Looking back, here is the State's 2024 Presidential election map, red being Republican/Trump-Vance voting. Rural voting Republicn is inescapable reality, per that map.
Clearly, aside from The urban areas, Duluth and the Twin Cities, rural counties went big for Trump.
So now, the payback, right? Don't bet on anything, folks. Something might happen, but what?
DOGE Elon is closing US Aid, or has closed it. Trump having the ultimate say, but Elon doing the hunting. So, technically Trump and Elon teamed together are closing it and the website https://www.usaid.gov reflects the change. One thing not yet obliterated by Elon's team,
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12067/2
That website dated March 2022 is titled, "Overview of U.S. International Food Assistance," and it shows money spent to purchase commodity crops in the US to asssist feeding other national populations. A not-insubstantial part of the ag product purchasing market.
Strib noted that part of the Musk/Trump US Aid shutdown, publishing a Feb. 6, 2025, local report:
Shuttering of USAID could mean the end of millions in income for Midwest farm operations
In opening paragraphs, that report stated -
U.S. farmers and agribusinesses, including Minnesota ventures from ag giants to processors of yellow split peas, could lose money after President Donald Trump’s administration abruptly closed USAID.
Minnetonka-based Cargill, Inver Grove Heights-based CHS Inc. and Minneapolis trader Sinamco sold a total of $70 million in sorghum, wheat and peas to the agency’s Food for Peace program, according to records shared with the Minnesota Star Tribune on Thursday.
In total, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, last year purchased $2 billion in U.S.-grown crops from corn and soybeans to wheat, sorghum, vegetable oil and peas. Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin farmers were among those selling their crops to the program.
[...] Nearly a week after federal officials dissolved USAID, anxieties are mounting about what a gap will be left in next year’s order sheets without the foreign food aid customer.
[...] Half a billion dollars worth of food currently is at risk of spoilage in transit or at warehouses in the U.S., including a facility in Houston where many Midwestern crops sit awaiting ships, said former workers for USAID-related groups.
“This stuff has a best-by date, and it’s not moving because of these executive orders. This is enough food to feed 36 million people,” said one employee of USAID now placed, like the rest of the workers there, on leave. Current and former workers spoke on the condition for anonymity because they are concerned about retaliation.
The speed with which the Trump administration dismantled USAID initially spurred concerns for food-insecure regions, such as Somalia or Ukraine or Venezuela, where American food aid has been deployed to stave off starvation or malnutrition and health care programs help stem disease.
But in the ensuing days, there’s been a growing concern that the dropping of a federal humanitarian food program could also have a doubling-back impact on U.S. farmers.
BOTTOM LINE: Closing US Aid is affecting demand for ag products. Cargill, on the big side takes a hit. Moreover, rural farming subsidies will be on the table when Elon reaches the Ag Department.
And for those facing rural poverty, Elon's coming for your food stamps.
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So, Elon wants the government to buy his rockets, and urban commuters to buy his Teslas. What might he care about, rurally? Having to put cost into charging stations so the urban Tesla folks can travel, that represents a net cost to Elon.
Now, with supply-demand economics, will lessening crop demand at the farm and rail sites, with pricing at the farm and at Cargill falling, will it mean grocery store pricing will easee?
Don't bet on it. The intermediaries between commodities and foodshelves are positioned to make a little more to where grocery shelf pricing is uncertain to change much if at all.
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How about long term tourism and quality of life up north in the State? Stauber's out to kill or at least unwisely imperil tourism to feed foreign mining interests and their greed. As the sulfide mining metals peter out short term and the new job situations get abandoned by the big foreign mining interests, what is left of sustainable tourism, with sulfide pollution making a mess and even endangering native wild rice rights? Right, zippo value boost remains long term, but long term costs to taxpayers will prevail.
You, rural Minnesota, will get what you voted for.
We, urban Minnesota, will get what you voted for and we voted against. In four years, will your lives be better? In two years, during midterm elections, will your lives be better?
Elon surely will have his say, and good luck to you.
____________UPDATE___________
Seeking to find inefficiencies is not an aim to criticize, as long as targeting of critics is forestalled by participant good ethics. Terming the Elon/DOGE team "mustrats" is an affectionate usage, or take it as such. Hopefully big item changes are the aim, again not working from any "enemies" list as Nixon did.
So, overall good, and quick and low personnel usage -Musk's own operation seems clean and effocient.
What is cause for wonder, and with the website on pause harder to pin down - over say the last six years, i.e., into the last half of Trump 45, what has been the US Aid total budget, and how much of it for food. The difference is logistical movement and propagand and possibly bribes, apparent or covered up.
It seems incumbent on DOGE to publicly report such information about outcomes of its actions, besides, "We shut the fuckers down." Musk is bright, and likely understands such things fully, better than I do. We look forward to unbiased action and fair transparent reporting.
And the one dude posting positively about eugenics, not needed, scrap him as fast as others are getting scrapped. Fairness of process matters. The rest of the team is competent enough to handle what might be fired as unacceptable. Competently unacceptable. But unacceptable nonetheless, for one representing government power and process.
Again, those fired will have court access, and while delay is a form of denial, and the deep pocket almost always wins. It is something, and they, not you or I, who have standing to litigate.
So wish the DOGE team good hunting, if they are doing it hope it is done competently and with pricacy of citizen data understood as a requirement. Again, Trump stated his intentions pre-election, and it got him a majority of those voting, so there is a presumption of propriety. Those going to court will face that. As Hunter Biden did, while clearly targeted for whose son he was, and not for what he did.
All for now. Presumably Musk has lawyers on the team for procedural matters, or has White House legal staff on call, and the hope is his hubris will not interfere with his level of care.
Last, old folks, you more than other age blocs voted Trump-Vance. Don't cry too much if it bites your ass, you voted, hence you note and live with consequences, Medicare and Social Security wise, and otherwise.