Episode 60. Candid Conversation with Democratic Party Leaders with Russ Carnahan, Chris Jones, Jane Kleeb and Will Westmoreland
Michelle Rathman: Welcome to the Rural Impact Round Table, for what promises to be one heck of a candid conversation. I am sure of that. Russ Carnahan, welcome. It's great to have you here.
Russ Carnahan: Wonderful to be with you.
Michelle Rathman: Thank you. Jane Fleming Kleeb, also great to have you with us.
Jane Kleeb: Thank you. Excited to be here.
Michelle Rathman: Wonderful. And Chris Jones, welcome.
Chris Jones: Hey, great to be here.
Michelle Rathman: And you know Will Westmoreland as they say, which this entire panel is a great panel, but they saved the best for last.
Will welcome.
Will Westmoreland: Hey, thank you, Michelle. Thanks for having me on.
Michelle Rathman: You are very welcome. Okay. We have so much to talk about. I've been looking forward to this conversation. Russ, I am going start with you. As I share, we did put out to our listeners, we asked people to send us some of their questions. And this is one that I have to, get us started off, is the fact that you know, we do want to get into policies, but we know that there needs to be a plan for rural engagement.
There, there's no one who can argue with that one, I don't think, because despite the reports of some eroding support for Donald Trump's policies in rural America, the fact remains that 63% of rural voters up from 60% in 2020 went to Trump.
And so as I said, we put the question out to listeners and this one came in, which is really this giving the growing rural urban divide, what new messages or strategies are Democrats exploring to engage rural voters without sounding condescending or in touch? How are we going to engage rural folks out there and having conversations that are focused on policy and the impact that it's having on their quality of life?
Russ Carnahan: I love this question to kick this off, and you know, I grew up in rural south Missouri. I represented an urban district in the state legislature and then a congressional district that was part urban and part rural. So, I sort of have had a, a foot in, in both rural and urban Missouri and, and politics.
And I think the key to me is you don't look at them separately. To me, the art of politics is building a bridge between the two and finding that common ground. Certainly, there are unique issues in urban America, in rural America, but there's a whole bunch of common ground issues that bring folks together.
And I think too often when we look at them separately, we do a disservice. Also, just in terms of sheer political organizing, areas in urban areas that tend to be stronger democratic areas to be able to adopt and engage some of those rural communities to help their leaders and their communities with resources and ideas so they feel like they're part of that.
And, and really the, the first rung on the ladder in, in a lot of rural America and rural Missouri for Democrats is frankly just showing up. Many of our small counties, you know, don't have any demo, you know, few or no democratic elected officials. Their Democratic committee and clubs are, you know, inactive or not, don't exist.
And they're listening to news sources that, that are, that, that are not accurate. So again, just showing up in that art of finding those bridge issues is really key. The one quick example I'll give, when I was in the legislature, we were having a hard time getting rural legislators to vote for, uh, transitioning urban bus systems to biodiesel fuel until they figured out they needed X thousand more acres of soybeans to be planted, to fill that demand.
And all of a sudden, they saw, well, maybe that's not such a bad idea. But that to me was just a classic example of finding that common ground issue between urban and rural areas.
Michelle Rathman: You bring up a real good point before we move on to you, Jane, because, uh, you know, and my notes here, we show that in 2022, Democrats left 51% of partisan down ballot races, uncontested. And I think that's another really big point because if we're not at the table. What do, what do they say? If you are not on the table, you're at, you're on the menu.
Jane Kleeb: Yeah.
Michelle Rathman: I think is the, the phrase. So, thank you for that, Russ.
Jane, I want to turn to you, what fir first of all just congratulations on your recent elections to be in the positions that you're in now serving as President of the Association of State Democratic Committees in 2025, DNC Vice Chair, where again, thank you for your time.
You've got a lot on your plate, I would imagine. But you said, Jane and, I went in, in my research you said, and I really love the way you stated this, for rural people, most everything is tied to the land, livelihoods, family histories, hopes and aspirations.
And we also know that America's food supply, for example, as well as for many parts of the world up until recently really relied on American agriculture and our land to grow our food. So, these are tied, whether we want to talk about it or not, we do to climate impacts and environment.
So given that, we'll just put it out there. 70% of the Project 2025 plans for the environment have already either been accomplished or right in the works, and that includes rescinding USAID policy that address climate change that help countries transition away from fossil fuels, abolishing the Office of Domestic Climate Policy through an executive order, and now in progress.
Something that's on a lot of people's minds, which is breaking up of NOAH. Making it private and abolishing the climate work that they're doing. So let's just talk a little bit about that. I don't think anyone in rural America can dismiss how significant this will be especially as we go into hurricane season.
So, Jane, with all that, what are just a few of the imperatives that you think our listeners need to know about how these actions and these policies, including the cuts, the staff to grant staffing and so forth, what's it going to do to our land, the air we breathe, the water, our disaster preparedness? That's a mouthful.
