GOP legislators won’t represent rural minorities, so big city and rural dems are!

It’s a nice fall Saturday in Worthington, a majority-minority Minnesota meatpacking town. Despite the nice weather outside, the church cafeteria is full of local minority citizens, democratic and labor allies, and several democratic state reps who travelled nearly 200 miles from their metro districts to listen to them.

Worthington was saved from the dead by immigrant workers, but the ghosts of the white power structure still run the town- not a single minority or immigrant council member in this town where minority folks are the majority. The police department lets ride alongs join in the takedowns and mostly makes the news for roughing up minority packing house workers, and a white supremicist school bus driver who sends his kids to what’s becoming a “desegregation academy” makes the national news. Said schools are overcrowded because said bus drivers fellow white supremicists keep voting down bond issues because they think they can chase immigrant kids away by not providing their constitutionally required public education. The town’s diversity festival is (mis)managed by a member in gooding of the white zombie establishment, but they’re planning an immigrant community center… In a hazmat site!

Fortunately our Minnesota democratic party wants no part of this white zombie power structure, so today several democratic state legislators drove near 200 miles to hear local minority and immigrant citizens concerns and were joined by several local labor and democratic party allies. Citizens told of frustration with an unresponsive local government and retaliation when they took part in non-partisan civic activities.

And it wasn’t just talk- Before and after the listening session dozens fanned out to door knock Worthington in support of a much needed bond issue to expand the overcrowded schools. There’s talk of immigrants and minority folks running for board and council seats, even the state legislature… Zombie white supremicist power structure, your apocalypse is coming!

Amy, Joe, and Pete: You’re gonna need a better argument…

Have to confess I’ve been straying from the Warren fold of late, was worried that she didn’t have a plan to fund Medicare for All without the funding fears some of the other candidates have been stoking. The Warren campaign hasn’t helped either, as I’ve grown tired of explaining farming to them despite the fact that Liz’s farm policy is straight out of the Farmer’s Union playbook. Heck, I almost suckered for a ticket and bus ride from Amy to the big event in Des Moines tonight.

But this morning Liz blew away all doubt and hit it outa the park with a clear plan for financing Medicare For All, here’s the link so you can read it yourself:  https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/paying-for-m4a?source=soc-WB-ew-fb-rollout-20191101&fbclid=IwAR1RHl67Lo2He5i_FlLSeFVZ2HZy1p3Wri7GQGyvCCXUFly1_MTkmWyOY70

I feared that the Warren plan would rely too much on “wealth taxes”, but that’s a small part of the funding and will only apply to a small enough group of multi millionaires that their assets won’t be hard to track down. I feared that middle class taxpayers would pay more as their medical benefits from work became income and thus taxable, that won’t happen as employers will simply pay those dollars into the Medicare Trust Fund instead of to greedy insurance companies. I feared losing our great union insurance plans, but the’ll have several years to transition in and will get some discounts when they go into Medicare For All that will make unionization an advantage for both employers and workers. And it appears the Warren plan will keep current Medicare, military health care, and numerous other government funded health plans that are working well in place. 

Warren’s Medicare For All plan is the best of any candidate’s, the most fleshed out and the most vetted by academics and actuaries of any candidate’s. Amy, Joe, Pete, and the rest- You got anything better? You don’t, so better get crackin’… Or better yet, sign on to the Warren Medicare For All plan!

So I’m firmly back in the Warren fold, but could the campaign please lose the food fetishes, gender pronoun pressuring, etc.- The place reeks of Ivy League campus!

‘Bout a decade ago we were peeved at Collin ‘cause he wasn’t supporting a trans-inclusive GLBT rights law. So come the district convention, four of us all but stalked him until we got a few words with him. Collin considered our argument, then let us talk to a staffer, and a short while later Collin was supporting that inclusive GLBT rights law.

A few years later I moved into Collin’s Minnesota 7th district and got to talk with him more. He’s a political genius, one of the few surviving democrats in a double digit R+ district where less than a handful of democratic legislators have survived. I learned that besides supporting the GLBT community, Collin’s a strong supporter of tribal sovereignty and labor.

But the strongest reason I’m supporting Collin is because of his advocacy for farming and our rural communities. Collin ain’t just an advocate, he has a deep understanding of farming that neither party can replace. So for our rural communities and farmers, I’m stickin’ with Collin!

I started out this cycle supporting Amy, was an easy choice ‘cause she’s the most electable of our twenty odd wealth of candidates. So I waited for Amy to announce (finally) and waited for the campaign to start (barely). After a couple months of that and seeing Amy barely registering in the polls, I gave up and endorsed the viable candidate closest to my politics, Elizabeth Warren.

So a few month later Amy is showing some belated moxie, and the campaign is finally firing on a couple cylinders with a whirlwind tour of eastern Iowa. While the Warren campaign has concentrated on Iowa and is MIA around my southwest Minnesota home, Amy’s campaign suddenly has staffers out here. Even has a wrapped bus for the Iowa tours, and probably another one for New Hampshire.

