many rural landowners will appreciate: opposition to private carbon-pipeline companies using eminent domain against unwilling property owners.

That deserves credit.

A private corporation shouldn’t automatically get the power to take Grandpa’s farm simply because its accountants determined the most profitable pipeline route crosses it.

But there is another side to the issue.

Supporters of carbon capture argue that it could help ethanol qualify for lucrative low-carbon fuel markets and potentially strengthen long-term demand for corn.

That creates a legitimate conflict between property rights and potential agricultural markets.

Rural people deserve to have that debate.

What they don’t deserve is politicians pretending complicated agricultural economics can always be solved with a bumper-sticker slogan.

Farmers Should Ask Who Benefits From Deregulation

Every politician eventually comes to farm country and says:

“We’re going to get government off your back.”

Everybody cheers.

But farmers should ask another question:

Whose back is government getting off?

Because family farmers don’t negotiate exclusively with government bureaucrats.

They negotiate with enormous meatpackers, seed companies, fertilizer manufacturers, chemical companies, processors and grain companies.

When an individual farmer sits across the table from a multinational corporation, that isn’t David negotiating with David.

It’s David negotiating with Goliath.

Ramaswamy has also spoken favorably about stronger antitrust enforcement in agriculture.

That’s worth supporting.

But it creates an obvious contradiction with massive reductions in the government workforce.

Who investigates market manipulation?

Who enforces competition laws?

Who investigates agricultural mergers?

Who enforces the Packers and Stockyards Act?

Who monitors animal disease?

Who inspects food?

Who makes sure powerful corporations follow the rules?

You can’t fire the referees and then promise family farmers you’re finally going to make the biggest corporations play fair.

Rural America Will Lose the “Efficiency” Argument Every Time

This may be the most important point of all.

Rural America is inherently inefficient if efficiency is measured only in dollars.

Your rural hospital isn’t as efficient as a giant metropolitan medical center.

Your ambulance service isn’t efficient.

Your school bus traveling miles between houses isn’t efficient.

Your little post office isn’t efficient.

Running broadband several miles down a country road isn’t efficient.

You know what is efficient?

Putting everything in Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland and telling everybody else to drive.

But generations of Americans understood something we seem to be forgetting:

Not everything valuable has to generate maximum profit.

A hospital doesn’t have to make Wall Street rich to be worth keeping open.

A school doesn’t have to turn a profit to matter.

A road doesn’t need shareholders to justify maintaining it.

And your hometown shouldn’t have to justify its existence to a billionaire’s spreadsheet.

Follow the Money. Follow the Power.

Family farms continue disappearing.

Agriculture continues consolidating.

Small and intermediate farmers struggle to compete.

Many farm families depend upon somebody working off the farm for income, health insurance, or both.

Farmland becomes more expensive.

Giant corporations become larger.

Economic power becomes increasingly concentrated.

Then another billionaire comes along and tells rural people the answer is less government, more deregulation, and more faith in the market.

Haven’t we seen this movie before?

The corporations consolidate.

Executives receive bonuses.

The little hospital closes.

The local school consolidates.

The grocery store disappears.

Farmers drive farther for supplies and services.

Young people leave because there aren’t enough opportunities to stay.

Then politicians show up during election season, stand next to a tractor and tell everybody how much they love rural America.

Enough.

Stop Judging Politicians by Whether They Can Stand Next to a Combine

Rural Ohio should stop judging politicians by whether they wear boots.

Stop judging them by how loudly they complain about Washington.

Stop judging them by whether their campaign consultants know where to park a candidate next to a combine for a photograph.

Judge politicians by who gets the power when their policies become law.

Vivek Ramaswamy isn’t wrong simply because he’s a billionaire.

But being a billionaire doesn’t make somebody your neighbor just because he knows how to speak the language of populism.

Ask harder questions.

Who keeps the rural hospital open?

Who keeps the school alive?

Who pays for the roads?

Who brings broadband down a road where private companies can’t make enough money doing it?

Who protects cattle producers when a handful of giant corporations dominate meatpacking?

Who protects grain farmers when multinational corporations possess more economic power than an entire county full of farmers?

And when government pulls out because somebody’s spreadsheet says your community is inefficient, which billionaire is coming to town to replace it?

Because when your rural hospital closes, the billionaire still has a doctor.

When your school consolidates, the billionaire’s children still get an education.

When your ambulance is 45 minutes away, the billionaire still has access to emergency healthcare.

When your grocery store disappears, the billionaire probably isn’t driving 30 miles for groceries.

