I'm gonna be able quit my job cuz all the Rx's I'm on. I'm going to be rolling in the 600% cheaper drug prices that the pharma companies will be paying me.
You can tell how well the economy's doing by how much they're willing to risk to own the libs. Deep down they know that when shit hits the fan, you vote for the democrats.
Yeah Republicans will claim it's because of Biden policies or immigrants or something, and they'll still get their votes because their half of the electorate is an uneducated mass of racist, religious nutjobs.
I commented elsewhere but it bears repeating: while yes, these areas tend to go Republican, at the local level there is (more often than not) quite literally no other option provided.
I am about as left as you can get (especially in Nebraska…) so far be it from me to deny that bigotry plays a role, but the reality is that this is largely a structural failure of the state and national party to do its job in running candidates and doing actual groundwork to offer people alternatives.
Nebraskans are not as ideologically motivated (or stupid) as we are often made out to be. If you want groceries and there is only one store in town, you buy from that grocer—regardless of whether their meat is rancid or not.
(Incidentally dollar stores running out locals is actually a huge problem in the state, even hardcore republicans start sounding like communists if you get them started on the corporate greed of Dollar Tree)
As a leftist in a red state I feel you. For a lot of elections there’s no one running as a Democrat, and it’s not that there’s no one who will run, it’s that they can’t get any help from the party. These races are just assumed losses by the party and the party won’t spend money if there’s no chance at winning.
Blue state liberals don’t care that red state liberals and leftists will be hurt by this. The top comment says 76% voted for Trump, which means 1 in 4 people didn’t, but that poster doesn’t care about them. Blue state liberals are more than happy to see the leopards eat our faces, too.
Letting petty party politics divide the working class is doing the oligarchs heavy lifting for them.
It’s been my experience that most people just want to feel seen and heard—politics is downstream of that.
To your point, I see so much of the “Have the day you voted for!” sentiment in these comment sections and it drives me up the wall. I genuinely believe that, by and large, these are kind, decent, hardworking people who are struggling massively under a deeply unfair system.
All the white folks in Lexington have more solidarity with queer, black and latino folks in Omaha than they do with anyone in the board rooms of Tyson and JBS—any party that can’t acknowledge that reality isn’t worth our time.
I'm also very progressive and always vote for Dems even if they don't deserve it. (Snubbing Bernie not once, but twice has soured me a lot on the party)
Unfortunately the democrats would sooner write off entire states and constantly say "lol you get what you deserve" than try to reach those people. There's an air of superiority about the party, especially when they think they can stick it to someone they view as less intelligent than them.
A huge reason the right boomed the way it did in recent years is because they became the welcoming party. You may not agree with everything everyone says there, but they were still largely willing to welcome you in and tell you your concerns are valid. Meanwhile the left tears itself apart if they're not 100% ideologically aligned and take joy in telling people who don't agree with everything they say (even if they agree with SOME of it) they're evil and deserve to die or be homeless or whatever.
There is something so deeply reactionary about Dems in their current form. It’s especially frustrating because the cultural politics of the party over the last 10-15 years have said “No group of people is a monolith.”
I don’t expect ideological purity, but hot damn let’s be consistent in how we apply our principles!
Am Nebraskan, do community organizing, can absolutely confirm this.
Dems show up once every four years in Omaha, promise basically the same economic platform as republicans (with slightly better language) and then dip out, rinse and repeat.
Our state party is completely absent, we have tons of local/state wide races up for grabs with no dem challengers every cycle, and local funders are unwilling to engage seriously with anything that they don’t see as a sure shot for their investments.
Meanwhile, a good portion of the state doesn’t have adequate internet access and the only news stations available to them are controlled by one of our Republican congressmen. They aren’t suffering from a lack of brains or care, they are starved for available options.
Dem's have made themselves a city/metropolitan area based party with little appeal to the rural voter. Unfortunately with Republican austerity it means closing county offices and healthcare facilities which are the largest employers in many rural areas
BS - Republicans cheat, gerrymander and lie. Lazy folks who whine that the Democrats aren’t a better option locally need to get organized and present a better option or acknowledge that they actually support the bigots grifting them.
