Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) has a very big problem. Certainly, he gains few votes by attacking a group of American heroes during Donald Trump’s impeaching hearings. True, he allegedly stood by as a colleague sexually molested student-athletes. No, this could be even bigger.
A 62-year-old grain and cattle farmer Chris Gibbs has begun doing the legwork people do as they gird themselves to enter the political arena. He would enter a 2020 race against Ohio’s Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH).
Thus far, Gibbs has gone on CNN and CNBC to explain how Trump’s agriculture tariffs against China have hurt his farming endeavor. He has lost one-fifth of what he could get for his soybean crops. Family intergenerational farms, going decades back to before World War II, have been falling into bankruptcy.
Still, Ohio farmers continue to support the president. Gibbs said that the tariffs have been “devastating,” according to The Toledo Blade:
‘Tariffs for agriculture have been devastating. In northwest Ohio, [farmers] have had a heck of a time. I can take it, sure, but I don’t have to be quiet about it.’
Gibbs voted for Trump, but as most farmers are, he is an independent-thinker. He explained that the president’s trade policies do not work, and Washington appeared to be broken. “It’s the vitriol:”
‘People are tired of the vitriol in Washington, on both sides. It isn’t just Jim Jordan. It’s the vitriol back and forth and the lack of ability to roll up your sleeves and get something done for the American people.’
Gibbs was a reluctant Trump voter in 2016. He said that he had “hoped Republicans in Congress” would serve as a check on an overly expansive White House. They did not. The Ohio farmer said:
‘I never anticipated that the Republicans in Congress would wilt in their responsibility to their oath and serve the President over serving their districts.’
As the owner of a 560=acre operating farm not far from the Indiana/Ohio border, Gibbs knew that he would be going up against the odds. Trump won 80 percent of the Ohio voters and Jordan took 68 percent of the votes in his district. Still, farmers have always been up against the odds. The weather has shown herself to be a fickle partner.
Those who support Gibbs hope the impeachment hearings will handicap Jordan. The representative’s rapid-fire prosecution style has generally been off-putting:
‘Legislation is not wrestling. It isn’t a pin and get points. Jim Jordan believes it’s wrestling.’
Gibbs has been no stranger to government. He retired from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. His plan of attack will be to convince Trump-supporting farmers to vote for him:
‘I’m in the minority and that’s perplexing to me.’
He was raised in the strong farming community, still powerful even as farmers are down to less than two percent of all Americans. Corporate farms have bankrupted family farmers who operate on the knife’s edge of finance. One flood, one grasshopper invasion, one season that is too dry can topple the average family farmer. Even with the weather cooperating but something as simple as rain at the wrong time can keep the farm machinery out of the field as the crops rot.
Gibbs had this to say about Trump’s actions:
‘What they don’t realize is that farmers are the prism through which rural communities thrive. We hold kryptonite to this President in our shirt pockets. And what is it? It’s our vote. Because he knows if he loses that agriculture support, he loses rural communities. And if he loses the rural communities, he loses Wisconsin, he loses Michigan, and he loses western Pennsylvania, and he gets nibbled at in Ohio.’
Featured image via Twitter.
The Mueller Report Adventures: In Bite-Sizes on this Facebook page. These quick, two-minute reads interpret the report in normal English for busy people. Mueller Bite-Sizes uncovers what is essentially a compelling spy mystery. Interestingly enough, Mueller Bite-Sizes can be read in any order.
