I grew up in several places. Most of my time was spent in Nebraska. The last six years of school were spent in Norfolk, a small town in the northeast corner of the state. The first twelve years of my life were spent in Alliance out in the western panhandle. Nebraskans are for the most part Republican. They have deep roots in the land and life revolves around farming whether actively involved or passively living between rows of corn and soybeans, pastures and stockyards filled with black angus or the industrial hog and chicken confinements, agricultural is life here.

Nebraskan’s, like many descended from immigrants who homesteaded here perceive themselves as hard working, independent and entrepreneurial. There is high value placed on community, faith and personal responsibility in Nebraska. It truly is a good place to live and grow up in. At the same time as agriculture has held the root system in place here, there is a dynamic in play that seems to entirely escape most of the people. The reality for every facet of life here is this. Without federal subsidies for agriculture flowing into this state, everything would be very different, everything.

When I am visiting and spend time with people it is clear that almost no one perceives that they are now being and have been for decades, bolstered up by federal money. When a farmer gets his payment in whatever form it comes in, the trickle down is immense. When a farmer has money, everyone does.

The amount invested in rural America’s farmers is meant to empower them and that is exactly what it does. The money coming in at various times and through various programs does not remove the reality that excellence in business management is still required to make a profit and prosper in farming. It also doesn’t mean that the money received is enough to live on it simply means that there is enough to keep going. Americans need to eat and because that is true, most of us agree that these subsidies are necessary. What is just so frustrating for me personally though is that there is such a strong negative outcry among these same people against the federal government.

The rural areas of this country seem to be in utter denial that their very livelihoods exist because millions of us who are living in cities pay federal taxes. If the Conservative Nebraskans I know and love got their declared way, the subsidies to agriculture would have to be on the chopping block in equal proportion to any other cuts. There is no conversation whatsoever about the contribution ag subsidies have to the federal deficit. Not a word.

Successful Nebraskans by and large perceive that they are self made. The reality is that many are just that but with this one exception, the elephant in the room that no one dares to talk about – federal agriculture dollars regularly deposited into the state’s economy. The result is that any inquiry into governance focuses on the use of federal money by the other. As discussions over coffee take flight the single mother, the special needs child, the elder care programs all get called out as government over reach that leads to socialism. With little personal awareness that if the federal money continually going to farmers stops, their own business would dry up and they would be in a world of hurt. It’s so much easier for humans to look to the other and expect them to see their dependence on someone outside of themselves as wrong. It is equally easier to personally justify something we are generally against if that something literally makes our life possible.

I do not think this is a Conservative phenomenon but rather a human one. We are each reluctant to deal with the specs in our own eyes before trying to remove the logs from others. It’s taken no small amount of self reflection on my part and for my husband too to realize this reality in our own lives. We’ve been indirectly involved in agriculture our whole lives and for years took a lot of pride in our pull up your boot straps way of life. All it took was one little question of ourselves when it came to federal money and the dam broke. It was and is incredibly humbling.

I write this to say that if we are going to focus on the other and critically judge their lack of responsibility and inability to be entirely independent and free from any government support, it makes most sense that we are willing to judge our own selves more thoughtfully. Not to see our own connection to an issue when focused on the other does one thing. It erodes our integrity. When what we think and believe does not match what we do and how we live, we are duplicitous and that speaks louder than anything else about us.