So what’s Amy’s chances? The statistical experts at 538 tell us that a candidate polling where Amy is has a zero to one percent chance of winning the endorsement. Heck, Amy needs a showing of 3% or better on another poll just to make it on the stage for the November debates. So the statistical reality check is that Amy is a really, really long shot.

That reality check assumes an average candidate though, and Amy ain’t no average candidate- I was along on a bunch of south Minneapolis campaign stops with Amy on her first run for public office in 1998 a few days before the election. The tour ended at a Day of the Dead celebration around dark, and while the other candidates called it a night, Amy stayed into the night talking to the voters. Couple days later Amy won a close race for Hennepin County Attorney while DFL Governor candidate Skip Humphrey who knocked off early lost to independent political upstart Jesse Ventura. Amy went on to easily win re-election and then three victorious runs for the U.S. Senate with such massive wins that she’s Minnesota’s biggest vote getter of either party this century.

So don’t count Amy out just yet… But how does she get from maybe making the next debate to good early state showings, winning the endorsement, and the White House? Well, CNN just popped another poll with Amy at 3%, and with multiple polls out every day just statistical noise will produce another 3% or better poll for Amy and put her on the stage. That gets Amy back on the debate stage where she can differentiate herself from the better known candidates and raise some more $$$ to beef up her campaign. Comes January and Amy and half of Minnesota’s democrats barnstorm Iowa.

Amy doesn’t win Iowa, but comes out of Iowa with a bunch of delegates and does the same in New Hampshire. Now a top tier candidate, just like she does in Minnesota, Amy picks up the support of primary voters whose candidates have dropped out and other top tier candidate’s supporters who are having second thoughts about the problems of forced Medicare enrollment, free college for millionaire’s kids, etc.. In the first contested convention in years Amy comes out the nominee, then easily trounces Trump, Pence, or whoever the GOP has left while bringing in a wave of democrats all down the ballot with her coattails.

So I’d rate Amy’s odds a bit better than the stats suggestion of 100 to 1 or so, more like 10 to 1. But with the declining interest I’m seeing in the current leading candidate’s campaigns and the enthusiasm of Amy’s supporters, I’d rate her odds even better!

Most progressives are supportive of family size farmers, but I’ve learned from a recent blog here and a few other forums some of you have a real ax to grind against farmers. Farmers are a minority like most ethnic and racial minority groups, having chosen against all odds to pursue a career of long hours and short profits. Nobody in the progressive sphere would dare attack jews, muslims, immigrants, gays, etc. and farmers deserve the same respect.

It’s time we quit bashing the farmers that largely gave birth to our progressive movement a century or so ago. So to educate both our farmers allies and the “guilty parties”, I’m gonna set out to debunk some of the myths, falsehoods, and out and out Trump grade lies about farmers. In no particular order…

“They voted for Trump”… Trump lied and told them what they wanted to hear.

“Corn (which gets blamed for a lot) causes diabetes”… Yup, if you eat too much corn or anything you’ll probably get a bunch of diseases, but there’s no good science to back that claim up.

“Ethanol is a waste”… According to the GREET model calculations of “well to wheel” greenhouse gas production of vehicles, ethanol produces less GHG than gasoline. Ethanol plants also produce a feed bi-product known as DDG, which is considered a premium animal feed. 

“Monoculture is the problem”… Partly true, problem is finding other crops that will yield as much profit per acre to pay off the loans on the land.

“Farmers should convert to organic/non GMO production”… Would be great if they could, as organic and non GMO crops bring premium prices. Unfortunately few farmers can afford to quit using chemicals for several years until their land can be certified organic. And if farmers switched en masse to organics, they might saturate the market and drive prices down to unprofitable levels. Meanwhile, the bank still expects their loan payments…

“Farmers abuse farm workers”… Thanks to mechanization, farmers have become so efficient that they have the time and necessity to work off farm jobs to get health insurance and these days make up for some of their farming losses. So most farms have no hired help, and the family farms that have employees are very dependent on them and tend to treat them well. The abuses tend to happen in large scale corporate farms who have smart lawyers.

“Farmers should grow fruit and vegetables instead of corn and soy beans”… Great if you’ve got the market and can pull it off, for example our land grant university reports over thousand dollar an acre profits for strawberries. But fruits and veggies can demand a lot more of a farmer’s time so they don’t work for everyone. You also need enough markets to absorb your crops- If you’re close to a major metro area the land may be too expensive to farm, and out where I live the population is so thin that a couple 500 acre farms would probably saturate the local markets.

And this is by no means an inclusive list…  

Only a century ago fully a third of us lived on farms, and half of us in rural areas. Today only a percent or two of us are farming. What happened and is happening still? Farming never was a business in the conventional sense, it was a way of life that provided a modest standard of living for the farm families and a future for the children. You bought or the government gave your farm family a quarter section, 160 acres more or less, and using basic skills, animals, and a bit of capital you built a home, produced most of your food, and hopefully had a bit left to sell. The same story was repeated in farm after farm, four farms to a section, across the 36 sections excepting the 2 school sections adding up to over 100 farms, enough kids to fill a couple small schools, and a population often pushing a thousand in most townships.