Jane Kleeb: Yeah, no question. I mean, we could have three- hour conversation just on that one question alone. Let me try to be a little bit brief and touch on a few points. One, you know, any farmer or rancher the app that they're looking at every morning is the weather app on their phone or tuning into their local television to see what the news anchor is going to say about the weather.
And a lot of local weather folks have been saying recently that they are unprepared to make credible forecast given all of the cuts that Trump and the Republicans have done to the data and science that they need access to. So this is a major issue. It obviously impacts planting, and you know, and all sorts of things that we do to grow enough food to not only feed America but feed the world.
And, and that's something that rural America, whether you're in a very heavy ag state like Nebraska, Arkansas, Missouri there's other states that aren't known for ag like New York but are also growing a tremendous amount of food to feed Americans and feed the world.
The other side of that coin is our land is also and has the ability to power America, empower the world. And these cuts that they are doing in particular to wind and solar because they are leaning into this misinformation, mostly fueled by fossil fuel corporations who don't want more diversified energy base because that means less money in their pockets is really doing damage to a lot of our rural communities where folks who have limited access to information and news sources are believing what Donald Trump says when he says that wind is causing cancer or wind is, you know, taking ag land out of production when in fact the majority of ag land in Nebraska, for example, when about 75% of the corn we grow is going to energy.
It is going to biofuels, which I fully support, and a lot of the Democratic party support. So we have to start talking to rural folks about how big corporations and the Republican party are constantly wanting to damage to their land, air, and water. Also, they can line their pocketbooks rather than what rural America wants to do.
We have a lot of pride and dignity in the hard work that it takes to grow energy and grow food and grow fiber. And Democrats quite honestly have not been talking about that at the national stage, on the pundits, on these TV stations. That's why I think it's important for folks like myself or Russ, for Chris. We are now rising in the ranks, if you will, of leadership among the Democratic party where they have more rural voices who are able to speak to these issues.
Michelle Rathman: Thank you. I think it's so important because I also, I mean, on this podcast we were to connect all these dots and then we also take a look at how many states are missing billions of dollars of canceled disaster funds. And you know, this hits farmers, ranchers very, very hard when that money isn't there for them. So, thank you for that.
We're, we're going to circle back on some other climate issues. Chris, I want to move to you because you've got a really unique story and we're going to make sure everyone knows all of your backgrounds on our website. But the topic I want to turn to briefly is one that comes up, questions I have received for this particular episode, and one that's coming up all over the place is DEI. And I'm going to say, I said someone's going to have to rip the word equity out of my dead cold body 'cause we can't make it illegal to say because it's something that's so necessary.
And as the Co-chair of Dirt Road Dems in one of America's reddest states, you've been vocal about the need to break the cycle of exclusion, including the need to create inclusive, equitable systems that empower every voice and every vote. So since taking office again, Donald Trump has eradicated both public and private diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.
That's no secret to anyone. And there truly is an assault on DEI initiatives, and it's been described as a case study in actions that virtually guarantee rural people and places they live will be disproportionately wounded. So, let's, let's go there. My question is, what has or will be the impact on eliminating equity initiatives in rural communities across Arkansas and the US?
Chris Jones: Look great, great, great question. Great framing and critically important. I think, I think the impact is going to be massive. It's actually hard to, to measure, the impact of some of these decisions because the, the changes and shifts. And look, the reality is equity isn't a buzzword. It's a, it's a lifeline in rural America.
As you said, I'm in Arkansas, born and raised here. My family's over 200 years in this state, and I know what it's like to live in rural areas, eating honeysuckle and riding dirt bikes and to represent these areas. And, and a lot of times in our rural areas, these are not only rural but underserved.
So, you know, you go across the Delta and equity for folks that live in the Delta is the difference between a kid getting internet that they can actually rely on to do their homework and to learn and falling behind in school? It's the difference between a farmer getting access to mental health care versus suffering in silence.
You know, it is, it is prenatal care. When a parent has to, a mom has to drive 90, 150 miles because there are no rural hospitals, because the hospitals are closing. So, equity is about changing that landscape and changing that dynamic. And when Donald Trump and the GOP, and let me tell you, Sarah Sanders here in Arkansas has been a leader in dismantling equity initiatives.
And we're seeing that their, their waging of culture wars is really cutting off the oxygen supply in rural communities. It's, it's Medicaid cuts where, you know, nearly half the kids in Arkansas rely on Medicaid. It's Head Start or they're trying to, kids are trying to learn at an early age to set themselves up for success and to get out of poverty.
You know, it's, it's food assistance through SNAP. That's not some abstract thing. Equity is making sure that every child can go to bed with a full stomach, knowing that they'll wake up the next morning ready, ready to attack the world and the challenges we face.
So, you know, I think we don't know the impact. But what we do know is that the impact will be massive. Uh, and last thing I'll say is like the, these attacks on equity, um, it's deliberate, it's strategic, and it's intended to actually leave people behind. You know, the, I'm an ordained minister in the Bible says the house divided cannot stand. It's intended to divide the house and leave rural folks behind.
