Summary
Trump’s new tariffs—10% across the board plus duties on 60 countries—threaten U.S. farmers already strained by high inflation, rising loan rates, and falling crop prices.
Unlike 2018, today’s farm economy offers less cushion, with depleted bailout funds and federal budget constraints limiting relief.
While herbicides and fertilizers are exempt, farmers fear retaliatory tariffs and export losses.
Farm groups and lawmakers urge moderation, prompting USDA to launch new trade initiatives. Still, widespread USDA staff cuts and uncertain support leave many farmers anxious, risking political fallout in key red states.
I think it’s human nature. Education is supposed to combat that, but it’s slow and imperfect, and of course the reactionaries among us fight that tooth and nail, most especially if they suspect children will come out of that education changed somehow. But changing minds is the very point. If you believe the same things at the end of education that you believed beforehand, well, then, that’s a failed education.
It’s not about indoctrination - that’s just the reactionaries projecting. They believe the purpose of education is to make children believe the exact same things their parents and religious clerics believe.
I think humans not only forget their history, but also the very bedrock of science. We have people still litigating evolution or a spherical Earth, FFS. And we have people rejecting things like measles vaccines because they didn’t see massive misery and death in their own lifetimes. Like you said, there is not enough people being told: without the proper precautions, this could happen to YOU. Or YOUR KIDS. It’s something that happened to prior generations or people that are old (so what do they know about life, lol?).