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In reply to the discussion: If The Dems Made A Concerted Effort To Appeal To Rural Voters What Would You Recommend They Do?.... [View all]Lydia Leftcoast
(48,223 posts)Yup, it used to be a Dem value.
Agribusiness made out like the bandits they are after the artificial "debt crisis" of the early 1980s. The double whammy of high interest rates and low crop prices forced the sale of countless family farms to agribusiness, destroying both long-standing family businesses and many rural towns. I was living in Minnesota at that time. Heartbreaking stories of families losing farms that they had owned since the homesteading era were on the news all the time.
The Dems did NOTHING.
Sure, it was the Reagan administration, but the Dems still had a majority in the House. They could have proposed debt relief for farmers in the form of low-interest loans. Even if the proposal had died in the Senate or been vetoed by Reagan, the Dems could have campaigned on "We tried to save you, but the Republicans wouldn't let us."
Instead, they did NOTHING.
That's when they really lost rural voters.