And, and you know, the very folks who want to support the GOP, who want to support Trump are being mistreated, misused, and attacked by them because of these, these sorts of initiatives and things.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, and I think to your point, it's, we might not, might not be able to even calculate the damage that will come, but we know what it was when we, before we had a focus on equity, when I go back to not having opportunities for black farmers, for example, and not having opportunities for women in agriculture and so forth. And so, it really is really going back in time. So, thank you for that, Chris.
Will, I'm going to turn to you because you are, you are the farmer on the panel, which we always need to have. Your story is quite remarkable as well. I read that you know, you raised your children by yourself, as my father did with me as well.
So that's something that we have in common. But, you work to support America's farmers and ranchers, and you encourage, and I'm going to encourage our listeners, as I said, to learn more about you. But you have an emphasis on rural politics and farming. So, let's talk a little bit about the economic agenda, the Big Beautiful Bill, as it's called, and how, and you've talked about it on your Back 40 about the numbers. You said you did some running of the numbers.
So what will cutting $7 billion from agriculture funding for fiscal '26 mean for America's farmers and ranchers, their communities, and for that matter, all of America. While we're looking at numbers at adding $3 trillion dollars to the deficit over a period of time.
I think some, the numbers are just so confusing to people. I think you can help us break it down a little bit.
Will Westmoreland: Yeah, and you make a great point. I think the key to this is what we need to understand is that rural America is fighting a, for lack of a better term, they're fighting a two-front war against the Trump Administration right now. And I want to describe it this way. So I go all over the country, and I speak to rural people, Democrats, Independents, and Republicans.
And I can tell you the good news is, there's a realization coming home now that these policies are not good for rural America. Now, in all cases, they haven't gone as far as realizing what the source of the angst is, but Jane and, and Russ and Chris and I. We're going to do everything we can to help them get there.
But this two-front war, I'd break it down into two different things. First of all, there's a realization that what's happening in rural America with funding and these assaults that are occurring are a direct result of the administration's efforts to give a $3 to $4 trillion tax break to billionaires.
And that's something we haven't seen in the past, is the direct connection that people in rural America are making there. So, they're getting it that, hey, this isn't right. We're out here working sweat of our brow, you know, earning this GDP for our rural communities, and they're getting all the breaks.
In terms of the numbers, what's really bad about this? Let's start on the economic side. Even though farmers and ranchers only make up 14% of the rural population, they produce in one way or another through companies that support them or purchases they make in retail, et cetera, they support over 60% of the GDP in rural America.
So, when you talk about these assaults on farmers. I talked to a couple down in Florida just the other day. The wife is a Democrat. The husband is a Republican. They both voted for Donald Trump. They put $300,000 worth of of their own hard-earned money into improvement programs in their farm with a promise from the FSA that that would be reimbursed.
And they were told two weeks ago; you're not going to get that money. So even that was politicized. We saw the farmers and ranchers that screamed the loudest on social media, get their checks to quiet them down. But we've got thousands of farmers out there that still haven't gotten that money and they're not going to get it.
Um. The other side of that assault. So, you know, that has a direct impact on economics because farmers now have to make up for that with their own cash reserves. That's going to lead to less money they can spend locally in their communities, et cetera. So that's the first part of the attack. The second part of the attack is a lot of these programs that they're cutting, and Chris can speak to this especially, uh, are programs that we use in rural America.
So, in our 400 largest agricultural counties in this country. We're seeing a population shift where young people are moving away and the average age is climbing. And that's because of schools that don't measure up, uh, you know, economic situations that don't measure up. And all this is doing is making that worse.
We use more snap in rural America than we do in urban areas. We're cutting that by half, which means people have to move away to get better jobs in order to support their families because they don't get that assistance at the local level. And finally, I would just say, you don't have to take our word for it, right?
You don't have to believe Jane or Russ or Chris or me. If you look at the bankruptcies that are occurring already at the beginning of this Trump Administration among farmers, they're up by 200%. We've had a doubling of the number of bankruptcies and unfortunately, we always know what comes right after that.
And that's suicides and mental health issues and poor health. So, this is a two front assault and the bottom line is we've got to engage with rural America to get them to step up to help us push back against this. So that's why I'm so excited about the work that the DNC is committed to do. What Jane's already doing, Russ is already doing, and Chris is already doing.
Michelle Rathman: Facts matter. They, they, they really, really matter. And then on, on the heels of that, we take a look at the programs that are designed to help with mental health issues with farmers, and those programs are being cut to, to nothing as well. Alright, so Will thank you for that.
Now we're going to get started and go around the table here because there's a lot of things for us to talk about with a focus again, on connecting the dots between policy and rural quality of life, opportunities, prosperity, and on the flip side of that disparity.
And as I'm looking. All my morning reading, I see the disparity gaps growing wider and wider and wider. And I'm quite concerned people who listen to this podcast know my day job is in rural health. And so, we fear many, many more hospital closures, for example.
