The TikTok Farmer

The hyperfocus on farmers

I met with the new DNC Chair, Ken Martin, last Friday. I was invited to be part of a rural round table Ken and the Missouri Democrats hosted in St. Louis.

Ken Martin was elected in January and comes from an agricultural background. He is Minnesota nice, and I am glad to know the DNC is making an effort to hear the concerns of rural folks, but I am afraid we are still focused on the same Ag policies that have doomed Democrats in rural America for decades.

Most rural people are not farmers.

St. Louis Today. By Ezra Bitterman.

I was invited to the rural round table along with four farmers and another woman who ran for office and was raised in rural Missouri. I noticed something right away — the folks at the table were discussing Ag policy, not necessarily rural policy. I think folks may not realize there is a difference.

There is a big difference.

Missouri is home to 156K farmers and a rural population of over 2M. Thirty-three percent of Missouri is considered rural.

Even if every farmer lived in a rural space — and they don’t — farmers would only account for 12% of the rural population. Farmers make up about .025% of the total population of Missouri.

I do understand why we talk about Ag: In 2022, Missouri's agricultural cash receipts were about $14.9 billion. The state also has thousands of Ag adjacent jobs.

The round table meeting started off with a conversation about a young Missouri farmer who has gone viral on TikTok. The farmer was not at the table, but his story ended up on the pages of newspapers and websites across the country. His name is Skylar Holden.

Missouri cattle producer Skylar Holden posted a series of videos on TikTok this week, saying he had signed a contract with USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service for $240,000 for improved water lines, fences, and a well.

But USDA officials called him recently to tell him his contract with was frozen, he said. It's not clear when the funds will be released, Holden said in his video.

"I've already done a bunch of the work, already paid for the material and the labor, so I'm out all that cost," Holden said in one video, adding, "We are possibly going to lose our farm if they don’t hold up their contract with us.

Identical stories from farmers were happening all over the country, and you can imagine what most folks think when they hear a farmer struggling because of a Trump policy: Who did you vote for?

Honestly, it was my first question too. And for good reason — America's most farming-dependent counties overwhelmingly backed President-elect Donald Trump in this year's election by an average of 78%.

Skylar Holden voted for Trump.

I was tagged in Skylar’s TikTok video dozens of times — I watched the first few seconds and then I turned it off. I dreaded watching it, so I put it off for days. I am a rural Missourian, and so is Skylar, but unlike Skylar, I am a Democrat — I voted in his best interest while he voted against mine.

His vote could kill my daughters and granddaughters. His vote will further defund schools and roads and hospitals and libraries and Medicare and Medicaid and National Parks and Federal employees.

I am pretty angry about that.

Skylar quickly became the face of the farmer Trump screwed over, and I get why people would be interested in his story, but I am not.

Here’s why: in Skylar’s video, he said he “went into business with the government” and that he had already invested 80K of his own money in a project that would deliver 240K in grant money.

What he didn’t say is that he got the contract under Biden and it was cancelled under Trump.

Why didn’t he say that? Because he can’t. He voted to defund his own farm.

Skylar’s plight has little to do with most of the folks in rural Missouri. He was awarded a grant for 240K to make improvements on his farm. The average income for a family in my rural community is $38,500. Skylar’s grant is 6xs the amount people in my community try to live and raise kids on each year.

You can come to my community and knock doors and talk about Ag policies to people and I bet most would say, “Great but what’s that got to do with me?”

When we focus on Ag policies rather than rural policies, we are missing the plot. Skylar Holden is not a typical rural Missourian, but a lot of Democrats think he is.

We don’t need to beg Republican farmers like Skylar to change his political position when there are thousands of folks who are ripe to change their political position. Skylar is a young man who has access to a whole lot of capital while most rural people live paycheck to paycheck.

Rural people don’t need more Ag policies — we need economic policies. We need funding for our schools to stay open five days a week and to pay the teachers a living wage. We need infrastructure like roads and bridges. We need jobs. We need healthcare. We need daycare.

Democrats should address rural issues to look more like the way they address urban issues. Ag policy does not reflect those issues.

But, who wants to write plans and talk to people who turn around a vote for Trump?

That’s just it. Trump told rural people he had their back — he would help them. It was a lie, but he said it. Democrats told rural people that they had a plan to help farmers.

What’s that got to do with the majority of rural voters?

In the end, Skylar has had his funding unfrozen and do you know what he said on a video he posted to TikTok on the subject? “Trump taketh and Trump giveth back.”

Okay, Skylar.

That’s why Democrats don’t need to hyperfocus on the Skylars of the world. You likely won’t win his vote and you will expend too much time and resources on the task. You are spending so much time on 12% of rural Missouri and so little time on the other 88% of rural Missouri.

DNC Chair Ken Martin said something that gives me a lot of hope: “It’s time for the DNC to get out of D.C. — that means getting out of our comfort zone, having tough but honest conversations with voters, and showing that we’re willing to fight for people. Democrats will win by organizing everywhere, competing across the ballot in every community, and uniting working families from all backgrounds.”

I like that.

I hope the DNC can take a little constructive criticism from a rural woman who is not a farmer. I am a nobody from nowhere, but I have lived almost every day of my life in rural America. I have knocked more rural doors than I can count and I have heard what most of the folks in rural Missouri need.

We need farmers, but rural America is more than farmers. We are teachers and nurses and factory workers and mechanics and engineers. We are White and Black and Brown. We are young and old. We are gay and straight. We are just like the rest of the country.

Democrats need to know who they are talking to so they can create a plan that fits. We haven’t done that in a long while, but I am still hopeful we can.

~Jess

Notes:

Missouri’s Ag cash receipts: https://economic-impact-of-ag.uada.edu/missouri/#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20Missouri%20generated%20around,percent%20of%20total%20state%20GDP.

Farmers Speak out on Frozen Contracts: https://www.newsweek.com/trump-usda-funding-freeze-farmers-tiktok-project-2025-2029137

Trump Support Grew Despite Trade Wars: https://investigatemidwest.org/2024/11/13/trump-election-farming-counties-trade-war/

A New DNC Framework: https://kenforchair.com/blueprint/