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My encounter with a Kansas farmer [1]
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Date: 2025-04-11
I’m a Physical Therapist of 17 years living in Lawrence, Kansas. As some of you may know, my city and county have consistently gone Blue in a sea of Red across the rest of the state. I’ve been working in home health for 5 years now, and aside of the growing amount of documentation, I immensely enjoy my job. I see a number of patients everyday at their homes, both in town as well as in rural areas outside of town. While the rural areas in East Kansas where Lawrence is located isn’t entirely all Red like it is in Central and Western Kansas, there’s plenty of Trump and “Don’t Tread on Me” flags flying around outside of these rural homes.
I have a personal policy to avoid discussing politics as much as possible with any of my patients, even if I agree with them. I’ve become quite good at this avoidance, often times telling the patients whenever they talk politics and want my opinion that I do not discuss politics at work, especially in a “healing environment” (lol yep, I say that often). On occasion I may say something, usually very little if I do, but often times I just smile or ignore their talk while redirecting them back to their therapy and my visit purpose.
It’s not difficult to read the room, especially when I’m walking into their room, so to speak. I had an encounter earlier this week with a rural patient who’s family are farmers that I had to share because not only have I heard this before from other Conservative patients, but it also gives an insight as to how they think.
This patient got to talking how horrible Biden was to the country. I redirected him a couple of times but he kept coming back to it. I was a little interested in what he was saying so I asked him if his farm and business was suffering under Biden. Considering most Conservatives I know don’t give much of a shit about anyone else outside of themselves and inner family circle, I thought he might spill some beans. Funny enough, he didn’t have much to say about his farm or business personally. Instead just went back to bitching and whining about the borders, trans kids, inflation, blah blah Faux News propaganda talking points, etc.
He then told me that he’s got a growing concern about his subsidies now. “The damn guvment is gonna take everything from me!” He was visibly concerned, even scared. Honestly I don’t blame him. I asked him how he feels about the direction of our country now, and he just said, “Who knows what the damn guvment is gonna do next!” I told him I agree, that things are tumultuous and unpredictable. I finally asked the capper question: “So do you like what Trump is doing?” Do you trust him?”
”Hell yeah of course! Don’t you?” He asked. I just shrugged and redirected him back to his therapy.
And there it is. Pure Conservative/MAGA cognitive dissonance on full display. Call the Democratic devil President by name when things are good but you can’t stand him, avoid the fascist prick Mango Mussolini dictator by name and call it the “evil guvment” instead when Drumpf is in charge and deliberately screwing you over. Again, I’ve heard this a few times before so I’m not surprised.
But it is really freaking sad.
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