But we've been having a lot of conversation on this podcast about Medicaid cuts. Go around the table and say, you know, there's a promise not to touch it and so forth. But the numbers do not lie. So right now, in the House's version of the Big Beautiful Bill, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill's, Medicaid, and CHIP provisions would cut gross Medicaid and CHIP spending by $863.4 billion over the next 10 years.
And that does not include other provisions impacting the ACA and how that will impact states as they work to institute onerous work requirements, restrictions on state's ability to finance Medicaid through increased provider taxes. And the list goes on and on and on. So I think it would be very hard pressed to not believe, again, you don't have to believe me for one minute that rural health is at a state right now where we could see a, a collapse that we have never experienced before and we certainly don't want to.
So, I'd like to just kind of go around the table. The question to each of you is, you know how one, one of our listeners said, “How are the Democrats going to prepare for the worst case scenario at the state level and now push back at these cuts and, and also helping rural voters understand the real pain these policies will cause and what it's connected to?”
So, I open it up, whoever wants to go first, the floor is yours.
Russ Carnahan: Well, I'll take a stab at this and vent a little bit. Uh, tthis is Republicans doubling down on failed economic policies. You know, their trickle-down economic theory. It's the largest transfer of wealth in American history. If this passes, um. And so, Republicans have a failed economic policy, but Trump and his folks have been, frankly, great marketers of disinformation about it.
Democrats have a strong, powerful record of historic investments in infrastructure and services, especially in rural America, but frankly, we haven't done the job we need to do to communicate that. So, part of that's on us, calling it out and showing the real-life impacts to this to folks. And, and people are seeing that, they're beginning to see that we've got to keep up that pressure.
We've seen some Republicans hesitating or, you know, conditioning support on certain things. So, we're beginning to see some breaks there. They can read the polls, they can see how this is unpopular. You've seen the break between Trump and Elon Musk. You've seen rec, you know, amazing turnouts at Democratic town halls, you know, so there's a lot going on out there for people to wake up.
And in these special elections, we've seen Democrats running you know, well ahead of anything they would nor have in a normal election. And so, you know, all this lead up to the midterms where I think there'll be a, a big turn back to Democrats, but we've got to do the work now to be ready and continue to get that message out.
Michelle Rathman: Chris, you know, I think about you and your state and the implications at the state level. I mean, you know, really helping people understand what this means. It is a shift of massive burdens of cost to the states. What, what would that look like in Arkansas?
Chris Jones: So, so it's, it's layered. And, and, and I'll start by saying, you know, we have 25 rural hospitals that are at risk of closing. And a about half of those are at severe risk of immediate closing. Now, now that's in the context of you talk about. The burden being pushed to the state? Well, Arkansas has a trigger law.
So once the support, the federal support goes below a certain threshold, Medicaid is done in Arkansas. And, and now you layer that on top of the fact that 'cause, 'cause the reality is, Donald Trump is the President, but he's not the initiator of this foolishness. He is continuing the foolishness.
Again, we have Sarah Sanders here in Arkansas, and she purged in '23. She purged almost half a million Arkansans from Medicaid.
And of that, almost a hundred thousand children lost Medicaid coverage, meaning a hundred thousand children, like almost 20% of our state's children had medical coverage, could go see a doctor, could go get dental care, could go, get their, their non-emergent issues taken care of and now they can't.
And, and in my household it's, it's pretty personal. My wife is an emergency medicine physician, so you know, she, she sees, she understands the medical field and, and that whole ecosystem, but she also sees the impact of people not having primary care physicians, people not being able go regularly see a doctor.
They show up in her ER when, guess what? If you're showing up in the ER and using the ER as your primary care physician, it's going to cost you more. You're less likely. It's the highest cost. So, so this whole notion of efficiency and saving money is crazy. What we're doing is we're putting people's health at risk.
And for those who can afford it, it doesn't change their life. For the, the billionaires and the oligarchs, it doesn't change their life. For the rest of us who struggle and are trying to make ends meet. For the farmer who has to pay for massive equipment and still try to put food on the table.
What it means is you could not have coverage. And so there could come a time when there's an empty seat at your dinner table, and the empty seat iss not because of something that was not preventable. It's totally preventable. That's what bothers me. We're literally reshaping.
They are literally reshaping the trajectory of families by these decisions.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, and I think it's interesting because some of the messaging, as you've all mentioned, you know, mentioned earlier, is that there is a belief out there and sometimes I, I can't actually believe it, but we have to be better at saying, listen the notion that people are getting checks in their mailbox from Medicaid doesn't happen that way.
Will Westmoreland: Mm-hmm.
Chris Jones: No.
Michelle Rathman: And, so the notion that the initiatives that they are putting forth to stop illegal immigrants from getting medical care. Again, these are all kind of, those look over here kind of subject matters, and so I think it's important for us to talk about how do we speak to rural voters and say, you might be hearing this and we're going to talk about misinformation at the end of this podcast, but so I really do appreciate you bringing that up.
