Fun: What It Is and What It Absolutely Is Not

Fun is finding a $20 bill in a pair of jeans you forgot about. It’s watching someone nail an impossible trick shot and acting like they meant to do it. It’s hitting every green light when you’re already late and deciding that fate just loves you today. Fun is effortless, spontaneous, and just reckless enough to keep things interesting.

What fun is not is being told to have fun while your livelihood is burning down around you. No one ever had a great time because their boss, parent, or authoritarian world leader told them they had to. That’s why no one enjoys forced fun—team-building exercises, mandatory Christmas parties, or anything labeled a “trust fall.” The moment fun becomes an obligation, it dies a horrible, awkward death.

And yet, Donald J. Trump, a man who has never once looked like he was having fun in his life, just told American farmers to “Have fun!” after announcing a fresh batch of tariffs that might financially ruin them.

Trump Tells Farmers to “Have Fun” While Kneecapping Their Industry

Trump, in his infinite wisdom and bottomless well of economic literacy, decided to slap tariffs on imported food products and then tell the very people most affected to “Have fun!” The announcement, made via his personal social media echo chamber, read like the world’s most clueless pep talk—urging farmers to produce more crops for domestic sales while casually ignoring the fact that tariffs will jack up their costs, limit their markets, and potentially drive many out of business.

Farming is already a daily exercise in chaos. The weather alone is an unpredictable nightmare, commodity prices fluctuate like a junkie’s mood swings, and the cost of fertilizer and equipment keeps climbing like Trump’s legal fees. Now, thanks to this half-baked trade policy, American farmers are bracing for higher input costs, retaliatory tariffs from trading partners, and markets that are about as stable as a Jenga tower in an earthquake.

The Last Time Trump Screwed Farmers, He Had to Buy Their Silence

If this all sounds familiar, it’s because Trump already did this once. During his 2018 trade war with China, American farmers got absolutely wrecked. Soybean exports cratered, China imposed counter-tariffs, and family farms were left drowning in losses.

The damage was so bad that Trump had to slap together a multi-billion-dollar bailout package to clean up his own mess. And, like all things Trump, it mostly benefited the biggest corporate farms while leaving smaller family-owned operations to rot. The same farmers who cheered for him in 2016 started realizing that he’d turned their entire industry into a failed casino—except this time, there was no bankruptcy loophole to bail him out.

Now, history is repeating itself. Trump’s latest tariff scheme is set to jack up prices on everything from machinery to animal feed, all while leaving farmers with fewer places to sell their products. But don’t worry—he says it’s going to be fun.

Angie Craig Is Having None of It

Congresswoman Angie Craig, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, didn’t waste any time calling this out for what it is: a disaster in the making.

"No one wins in a trade war. The last time President Trump started a trade war, costs went up for America's family farmers and consumers. The same will happen today."

Craig, unlike Trump, actually listens to farmers. She knows they’re already struggling with skyrocketing input costs and unstable markets. She knows they don’t have the luxury of treating their businesses like a reality TV show where bad ratings just mean a time slot change.

Her message was clear: This isn’t just bad policy—it’s reckless economic sabotage.

"Have Fun!" - A Catchphrase for Disaster

Trump’s flippant farewell to the people whose livelihoods he just threw into a blender might be the most telling part of this entire mess. This is a guy who doesn’t farm, doesn’t understand farming, and quite frankly, doesn’t care.

Farming has never been about fun. It is brutal, relentless work that requires intelligence, patience, and the ability to navigate an industry that never stops trying to kill you. What it does not need is a washed-up game show host making their job even harder while acting like it’s all just a thrilling adventure.

Trump treats economic policy like a rich guy ordering off a menu he doesn’t understand—picking the most expensive dish, pretending to know what it is, and then sticking someone else with the check when it inevitably sucks.

For Trump, tariffs are just another headline, another way to rile up his base, another “tough guy” moment before he moves on to the next crisis of his own making. For American farmers, it’s their entire livelihood on the line.

And no amount of forced enthusiasm, bad slogans, or fake pep talks is going to make that fun.

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