Elections Have Consequences

Rocky Ford is famous in Colorado for their cantaloupe, we all look forward to August when they start showing up in the supermarkets. It's also solidly in the conservative part of Colorado on the Eastern Plains. The county it's in voted 61.85% in favor of Trump.

Another case of MAGA wanting the feds to stop giving money to others, but they didn't mean the money they were going to receive.

Rocky Ford was a finalist for an environmental justice grant. Then Trump stepped in.

"It’s the Brewer Construction burn site, which went up in flames in April 2024.

What’s left — thousands of pounds of contaminated rubble — looks like it could live in a “Mad Max” film. But even worse than how it looks is how toxic it is, Gurulé said. It’s full of asbestos that breaks free when the wind blows. Pieces of tin and shingles fly through the community. And there’s a good chance the patients walking into the doctor’s office nearby are breathing in toxic chemicals, he said.""

All they needed was a measly $166,000 grant they had anticipated from the Inflation Reduction Act, a section of the Act targeted at small and rural communities to clean up environmental hazards in their communities that they simply can't afford to do. 

Many small and rural areas are primarily conservative places, damn environmentalist trying to help people have non-toxic places to live. What radicals!!!

Here's Earl Brewer, sitting in his pickup truck, talking with the Mayor of Rocky Ford. Earl is the owner of the burn site.

The counties in OR and WA that employ immigrants for their fruit harvests are all MAGA. But...local initiatives to terrorize and persecute migrant workers have universally fallen flat on their faces, as have politicians who have hoped to seize office based on a platform of race hatred. It's a case of pragmatism vs. prejudice. If Trump's goons chased everybody out, our economies would take a crushing hit. Even our MAGAs, thick as they are, realize that.

In fact, Pacific Northwest MAGA trends less toward Trumpism and more toward the old conservative ideas of libertarianism and laissez-faire. Their view of Washington is as a faraway place that has nothing to do with "us."

Republicans dont believe in the EPA.   But just like most other government agencies - it benefits RED voting areas more so than BLUE.    Just like clean energy grants.     

Ive become incredibly apathetic to all of it.    If Republicans want to burn down green energy, and the EPA, and Medicaid, and food stamps, and FEMA.....go ahead.   It fucks over everybody - but mostly red states.   

Maybe Kentucky actually has to live under Ayn Rand to learn just how bad things get under that ideology.     Lets allow JD Vance to implement his bullshit book in Appalachia and see how long it takes for people to starve and die from no access to healtcare....or live in a tent while waiting for FEMA to never show up. 

Hey Max.  Don't forget about Palisade peaches, Palisade wine, and Olathe corn.  I can't wait for the Farmer's Markets to open.  These are grown in ruby red Mesa, Delta, and Montrose counties.  As you know, Colorado consistency rates in the top 5 for education level.  If Mesa county was a state, it would rank 41st, Montrose 45th, and Delta 49th.  Take care.

When I lived in Durango, I was constantly amazed by the fury and intensity of the conflict between the young liberal/college environmentalists and the proto-MAGAs with their gun love and shave-the-forests-bald policies; it was like living on some kind of frontier. Ideological rather than geographical, but quite real.

I remember Grand Junction in particular as being well to the right of Attila the Hun. Newspaper editors and TV reporters were sued and often physically attacked for voicing non-conservative opinions. A couple of businesses were burned to the ground for displaying OBAMA campaign signs.

So the education level of that beknighted part of the state comes as no surprise. Whenever I drove north on the Million Dollar Highway--which was often, as it's a stunningly beautiful drive--i knew I was descending into a place chock-full of IWGs--Idiots With Guns.

I'll bet they're happy now that they've scared away/driven out all the farm workers and their crops are about to rot.