Let's switch over to education. Again, you know, we've done a lot of coverage on education, some really innovative programs for post-secondary education and so forth. And what we're looking at right now, obviously is the total dismantling of the Department of Education. And this is something I read this morning.
The Trump Administration is working at breakneck speed to wind down, I had to think about that, the US Department of Education and the proposed budget proposal for fiscal year 26 calls for 15% funding cuts to the department and a handful of changes to K through 12 higher education. And then it also includes taking $350 billion out of the higher education access and affordability, which we absolutely know is going to impact rural.
So, Jane, Will, if we can hear from you, how will these cuts, I mean, first of all, how is it going to affect America's ability to be competitive for jobs? We talk about the brain drain all the time, and what are some of the more devastating impacts that you can see short and long term as a result of just basically gutting all of public education for all grade levels and post-secondary as well.
Jane Kleeb: Yeah. You know, our middle child, has an IEP and she has since she was two. We live in a small town, Hastings, and she was facing speech difficulty at the age of two. Her daycare identified that with us and her doctor and the public school system then created an IEP long before Maya was even eligible obviously to go to pre-K, which we only had limited pre-K 'cause of limited funds for public schools.
And you know, this is one of those areas where I really believe that as the Democratic party, and we're talking about this internally to roll this type of more positive, offense policy positions rather than, you know, our 300-page policy platform that nobody's reading. And specifically for education, it would be about expanding public education to include pre-K for all of our kiddos and two years of community college.
So, no longer would a kid's education experience be kindergarten through high school. It would be pre-K through community college. That obviously would put money directly in middle and working class families, pockets of at least two years of daycare, which is increasingly expensive, about $12,000 a year on average for most families.
And it would give a lot of young people, since only about 25% of our kids go to a four-year college. It would give a lot of young people a real open ability to explore different trades or explore clean energy or cosmetology or nursing. So, there's just so many opportunities that a community college could give. A young person and then have them be able to stay in, their small town, which all of us know and experience the brain drain that we all know happens in a lot of our rural communities 'cause young people can't stay on the family farm or can't stay in the rural community 'cause the jobs simply are not there.
Republicans have constantly attacked public education. Uh, you know, the Department of Ed cuts now is the most recent thing, but over the past 20 years, they've been whittling away at public education in all of our states where many of us have gone, had to go to the ballot we just did in Nebraska in 2024, and we won with 70% of the votes of saying, no, you can't give public dollars to religious or charter schools.
That public dollars are for public schools only. And that's the type of strong leadership that we need to keep on communicating as the Democratic party.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, it will in your neck of the woods. We've, we've had on Jess Piper in Missouri before and we know that the voucher program is strong as that ever was. And so, I wonder if you could opine a bit on what that's doing to your own, to, to the rural communities in your state and, and how we can address that.
Will Westmoreland: I, you know, I gotta be honest with you guys, I've got a real chip on my shoulder when it comes to this because I was able to take advantage of an incredible rural school system when I was young. And I just believe, if you guys don't mind, I want to tell a personal story because I think the facts and figures tell one story, but I think the key to winning over rural America is telling personal stories.
When I was in high school, I played football, but I was never going to be a football player in college at 5' 11", 205 pounds. Okay? But also growing up with two sisters, I was a pretty damn good debater. I learned it at an early age from growing up in a household with three women. Okay? I had to learn how to hold my own. And it was pretty self-evident in my freshman year of high school that I was going to be good at this.
I went to my first debate tournament with a pair of my brothers corduroy pants on with duct tape holding up the hem. I had my grandpa's dress shirt on with a tie from the 1970s, and a pair of hush puppy shoes on. Well, when word got back to my little rural town, Bolivar, Missouri, that I'd almost won this tournament as a freshman.
My mom got a call on Monday morning after the weekend with the tournament from the Red Hat Society in my little town, and they said, send Will down to the, down to the local clothing store and we're going to meet him there and we're going to buy him two suits that he can wear to go do these debates. And the reason for that, and they told us this when we went down there, you're not just representing yourself, you're representing your school, you're representing your community.
I got to go to the nationals in debate three years in a row in high school, and nothing made my little school flew me to these places. They put us up in a hotel. Nothing made me prouder than to walk up to that board when somebody would write Bronx High School of Science or Downers Grove Private School or California International Merit Society, and I'd walk up there and write Bolivar, Missouri, and everybody would look at each other like, who's this upstart? If we lose these programs and this funding, it's going to take those opportunities away from kids all over rural America.
And it's not just about the numbers that's wrong, that is absolutely 100% wrong because they're pitting us against each other. Why should we have to choose between whether or not kids in urban and rural America get a damn good education regardless of where they're going?
And that's what this administration is all about. Pitting one group against another group and education in rural America is a perfect example of that.
Michelle Rathman: Hmm. Well said.