Yep, almost a 1/3 of the total town population, no to mention restaurants, stores, and all the other businesses in that ecosystem that relied on the population being employed.
You weren't wrong. I was including more information to highlight the fact that it's more disastrous than what a simple counting of 1/3rd of the population would suggest.
I don’t think it’s that big of a sign. If there were more large companies they wouldn’t be small towns. But many of the small towns I have been to typically consisted of a single large company and farmers. The farmers would work at the company and operate the farm before and after work.
In my opinion a bigger indicator of a struggling small town is a run down Main Street.
This is a beef packing plant. Beef consumption is down, there has been a drought for many years, which has led to smaller cattle herds, and Tyson is something like $600 million down in revenue with their beef business.
As one news article put it: it was a spreadsheet decision.
in 2020: 29.5% of the population was under the age of 18, 9.5% from 18 to 24, 29.3% from 25 to 44, 19.9% from 45 to 64, and 9.1% who were 65 years of age or older.
Removing 40% of the population for either being younger than 18 or older than 65 means that 3200 people loosing their jobs is half the town.
Sooo, Remember how everyone was shit-talking college and saying "just get a trade they're always in demand!" well, no jobs are safe folks. That's why we're anti-work. The whole system needs to be broken down to the studs and remade.
Meat packing isn't a trade. I understand what you're saying, but the only person in there with a trade was the sparky who maintained the machinery. Plumber, bricklayer, locksmith, carpenter, framer, concreter etc are trades. Most trades are safe because machines can't do them and the few that do have machines are usually much more cheaply done with actual labour. In most countries those trades are protected by licensing, insurance and apprenticeships as shitty tradies will cause deaths.
Technically Right but it's not a helpful distinction. When people say "shut down overnight," they generally mean it was surprising in some way. None of what happened is surprising. Next there will be a political campaign to blame urban liberals, immigrants, and Yada yada yada. The cycle continues.
This is climate related. Herds in lower states don't have as much grazing land or water, due to heat climbing. It is only going to keep moving north and making even less and less areas suitable for animals.
As they are putting up their belongings for sale on FB they can at least bask in the knowledge that they increased shareholder value and that trans volleyball player can’t play anymore.
So 3/4 of the state voted against their own needs and now we're supposed to feel bad for them? When will red states wake up and realize they're fucking screwed. Arkansas with the farmers, Tennessee with jack Daniels, Kentucky with Tyson.. how many more times will it happen before they wake the fuck up??
This was in Nebraska, Kentucky was screwed by Ford and the Trump administration pushing back on the electric vehicle initiatives. Drill, Drill, Drill, killed the battery plant. This is what the country voted for, why are people surprised? This would be a good place to open a bootstrap factory.
Please explain how this has anything to do with politics. All my research shows that it has to do with the US cattle herd being extremely small and that people are eating less meat.
we need some classes on how the world works for people to be educated on how to vote. starting in 6th grade, tell kids the good and bad parts of both sides.
This is nothing new and it has happens many times over the years. This is how ghost towns are created…
Also as much as you’d like to blame the current administration, this plant closed due to reasons other than recent policy… so to say that they voted republican has nothing do with this…
The beef industry has been changing in recent years. Here’s some more information.
Well... Yea? People need to really understand it isn't a republican and democrat, or race thing. It is very much a rich vs everyone else thing and we really need to come together (there are vastly more of us) to do something about it.
74% voted Republican.
Id wager next election they get more votes
Future us: How'd they get 125% of the votes?
In the same way prices have gone down 300% duh
I'm gonna be able quit my job cuz all the Rx's I'm on. I'm going to be rolling in the 600% cheaper drug prices that the pharma companies will be paying me.
Hah! you sound poor, that is barely a 6 figure income. I will be making out on my Chemotherapy!
Rxs? You'll have a MedBed remember?
Also the same way we collected 13 Trillion in tariffs.