And when a family farm goes under, the billionaire isn’t standing at the auction watching land that’s been in his family for four generations sold to the highest bidder.

You are.

Being Anti-Government Isn’t the Same as Being Pro-Rural

There is a difference between being anti-government and being pro-rural America.

There is a difference between being pro-business and being pro-family farm.

And there is a difference between being a populist and knowing how to market yourself as one.

So rural Ohio should ask Vivek Ramaswamy—and frankly every politician asking for its vote—the simplest question in politics:

When your policies are implemented, who gets richer, who gets stronger, and who gets left behind?

Don’t listen to the branding.

Look at the policies.

Follow the money.

Follow the power.

Rural America has been left behind long enough.

Your hospital matters.

Your school matters.

Your volunteer fire department matters.

Your farm matters.

Your small town matters.

And none of them should have to prove to a billionaire—or anyone else—that they’re profitable enough to deserve to exist.

But there is a line.

When rhetoric becomes needlessly inflammatory, insulting, or demeaning, the issue stops being politics and starts becoming character.

That is why I was disappointed—not just by Royce White’s appearance at Farmfest—but by the very small and very loud contingent of farmers who applauded him.

Throughout the forum, the tree stump with a beard seemed far more interested in provoking outrage than contributing thoughtful solutions for agriculture. Farmfest has always been a place where people can disagree while still respecting one another. That tradition deserves better than political theater designed to generate headlines instead of helping rural America.

What disappointed me even more were the cheers.

Farmers have spent generations asking the rest of America to understand rural values. They ask people to recognize honesty, hard work, humility, personal responsibility, and respect for neighbors. Those values have always been agriculture’s greatest strength.

Cheering for conduct that abandons those principles undermines everything rural America claims to stand for.

You don’t have to be a Democrat to recognize that.

You don’t have to be a Republican to recognize that.

You simply have to believe that the people representing agriculture should conduct themselves with a measure of dignity.

The tree stump with a beard didn’t represent the best of rural America. He represented the worst instincts of modern politics—the belief that insulting people is strength, that outrage is leadership, and that owning your opponents is somehow more important than solving problems.

Meanwhile, farmers are facing shrinking margins, rising input costs, uncertain export markets, labor shortages, rural hospital closures, aging infrastructure, and communities struggling to keep schools open.

Those are the conversations Farmfest should be having.

Instead, precious time was consumed by spectacle.

Some will argue that’s just politics today.

It doesn’t have to be.

Farmers have always prided themselves on being practical. They judge people by whether they show up, work hard, keep their word, and leave things better than they found them.

Those same standards should apply to politicians.

If a speaker cannot discuss policy without relying on insults or inflammatory rhetoric, they shouldn’t receive a standing ovation simply because they wear your party’s jersey.

Political loyalty should never outweigh personal integrity.

The applause was especially disappointing because it sent a message to every young person watching. It told them that civility no longer matters. That respect is optional. That winning an argument is more important than being honorable.

I refuse to believe that’s who America’s farmers really are.

I’ve traveled across rural America. I’ve met thousands of farmers from every political persuasion. Most are thoughtful, decent people who care deeply about their families, their communities, and their country.

They deserve representatives—and audiences—who reflect those same values.

The tree stump with a beard may have walked away believing he won the day because he generated attention.

But attention isn’t leadership.

Noise isn’t courage.

Insults aren’t solutions.

And applause for behavior, even by just a few, that diminishes the character of our public discourse doesn’t make agriculture stronger—it makes it smaller.

Minnesota farmers have every right to support whichever candidate they choose.

But they should expect those candidates to earn that support through substance, respect, and serious ideas—not through outrage and performance.

Rural America deserves leaders.

Not tree stumps with beards.

Look to Arizona.

While Congress debates the 2026 Farm Bill, Arizona has quietly become the first large-scale test of a new approach to administering the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). What is happening there should concern anyone who cares about hunger, rural communities, or the future of American agriculture.

The timing couldn’t be more important.

As the Senate Agriculture Committee marks up the Farm Bill, Chairman John Boozman has proposed an amendment that would allow states to choose either their fiscal year 2026 or 2027 SNAP payment error rates when determining whether they will have to share in the cost of SNAP benefits.

On its face, that sounds like a meaningful compromise. In reality, it appears to be little more than a one-year delay.

It doesn’t change the underlying policy.

It doesn’t remove the financial incentives.

It simply postpones the consequences.