Chris Jones: Michelle, can I say something on that?
Michelle Rathman: the, yeah. Go ahead, Chris.
Chris Jones: Just, just, just, just real quick 'cause you know, will, uh, and, and Jane, you're, you're spot on. Um, and education matters a lot to me, and I'm seeing the dismantling of it here in Arkansas. With the voucher program, you, so just real quick, I, I think two, two things are happening.
One, even though there are cuts to the Federal Education Department of Education budget, the, I think the real culprit is the privatization. It's the privatization of education. It's the privatization of healthcare. It's the privatization of the prison system. It's privatization to funnel money and resources to a select few.
And then I think the other real culprit is there are certain number of people who want to be able to decide that I don't want to be in community with folks that are different from me. And when you combine those two, what you end up with is not a school system like Will grew up in or like I grew up in, people know me as the rocket scientist.
There would be no Chris Jones, the rocket scientist, if not for federal dollars to help fund my college and my grad school through Department of Education and NASA. So, they take a little kid from Pablo, Arkansas. And help him funnel through the system to become a rocket scientist. That's what we would lose out on as we dismantle the Department of Education.
Michelle Rathman: Such a disservice to our, to our young people. I, I appreciate all of you, uh, all of your thoughts on this. I mean, the other thing, it's really tied to this. We talked about food assistance programs and so forth. Rural children and rural families rely heavily on and I sometimes I think that sounds like, well, I mean maybe that does rub people the wrong way.
We didn't create that. I mean, the us sitting in this call, I mean this is what it, this is what it is. And so to just take away this funding from school nutrition programs, for example I mean, so we know the numbers 300 proposed $300 billion in cuts of food assistance, uh, very disproportionate to rural.
You mentioned something earlier about privatization. Let's talk a little bit about, 'cause I know this is a very big issue for so many rural communities, as it should be, which is the proposed privatization of the United States Post Office. So any of you care to talk about what the implications are, you know, for commerce, for, for just daily life, for people in rural?
How are they going to get their prescriptions? Things like that. What are you hearing from your constituents, from those that you're talking to about such a proposal?
Russ Carnahan: I mean, it's such a, it is such a center of our culture, our commerce, our communities as a resource that, you know the post office was designed to, you know, be present in every community and, you know, ideas to cut that back to not reach everywhere. You know, what that means to those communities is devastating.
And then attempts to privatize it, take it over again with, without the mission to be everywhere. Uh, that doesn't work. And so, we've got to fight that. And I think people, especially in those communities will be standing up with us to do that.
Jane Kleeb: I think, and if it wasn't for FDR, we would not have electricity in rural communities. Right? Like that's just the reality because it was going to be too expensive to serve too few people for the corporations that were electrifying the big cities in America at the time. And it took the government and FDR, in order to actually make sure that we had electricity in our rural community so we could continue to grow and be part of America society.
You know, I look at the post office. Or, you know, the train system as another one of those pieces. We will be cut off from the rest of not only commerce, but our prescriptions and just communicating with our loved ones if we don't have our post offices being part of the government. You know, and obviously it's a quasi-government system with our postal service and you know, this is yet one other way, whether it's going to be the park service or the post office or our public schools.
The Republicans always believe that big corporations can do it better, and we all know that that is not true for all. That may be true for the top, but it is not true for all. Um, and that is where the Democratic party clearly leans in and where we need to keep on communicating.
Will Westmoreland: Michelle, could I just say from an entrepreneurial perspective as part of our farming operations, we're expanding into something new where we're trying to help out Missouri farmers that raise crops like we do. So, I'm not a row crop farmer and I don't do cow calf operating anymore. Um, I do specialty crops like mushrooms and that type of thing.
But another thing that we're getting into is we're trying to do distribution for Missouri farmers. So, we're going to get into the milling of Chinese chestnuts for gluten-free flour. We're going to get into white labeling, elderberry products that are raised and manufactured here in the state of Missouri.
When you look at it solely from an entrepreneurial perspective. The US Post office will come out to a rural area and for an inexpensive rate that a business in rural America can afford. They'll pick up those packages and they'll deliver 'em anywhere in the world we want to send them. And that's just not the case when you're talking about a UPS or a FedEx or you know, a DHL or somebody like that.
So, from that perspective, you would be eliminating one of the biggest proactive partners that rural entrepreneurs have when they're trying to start businesses and grow businesses.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, my husband's a horticulturist, so it is the same boat. And I think something I wrote this morning, or maybe it was yesterday morning, I lose track, is that if you can't put a, if you, if you can't put a price tag on it, if you can't do a cha-ching, you don't see the value in it. And I this is just a common thread is that we don't see the value in through this what's reflected in these policies.
There there's no value put to the quality of, of human life. Same thing with the getting rid of the digital equity act and so forth. Okay. We, as I'm looking at the clock, I want to make sure that we have, because this is i, I have, I have so many other questions I want to ask you, but I, one of the things that comes up so often, and we've done, uh, an episode specifically on disinformation and misinformation.
