Sorry Nebraska Farmers, America Is Fresh Out of Sympathy

When you vote against your own livelihood, don’t be surprised when the check bounces.

Distress signals from the agricultural heartland, particularly from farmers in Nebraska, many of whom are now facing unprecedented challenges to their livelihoods. Labor shortages, subsidy cuts, and budget deficit are not merely the product of global economic forces or climate variability. In significant part, they’re the direct outcomes of federal policy decisions that were both forecasted and, in many cases, politically supported by constituents now suffering their consequences.

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Nebraska, we need to talk. Specifically, about the TikTok videos flooding my feed from “Nebraska Farmer Tok,” where tearful farmers are asking, “Does anyone even care about Nebraska?”

Well, let’s see. Does anyone care about the people who knowingly set their house on fire and are now upset that they’re homeless? Because that’s essentially what we’re looking at here.

The same farmers who rallied behind Donald Trump’s policies—policies that promised to deport the very migrant workers their farms depend on, gut the federal subsidies keeping them afloat, and deregulate agricultural protections in ways that ultimately favor corporate agribusiness over family farms—are now experiencing the cold, hard consequences of their own votes.

And let’s just say, the national sympathy tank is running on fumes.

If you’re a Nebraska farmer crying foul over what Trump’s policies have done to your industry, the rest of America has one simple question: What exactly did you think was going to happen?

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Trump Promised to Gut Immigration—And He Delivered

One of the biggest shocks (or, for the rest of us, the least surprising development of 2025) is that Nebraska’s farming economy is being crushed under the weight of Trump’s second-term immigration policies.

Shocking, right? Who could have guessed that mass deportations would leave entire industries—industries that rely heavily on undocumented workers—crippled and understaffed?

Well, literally everyone.

According to the Center for Migration Studies and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), an estimated 45% of the U.S. agricultural workforce is undocumented. And that’s likely an undercount.

• Nebraska, where agriculture constitutes a major share of the state’s GDP and employment base, is particularly vulnerable.

• Migrant and seasonal farmworkers perform essential duties in planting, harvesting, and processing, especially in the state’s robust corn, soybean, and livestock industries (Martin, 2017).

• Policies aimed at mass deportation and the reduction of H-2A visas have disrupted labor availability, leading to delayed harvests, increased spoilage, and rising operational costs (Martin, 2022).

The American Farm Bureau Federation has long warned that deportation-driven enforcement without a corresponding legal labor framework would severely compromise food security and domestic production capacity (AFBF, 2019).

These workers are the backbone of agriculture, handling everything from planting and harvesting to processing and distribution.

And yet, when Trump spent years on the campaign trail promising to “deport them all,” his farmer base either cheered or stayed silent, assuming, I suppose, that crops would magically pick themselves.

But now? Now that the fields are empty, the harvests are delayed, and labor costs are soaring? Suddenly, there’s a crisis. Suddenly, Nebraskans are begging for someone—anyone—to step in and help them keep their farms running.

Here’s the thing: when your entire industry is built on the labor of undocumented immigrants, maybe don’t vote for the guy who swore to rip that labor force away.

It’s like hiring an arsonist to remodel your house and then being surprised when all that’s left is ashes.

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Nebraska’s Budget Disaster Was Also Self-Inflicted

Of course, it’s not just the labor crisis choking Nebraska’s economy. The state itself is staring down a $289 million budget deficit, thanks to yet another Trump-era policy change: massive cuts to federal Medicaid funding.

Now, if you’re wondering what Medicaid has to do with farmers, let’s break it down.

• Nebraska is a heavily rural state, and rural hospitals and clinics rely heavily on Medicaid reimbursements to keep their doors open.

  • According to the Nebraska Hospital Association, over 60% of rural health facilities in the state rely on Medicaid for more than a third of their operational revenue (NHA, 2022).

• With those funds slashed, rural healthcare providers are at risk of shutting down.

• And when hospitals disappear, so do the people. Rural economies, already fragile, spiral into decline.

• It’s a domino effect: fewer people means fewer workers, fewer consumers, fewer tax dollars.

Reductions in federal Medicaid reimbursements have created cascading effects in rural states like Nebraska, where small hospitals and clinics disproportionately depend on these funds to remain solvent (Rural Health Research Gateway, 2023).

