We have to seize the current opportunity to bring our conservative relatives and neighbors into the fold of our movement.
By Barbara Vasquez, WORC board member
In the 45 years she and her family have lived, ranched, and farmed in Glendive, Montana, Dena Hoff has also been advocating for and organizing on behalf of family-owned farms and ranches and the preservation of rural communities in Montana and surrounding states. That fight has put her at odds with big ag, big oil, and other corporate interests that have sadly driven an untold number of independent family farms and ranches into foreclosure throughout the West.
That fight has also put her at odds with many of her neighbors, who’ve interpreted Dena’s activism as liberal and therefore anathema to their own political leanings, which have taken a hard-right turn over the last 10 to 15 years, as they have throughout rural America.
But something happened during the government shutdown in November that gave Dena cause for hope. “Many of my neighbors who haven’t talked to me in years started to talk to me again,” she said.
The government shutdown hit Dena’s neighbors especially hard. Closure of USDA offices meant they couldn’t obtain the scrapie tags needed to sell their sheep. Others couldn’t find any information on the federal grants they had applied for and needed.
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And then came Trump’s announcement that he was quadrupling Argentinian beef imports days before beef cattle producers in Montana were headed to market for their one big payday of the year. The announcement instantly drove down the value of cattle in Montana by $50 to $300 a head.
“The shutdown actually was an opportunity to listen to and commiserate with my neighbors,” Dena said. “It was leading them to ask questions like, what’s the role of government in a democracy? How do we make sure our communities are economically safe and liveable?”
I believe it’s incumbent upon everyone in the rural West who is actively trying to put our country on an affordable, humane, and democratic path to be like Dena, to start engaging in conversations with relatives and neighbors who are suffering as a result of this administration’s cruelty and corruption, even if they are on the other side of the political spectrum. That means connecting with them over shared interests, fostering a sense of belonging, and offering a rationale for changing their political views that doesn’t compromise their core values.
The outright contempt that Trump and his supplicants in Congress have for rural communities is perhaps where that rationale lies.
Yes, contempt.
How else to explain the administration spending $20 billion to bail out Argentina’s economy during the recent government shutdown while refusing to tap into a $6 billion contingency fund to pay SNAP benefits and feed the 27,000 people in Wyoming, 77,000 in Montana, 130,000 in Idaho, and 617,000 people in Colorado who were facing hunger?
“It’s time for working-class people to reassert their power over the billionaires and corporations that Trump and his Congressional lapdogs serve at everyone else’s expense, especially the working class.”
How else to explain Trump and his Congressional toadies’ refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act premium tax credits? Without the credits, a 60-year-old person in Wyoming earning roughly $63,000 is now facing a 421% increase in average monthly premium costs, according to KFF. The same person in Montana is facing a 231% increase, in Colorado a 166% increase, and in Idaho a 134% increase.
And how else to explain the $1 trillion the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is expected to cut from Medicaid over the next 10 years, only so billionaires and corporations can receive roughly the same amount in tax benefits? Those cuts mean the West will experience dozens of rural hospital closures – an expected five in Montana, six in Wyoming, six in Colorado, and eight in Idaho.
With all of these cuts imposed on working-class people, I believe we are at a political inflection point in the Republican-controlled West. Conditions are now as ripe as they’ve ever been for community organizing. It’s time for working-class people to reassert their power over the billionaires and corporations that Trump and his Congressional lapdogs serve at everyone else’s expense, especially the working class.
This kind of collective power building is starting to happen throughout the West. The Western Colorado Alliance, for example, recently launched a campaign called Care over Cuts to address the economic pain that families across the rural Western slope of Colorado are experiencing. As part of the campaign, the Alliance is actively recruiting and developing new member leaders around free public transportation, affordable and healthy food, affordable electricity, and other issues that define the economic safety of rural communities.
Executive director of the Alliance, Emily Hornback says, “This administration promised prosperity and a better economy for rural areas, but instead it is delivering an austerity agenda that is going to hit rural and working people the hardest. While this is a daunting and unprecedented time in our history, it is also a historic opportunity to come together with our neighbors and work to protect our rural communities.”
Learn more:
45Q Tax Credit: Subsidizing Waste and Fraud Through Carbon Capture
The Administration’s Fixation on Coal Makes No Sense
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