Meanwhile, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Senate Democrats are pushing for a far more significant change: a two-year delay in implementing the requirement that states pay a portion of SNAP benefit costs. Their argument is straightforward. States need time to prepare before assuming billions of dollars in potential new financial obligations.

Whether that proposal survives remains doubtful.

The state cost-sharing requirement has become one of the central enforcement mechanisms behind the new SNAP structure. Removing or delaying it weakens the very incentive designed to push states toward reducing enrollment and lowering payment error rates.

That’s why Arizona matters.

For decades, SNAP worked under a relatively simple financial arrangement. The federal government paid 100 percent of food benefits, while states primarily handled administration.

The new system changes that equation.

States with payment error rates above federal thresholds can now become responsible for paying up to 15 percent of SNAP benefit costs. For some states, that could translate into more than $1 billion annually in new expenses.

When governors and state legislatures suddenly face that kind of financial exposure, their incentives change dramatically.

Arizona appears to have responded exactly as many policy experts predicted.

According to reporting discussed in The New York Times’ The Daily podcast, Arizona’s SNAP participation has fallen by roughly half. Approximately 450,000 people have lost benefits, including more than 100,000 children.

What’s striking is that this collapse does not appear to be driven primarily by stricter income limits or expanded work requirements.

Instead, much of the decline appears to stem from changes in administration.

Applicants reportedly face substantially more paperwork.

Additional documentation requirements.

More verification.

Longer processing times.

Fewer caseworkers.

Phone systems that leave applicants waiting endlessly for interviews they cannot complete.

One working mother profiled by The Daily reportedly spent months trying to complete a required telephone interview, only to encounter overloaded phone lines and paperwork that arrived after its own deadline had already passed.

Another grandmother raising five grandchildren reportedly lost approximately $700 per month in food assistance because her renewal packet contained a form from the wrong year. Under previous procedures, applicants often had opportunities to correct these types of mistakes. Under Arizona’s new process, her case was simply closed while she waited months for an appeal.

Whether every individual case reflects broader statewide experience is less important than the larger policy question they illustrate.

When states face enormous financial penalties for approving an ineligible application—but comparatively little financial risk for denying an eligible one—the incentive structure changes.

Administrative caution becomes financial strategy.

Every additional document requested.

Every delayed interview.

Every missed deadline.

Every unanswered phone call.

All become mechanisms that reduce enrollment without technically changing eligibility rules.

Supporters of these reforms argue they are strengthening program integrity, reducing improper payments, protecting taxpayer dollars, encouraging work, and addressing fraud.

Those are legitimate goals.

Government programs should be administered accurately, and taxpayers deserve accountability.

But accountability cuts both ways.

If administrative systems become so difficult to navigate that eligible families lose assistance because they cannot get someone to answer the phone, cannot complete interviews, or cannot correct minor paperwork mistakes, then policymakers must ask whether the system is still accomplishing its intended purpose.

That question matters far beyond Arizona.

Many of the remaining SNAP provisions have not yet taken full effect nationwide.

Administrative funding for states is scheduled to decline later this year.

States with higher payment error rates will face increasing financial pressure to reduce those errors.

Some may respond by improving technology, investing in staffing, and making eligibility determinations more accurate.

Others may decide the fastest way to reduce errors is to reduce participation.

That’s why Arizona looks less like an isolated event and more like an early warning.

For rural America, the stakes are especially high.

SNAP is not just an anti-hunger program.

It is also an economic stabilizer.

When grocery stores in small towns lose customers, local businesses lose revenue.

When families buy less food, farmers ultimately lose markets.

When rural hospitals and food banks serve communities facing greater food insecurity, they absorb additional strain.

The Farm Bill has always reflected a political partnership between agriculture and nutrition. Farmers received a stable safety net. Families received assistance putting food on the table. That coalition has held together for decades because each side recognized the other depended upon it.

If that partnership begins to fracture, both rural America and vulnerable families could pay the price.

The debate unfolding in the Senate is about much more than accounting rules or payment error rates.

It is about incentives.

It is about how governments behave when financial penalties reward reducing participation.

It is about whether administrative complexity becomes a substitute for changing the law itself.

And it is about whether Arizona is merely an outlier—or the first chapter of a much larger national story.

Congress still has time to decide which path it wants to follow.

But if Arizona truly is the canary in the coal mine, America should start paying attention now, before the warning spreads to every state in the country.

At Back Forty Action we are fighting every day to improve rural healthcare, education, and economic opportunity by going to rural America with a mission to “Listen, Learn and Get to Work!” We need your help! Go to backfortyaction.org right now and sign up to help and make a donation!