The closure of rural hospitals contributes to out-migration, demographic collapse, and weakened local economies—creating a feedback loop that further destabilizes agricultural communities (Probst et al., 2018).

The very infrastructure that supports Nebraska’s agricultural economy is now crumbling before their eyes.

And yet, the same farmers who voted for Trump’s anti-government rhetoric are now stunned that “small government” means… well, exactly what it says on the tin. Less help. Less funding. Less support.

I hate to break it to you, Nebraska, but you don’t get to demand fiscal responsibility while also expecting Uncle Sam to bail you out when your policies backfire. That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

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No More Handouts for the Hypocrites

And speaking of bailouts, let’s talk about the subsidies that Nebraska farmers used to receive before Trump gutted the agencies that distributed them.

American farmers—particularly in states like Nebraska—have long depended on government subsidies to survive the volatility of agriculture. Federal assistance programs have propped up small farms for decades, acting as a safety net against market fluctuations, extreme weather, and trade disruptions.

But guess what? Trump slashed those programs.

Not only did he dismantle federal protections that helped farmers weather economic instability, but he also pulled the U.S. out of trade deals that once benefited American agriculture.

• Remember when Trump launched his trade war with China in 2018? Nebraska’s soybean, corn, and pork farmers immediately took a hit when China—one of their biggest buyers—retaliated with tariffs.

• By 2019, U.S. soybean exports to China had dropped by 75%, with Nebraska farmers experiencing tens of millions in lost revenue (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020).

• This left Nebraska’s producers exposed to volatile international markets without the support mechanisms they had relied on for decades (Bown, 2020). Even now, with global supply chains gradually recovering, the effects of lost market share and weakened trade partnerships continue to haunt Nebraska’s agricultural exporters.

And yet, rather than learning from that debacle, Nebraska farmers doubled down in 2024, voting for another four years of policies that kneecap their own industry.

Now, as they beg for help, the rest of us are left wondering: where was all this concern for government intervention when it was working in your favor?

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Actions Have Consequences—And No, Nebraska, You’re Not the Victim

If Nebraska farmers were caught in a disaster they never saw coming—if they had been actively fighting against these destructive policies all along—perhaps the nation’s reaction would be different.

But that’s not what happened.

What happened is that they cheered these policies on, celebrated the very deregulation and deportation measures that are now destroying their businesses, and only started crying foul when the consequences hit home.

• The situation in Nebraska exemplifies the concept of policy feedback: the consequences of public policy shape political behavior and attitudes—but not always in the way constituents anticipate (Pierson, 1993).

• In this case, the alignment of rural agricultural voters with political platforms advocating deregulation, reduced immigration, and decreased federal spending has resulted in policies that, paradoxically, undermine the very economic structures these voters depend on.

• While it is tempting to interpret the current agricultural crisis as a failure of governance, it is more accurately described as a reflection of democratic accountability and the often-contradictory nature of voter preferences. The expectation that government will “get out of the way” while continuing to provide stabilizing subsidies and labor support is logically inconsistent and politically unsustainable.

It’s hard to have sympathy for a drowning man who spent years insisting he didn’t need a life jacket.

Let’s be clear: The collapse of Nebraska’s farming industry isn’t a failure of governance. It’s a direct result of farmers getting exactly what they voted for.

And while I’m sure some Nebraskans regret their choices now, that doesn’t change the fact that they made them.

Nebraska’s agricultural crisis is not the result of unforeseeable catastrophe. It is the foreseeable and forewarned result of policies that were politically supported despite clear evidence of their likely outcomes. This case serves as a sobering reminder of the critical necessity of evidence-based policymaking and the need for electorates to critically evaluate the long-term consequences of their policy preferences.

While empathy remains an important component of democratic discourse, effective governance also requires responsibility, foresight, and a willingness to reckon with the outcomes of one’s choices. For Nebraska farmers and the wider rural Midwest, that reckoning has arrived.

So no, Nebraska. The rest of America doesn’t have time to cry over your self-inflicted wounds. There are too many other fights—real fights—worth waging. Fights for people who didn’t ask for the suffering they’re experiencing.

You wanted Trump’s America? Congratulations. You’re living in it.

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