We do not know what Nicholas Gilbert’s, the farmer is the OP’s article, motivations are. You seem to care a WHOLE lot about how wrong that is and are using it to make it seem the article has no value.
I maintain that Nicholas Gilbert is a proxy to represent all farmers (at least that group of farmers). It’s a literary device. Arguing that we cannot know Nicholas Gilbert’s motivations does not mean we can’t draw some conclusions about the group (and we know he is in a group because it mentions a co-op he belongs to).
I will assume you know what it means to say you can’t see the forest because of the trees. This is that. You are so focused on using Gilbert and how we cannot know HIS mind that you miss the larger point.
I think it’s unfair to that farmer to make assumptions about whether he voted for Trump, and whether he supports tariffs. The point of the article is that the tariffs are hurting his business. The farmer isn’t a proxy to represent the voting of farmers, but the economic impact tariffs actually are having today on farmers, all farmers, both Trump and Harris supporters.
And it’s not about schadenfreude, it’s about the damage Trump’s policies are wreaking on Americans.
I don’t care at all about Gilbert’s motivations or what group he’s in and I don’t care either way about the article or the journalism involved. What I care about — and this is like the fourth time I’ve specifically pointed this out, so please try to focus on this one single tree here and not the forest — is that it is wrong to say that farmer had that position without more info. The only issue here is with the OP and how they’ve erroneously framed the story with false attributions.
When you extrapolate to the forest-for-the-trees argument, you’re getting way too close to arguing in favor of stereotyping people. I don’t care if it worked in a sci-fi book or marketing or getting Kilmar Abrego Garcia sent to an El Salvadoran prison, that is not a good place to be. And when you say you believe that that gives us carte blanche to just simply make stuff up about people (as the OP did)… I said it before, I’ll say it again — depressing.
edit to add
and again, I’m not saying the OP did anything on purpose
Most farmers are Trump voters, true, but it’s still not fair to take this one farmer as representative of all farmers. It’s possible, for instance, that this guy did vote Harris, and all of his neighbors who voted for Trump are responding to the tariffs with “Yeah, you show them, Trump!”. Is it likely? I don’t know, probably not. But it’s possible.
If the article had been about farmers, in general, being shocked by the tariffs, then statements about farmers, in general, would be relevant. But it’s about this one particular farmer. Of course, that’s because stories about individuals are more interesting than stories about demographics, but it also means you need to treat them as individuals.
This is a site whose core ethos is trying to base things on facts, on science, on truth. That’s why - delightfully - correcting people here is more okay than on most sites.
I agree with you that the OP read in something that’s not there, and I’d just as soon we not do that.
I think it is very common for stories to be told about one person that are meant to highlight the plight of a class of people.
A story about the struggles of a transgendered person or a gay person or a native American person or a woman…take your pick…are quite often told through focusing on one person’s experience. There is nothing new about this style at all. I am mystified at the weird focus about this ONE particular guy. It is not about this ONE particular guy. It is about many in the same boat as him, regardless of their politics (although I maintain this particular group are almost always very conservative with the understanding some may not be).
We are not meant to think this farmer’s plight is his alone.
I believe the focus on the ONE guy is a means to discredit the whole topic and that’s not cool.
I don’t see anything wrong with what the Post and the Atlantic wrote.
Gilbert said: “If your price of fuel goes up or your truck breaks down, that’s not my problem!” Why would he say this, why would he be talking about costs on the supply end, if he didn’t think they would be absorbing the tariffs?
If it weren’t for that line, sure, we can argue he didn’t think the tariffs would kick in yet, or existing contracts would be exempt, there are other reasons to be surprised to have to pay now. But with that line, it’s clear what he believed.
Well, I met lots of regretful Reagan voters, but none while Reagan was in office. I met them in the 1990s & 2000s, mostly. It took both seeing the long-term effects of Reagan-- not of the things he promised, but the side effects, that seemed worth it at the time, but regrettable later, like the state of AIDS treatment-- and the distance to say “misspent youth,” mostly.
I have to wonder if Trump actually believes that tariffs are levied against the country of origin. He always says something to the effect of “a tariff of 10% on Canada” instead of “a 10% tariff on Canadian goods”. It it by shrewd design, or is he just that stupid?
The way he talks, I even wondered if somehow, exactly how tariffs worked had changed since I learned about them in jr. high, or if I’d just wandered through the looking-glass.
I think you’re completely missing the point. There is no ambiguity about the farmer’s position – he clearly articulated it. His position is that he shouldn’t have to pay tariffs – his Canadian supplier should. Is this because that’s how Trump deceptively likes to frame the issue? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s a stupid and unrealistic belief that betrays an ignorance of how tariffs work. That’s what the article, and the OP, are about.
Dumb question, but I find myself confused about the contract. Naively, while I’d expect that tariff costs would be factored into contracts not-yet-committed, I would have thought that the supplier would be on the hook to transact at the current contracted price.
Taxes are not usually part of a contract that I am aware of. The person contracting with you will sell you a widget for $1 each. What taxes the government lays on are beyond their control and variable. They will sell you the widget for $1 and then add the 100% government tax and charge you $2.
They have met the terms of their contract (most likely). Same as when you buy something in a store and they add the tax at the end. Advertised price is $X and at the register you pay $X + $Y taxes.
My understanding (and I could very well be wrong) is that tariffs are collected by Customs and Border protection and paid by the importer , which in this case seems to be the farmer. It’s a little different from sales tax, which is ordinarily collected by the seller. It’s more like “duty” - if I exceed my duty-free allowance on a trip , I will have to pay duty on the excess to CBP when I make my declaration. The store I bought from in France doesn’t collect it. When something I owe duty on is mailed to me, USPS collects it , not the foreign seller. (unless, of course they lie about what’s in the package)
If the farmer had bought from an American supplier which imported the grain from Canada, it might have worked the way he expected , where his supplier ate the cost. For a while.
The supplier would have transacted at the contract price. Then the goods arrive at the border, and Uncle Sam imposes a tariff, and will not release the goods to the US purchaser until the purchaser pays the tariff.
As Whack-a-mole says, taxes and tariffs are not part of the contract price.
I think this is just a difference in who does what. The government wants its tax money and different agencies work to collect that money in different regimes. But it is all the same in the end…the government is collecting a tax. While they may say some taxes are earmarked for this or that it really is accounting sleight of hand and it is just money in the government’s coffers no matter who collected it.