You know, I know that with each passing day for our listeners, for all the folks you're talking to disinformation, and misinformation really feels like it's winning the race right now. There it's coming at its hard, fast, and as soon as you hit one like whack-a-mole, another one comes up. But through town halls, you guys have been doing town halls, round tables like this.
Communities can have their own candid conversations focused on policy versus the identity politics that have become so super popular and, and they're designed to distract us. So, for each of you, I would like for you to just give us your sage advice, your words of wisdom, how we're going to get past the rhetoric of misinformation.
We've got some serious holes to dig ourselves out of it, just in terms of making sure people understand the facts and sort through it. So what are some ways that each of you can kind of share with our listeners how you sort through it all and understand how no matter what your party affiliation is, you can advocate and why it's important to advocate for policies, even if you don't think it impacts you today or maybe tomorrow?
Russ Carnahan: I mean, I think we have to boldly and, you know, frequently tell the truth and share facts just relentlessly. Um, you know, Donald Trump lied big time to the American people to get elected. A lot of people believed what he said. He said he didn't even know what Project 2025 was, didn't even know those people who were running it.
And then he went ahead and hired them and is in the process of implementing it every single day. And so, that's what we're up against and reminding people that are now having some buyer's remorse that they were lied to get their votes.
And so we really have to stand up to do that. And then just in terms of disinformation that we see every single day, we've got to stand up and again, tell that truth relentlessly because that's what people are looking for right now. Something that is authentic that, that, that they can count on. Uh, and I think that's what the party needs to be doing right now, uh, in this moment. Uh, that's the moment that I think we're all needing to rise to right now.
Michelle Rathman: Thank you, Chris. Oh, Jane, go ahead.
Jane Kleeb: I couldn't agree with you more Chair. And you know, I'll give you a concrete example. So, as we all know, we, our Democratic candidates got hit with supporting trans and drag shows and all this misinformation, in the last election cycle and you know, the mailers across the country and from Harris down to people running for school board was Republicans care about you. Democrats care about they, them.
And we honestly did not do hardly any pushback on that at all because as Democrats, we of course support the LGBT community. We support civil and human rights. We didn't have a good message back. We just had a mayor's election in Omaha where we knocked out a three-term incumbent. She was the longest serving Republican mayor.
Um. But in the middle of that campaign, they were doing that same tactic against the Democrat, John Ewing sending out mailers the whole bit. We decided to come together, and we used a little bit of humor in simple messaging in order to push back, we said, Gene is focused on potties, John is focused on fixing potholes.
And that resonated 'cause people were like, you know what? We are tired of this talking about sports and bathrooms, what we really care about are these local issues. And in Omaha in particular, in a lot of cities, it's about the potholes that are adding $500 to $1,000 dollars cost in people's pockets because when they hit it, they get a flat tire.
And that worked. And I think as Democrats, we have to be simplistic, right to the point, and use a little bit of humor in order to connect with voters.
Michelle Rathman: Hey, Jane, I'm going to, Omaha story is fascinating, and I'm actually flying out to, uh, Nebraska for next, all of next week, I'll be in your neck of the woods.
Jane Kleeb: I love that.
Michelle Rathman: Another, that's another, another conversation another day. Okay. Uh, Chris, what, what say you, what, how do we connect with people? And you know, it's one thing to say, we have to tell the truth really hard to sort through.
I mean, people, you could be telling the truth and people say that they don't believe you. So, what are some of their, the things that you're doing, the strategies that you're using to break that through that?
Chris Jones: Yeah, it, it's, um, it's really hard to do, and the asymmetry throws you off often. And, and, and I'll, I'll get to this in a second. I'll come back to that point. Let, let me just quickly say two things and I'll, I'll answer your question with three quick points. Jane mentioned the Tennessee Valley Authority, 100% spot on, and I, my PhD dissertation is actually on the Tennessee Valley Authority and how it transformed rural America you know, for, for generations and even now.
So, spot on what Jane said. Also want to just lift up the fact that we can applaud, even though it's nefarious, even though it's bad, even though they're bad actors, we can applaud the, the impressive machine that is the GOP communications machine. I mean that it is super impressive, and they are extremely effective.
Now, to your point though to the question, I don't think it is unbreakable, and I think there are three things that we have to do. Yes, we have to relentlessly, but with grace, tell the truth. And I, and I specifically say with grace, 'cause it's going to come to my third point in a second. We can't bash folks and say, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong. Here are the facts, here are the facts, here are the facts.
We do have to correct the record and say the truth. Now to be quickly say though on the asymmetry. When I ran, Sarah just had way more money. We had the truth on our side. We had the facts on our side when we were able to get to folks and tell 'em it was great, but she overpowered us because she just had more money and could reach more places, which builds to my second point for us.