Then came recessions, a depression, mechanization, “get big or get out” farm policies, investors driving up land prices, and monopolized suppliers and processors driving supply prices up and crop and livestock prices down.

So if you want to become an average farmer today you’ll need around 500 acres of land and that’ll cost a couple million $$$ even for scabby land. You’ll need a tractor and a combine, and each of them will set you back several hundred thousand, by the time you get done buying implements and a big truck to haul your grain to market you’ll have at least another million in equipment. If you’ve got any credit left you’ll need working capital, those 500 acres suck up a lot of expensive seed and fertilizer.

So today’s farmer has a at least 3 million dollars and more likely 6 million dollars invested in a business that will annually maybe produce  200 four dollar bushels of corn an acre times 500 acres for a gross revenue of $400,000… That’s about the annual net income you’d get on average from making a 6 million dollar stock market investment instead and you wouldn’t even half to get your hands dirty. It gets worse- 4 dollars a bushel is about what it costs to grow and harvest corn. Yup, farming utterly sucks as a business!

So the section that a century ago was home to four farm families and twenty or more people is now home to only an empty nester 60ish couple as potential famers have been driven from the land by mechanization, high capital needs, and the near impossibility of earning a decent living.   Farming isn’t a business, it’s a way of life, a proud culture with thousand of years of heritage, and we’re losing farmers.

So no surprise that the surviving farmers are getting rather testy to say the least. Being a misunderstood minority of only a percent or so of the population tends to make that minority defensive and defiant, longing for the better days of the past… No wonder farm country reeks of nostalgia and resentment. The party of the past, the GOP, feeds right into that nostalgia- And that’s our challenge as democrats.

CD7 DFL Outreach Officers report for November 2018:

It’s almost over… For a few months at least!

The election is less than a week away and the pollsters and prognosticators predict likely wins for our U.S. Senate and guvernoratorial candidates. Thanks to Collin’s unique appeal to both democrats and independents the republicans have all but given him a bye. That leaves us to concentrate on electing our down ballot state house candidates that the state DFL has darn near forgotten, despite needing to win at least a few rural seats to take back the house majority. So let’s make these state house candidates and our other DFLers running for county, local, and school board seats our top campaigning priority these last few days.

Weather (yup, a concern out here- In 2000 David Minge may have lost that close race due to snow pushing turnout down): Snow and morning temps below freezing are possible in the northern parts of our district satuday, sunday, and election day, adapt your campaigning accordingly.

Election day- This is Minnesota and we’re nice, but no doubt some Trump inspired idiots will be harassing voters. More dangerous is the odd republican election official that will block election day registrations, misdirect voters, etc…. Keep vigilant and report any problems!

Then celebrate election night, because on Wednesday the recount season begins… With so many tight elections the soon to be out of power GOP will be demanding and buying multiple recounts.

And after the holidays, the 2020 campaigns begin, and we have much work to do. For example, we need improved analytics- Checking out social media complaints of disenfranchisement on the White Earth Tribal Nation, I compared census counts of the adult population with voter registration counts in several townships and election turnout and found two townships where less that half the adults are even registered to vote! In this one tribal nation alone it appears that over 1000 adults aren’t even registered to vote, never mind voting. We need better analytics to find these voters and get them registered and voting in native and immigrant communities, especially as these are the communities whose populations are growing in rural america. We also need to spread our message and fundraise online- In just the last few weeks dailykos.com has raised a half million dollars online to stop the disenfranchisement of North Dakota native citizens. We need to nationalize our races, tell our story to the world, and fundraise everywhere… The state DFL ain’t gonna do it for us, so we gotta do it ourselves!

respectfully submitted, Dyna Sluyter

Been seeing signs of stress in my fellow democrats lately, and with us barely a frenzied week away from election day, it’s time to put this election in perspective. Our goal is to turn america into a 21st century progressive democracy with a strong middle class, education and health care for all, equality of opportunity, etc.. Unfortunately we’re not going to be able to accomplish that all this election cycle, and probably not the next either.

So Trump gets a bye, the Senate is constitutionally gerrymandered against us, and the House is just plain gerrymandered to the point we need a 6% majority just to maybe control half the seats in congress. According to prognosticators par excellence 538 we have a 17% chance of winning back the Senate and a much better 85% chance of taking back the House. That means we’re probably stuck with Trump and his GOP sycophants in the Senate for another two years. But winning the House gives us bargaining power, though it will probably take well into next year to seat enough democratic reps to become the majority thanks to prolonged GOP recounting and litigation of numerous close elections. Down ballot it get even better, as we’re favored to pick up several governorships and state houses that will assure us fair redistricting after the 2020 census.

So as we run or wheel down this marathon course we face daily uphills and downhills. Coast on the downhills, conquer the uphills, and no matter the outcome of this election we’ll be gaining and further towards our marathon victory!