Midterms, probably not honestly. Voters are relatively reactionary. 2028? Probably though.
Well republican voters are stupid, so.They'll say "well the dems would BE WORSE" and keep voting the same
They didn't in 2008...
And? That was almost twenty years ago.
Well I mean it happened again many times. 2012, 2018, 2020...owning the libs only goes so far.
You can tell how well the economy's doing by how much they're willing to risk to own the libs. Deep down they know that when shit hits the fan, you vote for the democrats.
Yeah Republicans will claim it's because of Biden policies or immigrants or something, and they'll still get their votes because their half of the electorate is an uneducated mass of racist, religious nutjobs.
They are blaming Biden and the Antifa
That doesn’t put food on the table.
Puts food on Trump's billionaires table
That swamp needs more dranin’
I commented elsewhere but it bears repeating: while yes, these areas tend to go Republican, at the local level there is (more often than not) quite literally no other option provided.
I am about as left as you can get (especially in Nebraska…) so far be it from me to deny that bigotry plays a role, but the reality is that this is largely a structural failure of the state and national party to do its job in running candidates and doing actual groundwork to offer people alternatives.
Nebraskans are not as ideologically motivated (or stupid) as we are often made out to be. If you want groceries and there is only one store in town, you buy from that grocer—regardless of whether their meat is rancid or not.
(Incidentally dollar stores running out locals is actually a huge problem in the state, even hardcore republicans start sounding like communists if you get them started on the corporate greed of Dollar Tree)
As a leftist in a red state I feel you. For a lot of elections there’s no one running as a Democrat, and it’s not that there’s no one who will run, it’s that they can’t get any help from the party. These races are just assumed losses by the party and the party won’t spend money if there’s no chance at winning.
Blue state liberals don’t care that red state liberals and leftists will be hurt by this. The top comment says 76% voted for Trump, which means 1 in 4 people didn’t, but that poster doesn’t care about them. Blue state liberals are more than happy to see the leopards eat our faces, too.
Letting petty party politics divide the working class is doing the oligarchs heavy lifting for them.
It’s been my experience that most people just want to feel seen and heard—politics is downstream of that.
To your point, I see so much of the “Have the day you voted for!” sentiment in these comment sections and it drives me up the wall. I genuinely believe that, by and large, these are kind, decent, hardworking people who are struggling massively under a deeply unfair system.
All the white folks in Lexington have more solidarity with queer, black and latino folks in Omaha than they do with anyone in the board rooms of Tyson and JBS—any party that can’t acknowledge that reality isn’t worth our time.
“All conflict is class conflict”
I'm also very progressive and always vote for Dems even if they don't deserve it. (Snubbing Bernie not once, but twice has soured me a lot on the party)
Unfortunately the democrats would sooner write off entire states and constantly say "lol you get what you deserve" than try to reach those people. There's an air of superiority about the party, especially when they think they can stick it to someone they view as less intelligent than them.
A huge reason the right boomed the way it did in recent years is because they became the welcoming party. You may not agree with everything everyone says there, but they were still largely willing to welcome you in and tell you your concerns are valid. Meanwhile the left tears itself apart if they're not 100% ideologically aligned and take joy in telling people who don't agree with everything they say (even if they agree with SOME of it) they're evil and deserve to die or be homeless or whatever.
Absolutely.
There is something so deeply reactionary about Dems in their current form. It’s especially frustrating because the cultural politics of the party over the last 10-15 years have said “No group of people is a monolith.”
I don’t expect ideological purity, but hot damn let’s be consistent in how we apply our principles!
Doesn't help that bringing it up in an attempt to fix things gets you mass downvoted/called a secret fascist nazi.
I feel bad for 26% of those workers.
“Have the day you voted for 😊”
And they would vote for them again! winning!
How could democrats do this to them?
Breaking news...Town gets what they voted for.
