1. United States
2. Ohio
3. Letter

Cattle prices are the highest they’ve been in a generation. That’s not Washington’s doing. The American herd is the smallest it’s been since the 1950s, so for the first time in years, ranchers were finally getting paid. Then Trump announced he’ll bring in 300,000 metric tons of tariff-free foreign beef to lower prices at the grocery store. Cattle markets dropped right away. The Farm Bureau warned the plan could do long-term damage to the industry. And that’s on top of the Iran war that has sent diesel and fertilizer prices soaring. In 2024, farming-dependent counties gave Trump an average of 78 percent of the vote. But the Lincoln Project put together a video of what those same voters sound like today and it isn't pretty. None of them would vote for Trump again and think Trump has been doing nothing but harming Americans. Those aren’t Democrats. Those are the people who wear the red hats. So how is the White House responding? Once again, just a meaningless compliment for the boss. But that doesn’t change anything for the farmers who are hurting. And that attitude is exactly why Republicans in Washington are starting to panic. Jonathan Martin at Politico has spent weeks talking to Republicans about November, and the year that keeps coming up is 2006, when Democrats took the House and the Senate in a single night. Kevin Cramer, the Republican senator from North Dakota, told him “He’s in serious trouble in farm country.” And then he admitted what that means for his party: “Trump is us. I’m not very optimistic.” But it goes beyond the farm. A new poll this morning finds that among Americans who call themselves working class, only one in four believe politicians actually want to help them. The people who put Trump back in office feel forgotten. These voters shrugged off the tweets and the indictments because they believed one thing: that Trump was on their side. Instead, they’ve got a president who keeps making choices at their expense. Next week, Republicans head to Dallas for a midterm convention where one of Trump’s own advisers admits the message will be “whatever crazy stuff the president says.” That’s the plan for winning these people back. Good luck!