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
FANTASTIC essay. I’m a Minnesotan, and neither a farmer nor a rural resident, but occasionally have to head out of the largely progressive metrop of MSP into “Greater Minnesota,” which starts about 1” from the further edge of the first-ring suburbs. I’m also a classical musician by trade, and that makes me an out of touch elitist, so my world is 98% empathetic, literate, thoughtful/tortured progressives— and that means that any time I’ve ventured out there in the last 9 years, I’ve been stunned at the Trump signs in farmers’ fields. Not as many this election, but ANY is shocking to me, given how farmers and rural folk were screwed by 1st-term Trump (and helped by Biden— with broadband in particular).
So many of those ag people are working their butts off for most hours of the day, compared to people like me (or “us,” as I imagine I can dub the readers of this substack) who are reading endless reams of reports and opinion pieces in our kitchens and offices. We’re all ultimately tribal, and their tribe shares Trumpy non-facts, which they haven’t the time or inclination (mostly time) to check out. Ergo, they were still somehow convinced that he gave a flying fuck about them. It’s really, truly tragic— and the left has been gloating far too much in the FAFO mode about the horror those people— the PEOPLE, not the mega-corporations who’ve been buying up family farms at blinding speed for the last 15 years—are experiencing. And they’re astonished by it, because they haven’t been following Trump via Vanity Fair articles in the 80’s, and NYT articles in the 00’s (and before and since!), and all the other reportage which has detailed his crap business dealings, and shocking treatment of workers and purveyors etc etc etc., and NEED to believe him when he says he’s on their side, because the Democrats have done a TERRIBLE job of PR, which could’ve helped them see that Trump didn’t care about them and never would!
In summation: any living American person in 2025 who can use the word “groceries” as if it were an adorable bit of vocab from Dickens (which he’s just learned, and is delighted to be displaying to the world), DOES NOT UNDERSTAND WHERE FOOD COMES FROM, and never will. Ergo, his total evisceration of the US agricultural system is, to him, a fun game of strategy, like Battleship. Winners, losers— all FUN!
I was in HR for 16 years. I was implicitly obligated to go to the annual Christmas parties, and I hated them. I’m glad I’m retired now. No more company parties for me. YAY!
Potash. Remember that it’s Trump that started this trade war and slapped those tarriffs on the potash that American farmers need. 80% of the potash that the U.S. needs is imported from Canada. He will use this as one of several excuses to turn Canada into the next Ukraine.
He wants to murder the American farmer so his cronies can buy up cheap land by the state. He wants everything to implode, explode, and f*k over the average farmer.
I haven't understood why the robber baron billionaires want to wreck the economy. Couldn't they steal more money from us if we were all making some money. After the announcements of the tariffs, I decided that maybe they want to wreck the economy so that women and nonwhite men will lose their jobs. As the economy recovers, they will have forced most companies into only hiring white men. Is that the plan behind wrecking the economy? I also don't understand why they seem to want another pandemic?
Watching the destruction of democracy is NOT fun! It’s been a “Doubleheader Against Democracy!”
We watch as corrupt corporate moguls destroy our government here in the USA and devour the leftovers for themselves!
We watch Trump and Vance forsake The Free World and join hands with a vicious dictator, Putin!
This betrayal of freedom took place In the Oval Office of our White House! Trump and Vance insulted and betrayed a true defender of freedom and democracy, Zelensky!
FANTASTIC essay. I’m a Minnesotan, and neither a farmer nor a rural resident, but occasionally have to head out of the largely progressive metrop of MSP into “Greater Minnesota,” which starts about 1” from the further edge of the first-ring suburbs. I’m also a classical musician by trade, and that makes me an out of touch elitist, so my world is 98% empathetic, literate, thoughtful/tortured progressives— and that means that any time I’ve ventured out there in the last 9 years, I’ve been stunned at the Trump signs in farmers’ fields. Not as many this election, but ANY is shocking to me, given how farmers and rural folk were screwed by 1st-term Trump (and helped by Biden— with broadband in particular).
So many of those ag people are working their butts off for most hours of the day, compared to people like me (or “us,” as I imagine I can dub the readers of this substack) who are reading endless reams of reports and opinion pieces in our kitchens and offices. We’re all ultimately tribal, and their tribe shares Trumpy non-facts, which they haven’t the time or inclination (mostly time) to check out. Ergo, they were still somehow convinced that he gave a flying fuck about them. It’s really, truly tragic— and the left has been gloating far too much in the FAFO mode about the horror those people— the PEOPLE, not the mega-corporations who’ve been buying up family farms at blinding speed for the last 15 years—are experiencing. And they’re astonished by it, because they haven’t been following Trump via Vanity Fair articles in the 80’s, and NYT articles in the 00’s (and before and since!), and all the other reportage which has detailed his crap business dealings, and shocking treatment of workers and purveyors etc etc etc., and NEED to believe him when he says he’s on their side, because the Democrats have done a TERRIBLE job of PR, which could’ve helped them see that Trump didn’t care about them and never would!
In summation: any living American person in 2025 who can use the word “groceries” as if it were an adorable bit of vocab from Dickens (which he’s just learned, and is delighted to be displaying to the world), DOES NOT UNDERSTAND WHERE FOOD COMES FROM, and never will. Ergo, his total evisceration of the US agricultural system is, to him, a fun game of strategy, like Battleship. Winners, losers— all FUN!
Thank you for your insight. You are spot on from beginning to end.
Nicely articulated.
I love it that you stated that team-building exercises and holiday parties at work are NOT fun. I agree; I always hated forced socializing.
I was in HR for 16 years. I was implicitly obligated to go to the annual Christmas parties, and I hated them. I’m glad I’m retired now. No more company parties for me. YAY!
Potash. Remember that it’s Trump that started this trade war and slapped those tarriffs on the potash that American farmers need. 80% of the potash that the U.S. needs is imported from Canada. He will use this as one of several excuses to turn Canada into the next Ukraine.
JD Vance has a stake in a company that buys up bankrupt farms and flips them for a profit. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
Which company? We want to write an article about that.
AcreTrader.
Wow. The name alone gives me the shivers.
All too true. And in the end we all suffer. Except the big guys, the only ones T is interested in.
The key thing is he doesn't care.
He wants to murder the American farmer so his cronies can buy up cheap land by the state. He wants everything to implode, explode, and f*k over the average farmer.
I haven't understood why the robber baron billionaires want to wreck the economy. Couldn't they steal more money from us if we were all making some money. After the announcements of the tariffs, I decided that maybe they want to wreck the economy so that women and nonwhite men will lose their jobs. As the economy recovers, they will have forced most companies into only hiring white men. Is that the plan behind wrecking the economy? I also don't understand why they seem to want another pandemic?
Watching the destruction of democracy is NOT fun! It’s been a “Doubleheader Against Democracy!”
We watch as corrupt corporate moguls destroy our government here in the USA and devour the leftovers for themselves!
We watch Trump and Vance forsake The Free World and join hands with a vicious dictator, Putin!
This betrayal of freedom took place In the Oval Office of our White House! Trump and Vance insulted and betrayed a true defender of freedom and democracy, Zelensky!
No! There’s no fun here anymore!
He is cruel - and vindictive - this is part of the process - emotional abuse
Oh, and it sounds like come April he’s going to tax US agricultural exports.
Trump telling those farmers “Have fun!” Is disgusting. And that’s the nicest thing I could say.
It’s interesting that as I drove in the country this election season in WI, ALL of the Farms had gigantic Trump/Vance signs.
Love reading your posts xo