Did they though?
https://preview.redd.it/thsdq8odfu9g1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=91e969a366d5e1cd89a50e2b09a93b6e8b86d240
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawson_County%2C_Nebraska
What happened in 1964?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_United_States_presidential_election?wprov=sfla1
Pretty much the whole country voted Democrat.
Oh, so you are talking about Nebraska specifically. Got it.
Dawson County, which is where Lexington is located and is the biggest town of that county.
That makes sense
Another "leopards ate my face" moment.
WINNING!
Tyson is owned by the Clinton’s….
Working people in the mid west vote red because the dems never do or say anything about helping them, not because they love Trump.
What reason is it the unemployed vote republican? Because this mid west town just got a bucket load of them.
Am Nebraskan, do community organizing, can absolutely confirm this.
Dems show up once every four years in Omaha, promise basically the same economic platform as republicans (with slightly better language) and then dip out, rinse and repeat.
Our state party is completely absent, we have tons of local/state wide races up for grabs with no dem challengers every cycle, and local funders are unwilling to engage seriously with anything that they don’t see as a sure shot for their investments.
Meanwhile, a good portion of the state doesn’t have adequate internet access and the only news stations available to them are controlled by one of our Republican congressmen. They aren’t suffering from a lack of brains or care, they are starved for available options.
They love Trump
Dem's have made themselves a city/metropolitan area based party with little appeal to the rural voter. Unfortunately with Republican austerity it means closing county offices and healthcare facilities which are the largest employers in many rural areas
You mean the places where most people actually live? Can't imagine why...
BS - Republicans cheat, gerrymander and lie. Lazy folks who whine that the Democrats aren’t a better option locally need to get organized and present a better option or acknowledge that they actually support the bigots grifting them.
sounds like the town was already on its last legs, having one company be such a dominator employer in the area is not a healthy situation.
I can sit here and do the "thoughts and prayers", but that is all it is, the reality will soon set in. Lexington may simply never recover from this.
Yep, almost a 1/3 of the total town population, no to mention restaurants, stores, and all the other businesses in that ecosystem that relied on the population being employed.
3200 people is half the town.
As of 2020 30% of the population is under 18. and 10% is over 65. This leaves you with 6600 of the population working.
I didn't specify working population, I said 'total town population'.
The town is 11-12,00 population as of the AP article from this week:
https://apnews.com/article/tyson-closure-workers-lexington-nebraska-beef-plant-638e615f6225bc7452767d2bc836890c
I don’t think they were correcting you, but adding to the information that half of the towns workers are employed there.
Yup, this guy gets it. er Gnome gets it.
*landgnome…watch out for those watergnomes. Trouble.
I agree.
You weren't wrong. I was including more information to highlight the fact that it's more disastrous than what a simple counting of 1/3rd of the population would suggest.
Its not the best choice, its spacers choice. IYKYK 💀
A lot of small towns have a single large company in them.
which isnt a good sign.
I don’t think it’s that big of a sign. If there were more large companies they wouldn’t be small towns. But many of the small towns I have been to typically consisted of a single large company and farmers. The farmers would work at the company and operate the farm before and after work.
In my opinion a bigger indicator of a struggling small town is a run down Main Street.
wasn't this the same area where distilleries used to provide free off products for their animals to feed? they stop because of Trump.
Food production should be the most stable and in demand industry their is..
This is a beef packing plant. Beef consumption is down, there has been a drought for many years, which has led to smaller cattle herds, and Tyson is something like $600 million down in revenue with their beef business.
As one news article put it: it was a spreadsheet decision.
Smaller herds mean higher prices. Higher prices mean less demand which means less revenue. Vicious cycle.
I've cut way back on my beef consumption myself. Even still, the quality isn't what it used to be either.
Yep. Consumption overall has been trending down for a bit, but the higher prices recently really hit it home.
I cut meat entirely from my diet years ago for financial reasons. I'm not going back to it.
Also didn't those fires last year take out a number of herds?
And flooding a few years ago as well took out a few herds
I suspect these kind of actions are more about the message than the cost savings.
agree
This kills the town.
in 2020: 29.5% of the population was under the age of 18, 9.5% from 18 to 24, 29.3% from 25 to 44, 19.9% from 45 to 64, and 9.1% who were 65 years of age or older.