There are other places where it feels like a family argument.

And then there’s Minnesota Farmfest.

This week I had the opportunity to spend time at Farmfest in southern Minnesota, and I left convinced that it represents something our country needs a whole lot more of.

For more than four decades, Minnesota Farmfest has been one of the nation’s premier agricultural gatherings. What began in the early 1980s as a way to showcase the latest innovations in farming has grown into one of the largest outdoor farm shows in the Midwest. Every summer, thousands of farmers, ranchers, agribusiness leaders, equipment manufacturers, educators, elected officials, and families gather in one place with a common purpose: supporting American agriculture.

But Farmfest has become something even bigger than a farm show.

It has become one of the best examples of democracy in action.

One of the traditions that makes Farmfest unique is its political forums. Candidates and elected officials from both major parties—and often other parties as well—are invited to take the stage. They answer questions from journalists, farm organizations, and, most importantly, the people whose lives are directly affected by the policies they propose.

The questions aren’t soft.

They aren’t scripted.

And the audience isn’t interested in applause lines.

Farmers have a remarkable ability to cut through political spin. They want straight answers about commodity prices, healthcare, trade, taxes, conservation, education, energy, and the future of rural America. They don’t care much about rehearsed talking points. They care about whether your ideas will actually work.

If a politician dances around a question, the audience notices.

If someone exaggerates, they notice that too.

Accountability isn’t optional at Farmfest.

It’s expected.

That may be one of the reasons these forums have earned such respect over the years. Every candidate knows they’ll have to stand in front of people who spend their lives solving real problems every single day. Farmers understand risk. They understand budgets. They understand consequences. They’re not easily impressed by slogans.

I found that refreshing.

Walking the grounds was every bit as enjoyable as watching the political discussions.

I spent the day visiting with farmers who were generous with their time and honest about the challenges they face. I talked with vendors demonstrating equipment and technology that would have seemed like science fiction a generation ago. I visited with politicians from different parties who had all come for the same reason: to listen to rural America.

That’s something worth celebrating.

One of the things I love most about agricultural events is that conversations don’t begin with party labels.

They begin with questions.

How’s your crop?

How’s your family?

How’s business?

Did you get enough rain?

Those questions remind us that politics is supposed to serve people—not the other way around.

There is also something deeply patriotic about Farmfest.

American agriculture has always been woven into the story of this country. From the earliest homesteads to today’s family farms, generations of Americans have worked the land believing that freedom and opportunity are strengthened by communities willing to solve problems together.

That heritage is visible everywhere at Farmfest.

You see it in the veterans attending with their families.

You see it in the American flags flying over exhibits.

You see it in the pride people take in producing food, fuel, and fiber for a nation of more than 340 million people.

You see it in neighbors who may disagree on elections but still help each other when storms roll through, when machinery breaks down, or when harvest can’t wait.

Agriculture has a way of reminding us that reality doesn’t care about political ideology.

Corn still needs rain.

Cattle still need feeding.

Bills still have to be paid.

The next generation still has to decide whether farming is a future worth choosing.

Those realities create a different kind of political conversation—one grounded in experience instead of outrage.

As someone who spends a great deal of time traveling rural America, I came away from Minnesota Farmfest encouraged.

Not because everyone agreed.

They didn’t.

Not because politics disappeared.

It certainly didn’t.

I left encouraged because people showed up willing to ask hard questions, willing to defend their ideas, and willing to hear answers from people they may not vote for.

That’s what a healthy democracy looks like.

Our country doesn’t need fewer political conversations.

It needs more conversations like the ones happening at Farmfest.

Conversations rooted in respect.

Conversations grounded in facts and lived experience.

Conversations where elected officials understand they’re accountable to the people standing in front of them.

Most of all, I left grateful.

Grateful for the farmers who shared their stories.

Grateful for the vendors whose innovation keeps American agriculture moving forward.

Grateful for the public servants willing to stand before a tough audience.

And grateful for a tradition that proves agriculture and democracy have always gone hand in hand.

Minnesota Farmfest isn’t just a celebration of farming.

It’s a reminder that some of the best traditions in America are still alive—in communities where hard work matters, questions are welcomed, accountability is expected, and love of country rises above party.

I had a wonderful time.

I can’t wait to come back!

At Back Forty Action we are fighting every day to improve rural healthcare, education, and economic opportunity by going to rural America with a mission to “Listen, Learn and Get to Work!” We need your help! Go to backfortyaction.org right now and sign up to help and make a donation!