So relentlessly tell the truth in grace. Secondly, I think we have to build the infrastructure. The infrastructure that doesn't always rely on, on massive amounts of money and TV time. The infrastructure at the local level that connects to the larger message that's coming out of the DNC and coming out of what Jane and all of our hard work, like we have to, through Russ and Will and the work they're doing at the state level, down to the ground, we have to build that messaging infrastructure and specifically that it breaks beyond our normal DNC, our normal, democratic silos, if you would.
And the last thing, which, and I, I think this is the most important thing, this is why I traveled to Harrison, Arkansas, which is known as one of the racist capitals of the country. This is why I went to, to small towns of 10 to 15 people that have said in no uncertain terms. I don't want to see a Dem, I don't want to see a black person, trust building. Because we have to build trust.
I think it's the trust that we build that breaks through all the other noise, it breaks through. It allows us to then be able to walk across that bridge of trust with the facts to walk across that bridge of trust with the reminders that, look they lied to you or that, look, it's okay that you made the decision to bring 'em in.
Now let's look that, let's move to the future. So having that, that trust bridge to me is critical. And you only get that by directly engaging with people by building that relationship with them.
Michelle Rathman: They say relationships are built at the speed of trust. I really appreciate that comment. Will, we'll give you the last word on this one. What, how do you break through? I mean, you're a likable guy. I trust you. Maybe not feels that way.
Will Westmoreland: I'll tell you what I love about what Chris said. The reason I was smiling is because it's always fun to talk in front of people that agree with you, that give you a standing 'o'. You know, at the end of your speech, but I'm going down next month to talk to 300 Republican Texas cattlemen about these issues, and that's where I want to be.
Now, don't get me wrong, I want to be in front of Democrats that believe the way I do as well. But I love it when I get a chance to do what Chris just talked about, and that is go stand in front of a group of people that disagree with me. And I think too, I agree with everything Jane and Russ and Chris said, we definitely need to talk about facts and lay these facts out in front of the American people, but I believe that we need to do two things.
One, there is a natural, there is just a natural propensity on the part of rural people to want to be there for each other. And what I mean by that, and Jane and Russ and Chris can speak to this. If a farmer's got all of his round bales stacked out in the lot and some kid comes by and commits arson and burns 'em all, the very next thing that happened is in the next couple of days, other farmers are bringing hay over to replace it.
When somebody's house burns down or a church gets vandalized, any of those kinds of things, the community shows up in force. When a, when a basketball team qualifies for the state playoffs, the town turns out they fund the trip, they show up to cheer. We need to take advantage of that, to Chris's point, with personal stories.
So I think that's one of the reasons why we've been really successful at the Back 40 is because we try to start out every engagement with a personal story. Just one real quick, when we're talking about healthcare. When I was 12 years old, I grew up on a cattle farm and we were digging post holes out on our family farm, and I got my arm caught in the power takeoff on the tractor.
And it almost tore it off, and I laid out there on the ground because there were no regional healthcare facilities, there were no nearby ambulatory facilities. I laid on the ground for an hour and 50 minutes before an ambulance showed up. Then after they got there and they stabilized me, it was another 40 minutes to get to a hospital.
If that same thing happened today, I would be at a regional healthcare center in 36 minutes. If you pose that story to rural America and you say, why would you want that to go away? Why would you want your grandkids to have to suffer the way I did as a 12-year-old kid? Nobody unless they're just a horrible person, is going to disagree with that from a policy perspective.
So I think yes, point out the facts, but let's tell those personal stories and let's break through to people. Um, because it's a lot easier to just say you're lying if all you're talking about is facts. It's a lot tougher to look a look a guy in the eye that at 12 years old, laid on the ground for an hour and 50 minutes waiting for an ambulance to show up and tell him he's wrong.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, I mean, I'm almost left speechless because I've written stories about this exact same thing and waiting for Life Flight and so forth. And the one thing I'll add, and I wonder what you all think about this. I think we're not so good about asking questions. I think we want to share a lot of information.
I think we want to push out data and all that. Stories are great. Awesome. Because what you just said Will just gave chills up my spine. I think we had to be better about asking questions. And understand, you know, we say, talk about meeting people where they are. Let's understand what they, what they know what they think. And I say when some one of the talks I do is what people think, know, and feel.
People don't shift their mindset until they feel something. And Will, what you just said makes us feel, makes us feel something. My goodness. To each of you, I wish we could, you know, can we all just get on some kind of like email chain together and I can stay, pick your
Will Westmoreland: I, I think we're on one, Michelle.,
Michelle Rathman: I think we are on one. Thank you, Jane, Will, Chris, Russ, I really do appreciate, I hope that all of our listeners, you know, one of one comment I got was, you know why you're going to have a one-sided conversation? I personally don't believe this was a one-sided conversation. We covered a lot of territory, and we say often that these are not light subjects, but we do hope.
Because you've listened to this round table candid conversation that you have been enlightened. So, until the next time, we're going to see you all again in a new episode of The Rural Impact. Until then, take good care and make sure you take good care of yourself and those around you. We'll be right back with some closing messages.
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