Removing 40% of the population for either being younger than 18 or older than 65 means that 3200 people loosing their jobs is half the town.
But the military got a $1,776 bonus this year so this all cancels out /s
Which actually came out of their housing allowance. So, it was already their money. He's just claiming to call it a bonus.
He also turned the nontaxable housing allowance into a taxable bonus
Sooo, Remember how everyone was shit-talking college and saying "just get a trade they're always in demand!" well, no jobs are safe folks. That's why we're anti-work. The whole system needs to be broken down to the studs and remade.
Meat packing isn't a trade. I understand what you're saying, but the only person in there with a trade was the sparky who maintained the machinery. Plumber, bricklayer, locksmith, carpenter, framer, concreter etc are trades. Most trades are safe because machines can't do them and the few that do have machines are usually much more cheaply done with actual labour. In most countries those trades are protected by licensing, insurance and apprenticeships as shitty tradies will cause deaths.
Meat processing and butcher is absolutely a trade.
This didn’t happen “overnight”. We’ve been reading about the impending shutdown for at least a month or two.
Open yesterday. Closed today. Shutdown overnight.
Math checks out.
Technically Right but it's not a helpful distinction. When people say "shut down overnight," they generally mean it was surprising in some way. None of what happened is surprising. Next there will be a political campaign to blame urban liberals, immigrants, and Yada yada yada. The cycle continues.
Oh well
The town basically voted for it themselves
They can learn how to make bootstraps
Nutlick said they're gonna love screwing in tiny iPhone screws for their American made iPhone. A generational job lmao.
Merry Christmas - the GoP
2 in the thoughts, 1 in the prayers
Never will you hear them say I will vote different. Nope always I'm gonna pray. Will be six feet under and still praying.
This is climate related. Herds in lower states don't have as much grazing land or water, due to heat climbing. It is only going to keep moving north and making even less and less areas suitable for animals.
So they voted for the climate deniers.
Remember though, capital takes all the risks so it needs to be well compensated /s
Soo much winning ..
As they are putting up their belongings for sale on FB they can at least bask in the knowledge that they increased shareholder value and that trans volleyball player can’t play anymore.
Feeling Great Again yet?
So 3/4 of the state voted against their own needs and now we're supposed to feel bad for them? When will red states wake up and realize they're fucking screwed. Arkansas with the farmers, Tennessee with jack Daniels, Kentucky with Tyson.. how many more times will it happen before they wake the fuck up??
This was in Nebraska, Kentucky was screwed by Ford and the Trump administration pushing back on the electric vehicle initiatives. Drill, Drill, Drill, killed the battery plant. This is what the country voted for, why are people surprised? This would be a good place to open a bootstrap factory.
I don't see the link yet But I bet Tyson food have something to do With this news
Between the job Market, the super high price of most shit and the loss of ACA subsidies it’s going to be a bloodbath for Republicans.
Trumponomics
Fitting in the with Nebraska theme, this is some Johnny 99 shit
Please explain how this has anything to do with politics. All my research shows that it has to do with the US cattle herd being extremely small and that people are eating less meat.
we need some classes on how the world works for people to be educated on how to vote. starting in 6th grade, tell kids the good and bad parts of both sides.
This is nothing new and it has happens many times over the years. This is how ghost towns are created…
Also as much as you’d like to blame the current administration, this plant closed due to reasons other than recent policy… so to say that they voted republican has nothing do with this…
The beef industry has been changing in recent years. Here’s some more information.
https://www.beefmagazine.com/market-news/what-tyson-beef-plant-closure-means-for-cattle-producers
They will vote for same person without second thought… Lord have mercy on them.
Have the day you voted for
Well... Yea? People need to really understand it isn't a republican and democrat, or race thing. It is very much a rich vs everyone else thing and we really need to come together (there are vastly more of us) to do something about it.
and?
Boo hoo