NC's GOP Commissioner of Agriculture Says Trump's Tariffs Will Be Terrible for NC

 

Steve Troxler, right; Sarah Taber, left

Steve Troxler, the popular Republican Commissioner of Agriculture -- who put the "ol" in "good ol boy" -- told Cory Vaillancourt of the Smoky Mountain Times that he knew Trump's plans to slap tariff's -- even 100% tariffs! -- on many products coming into the country, to punish and torment nations he wants to punish and torment -- that those tariffs would end up hurting the markets for North Carolina farmers. Those farmers are some of Trump's most dependable supporters. (Why? Because of God and guns? Abortion? Queer-fear? Whatever. They support Trump, not their own best interests.).

Trump's proposed tariffs "would amount to a 20% tax on American consumers and likely prompt retaliatory tariffs by trading partners." How do we know? Two days after Trump's effing inauguration in January 2017 -- two days later -- Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade agreement with Pacific Rim producers. And started a trade war with China which soon cost North Carolina farmers (tobacco growers, particularly) collectively $1.8 billion (Carolina Forward). Sarah Taber, Troxler's Democratic opponent, calls that "a bad deal that cannot be recovered from.”

But here's Troxler on Trump's newest bad deal:

“We have the most efficient system for the production of agricultural products anywhere in the world, but tariffs do get in the way, and we went through the trade war and retaliation with China, and that is not beneficial to us. There’s no question,” he said. “But the question becomes, how do you get fair trade? A lot of our products going into these other countries are hit with very high tariff rates to be protected, and so you got to negotiate to the point that is fair on both sides. And in many cases, we’re being slapped with these tariffs, and it kills us.” (Emphasis most assurdedly added)

As Agriculture Commissioner, Sarah Taber will be a more current authority on all kinds of profitable, alternative crops not being grown here, including legal cannabis (if the NCGA ever catches up with the rest of the country and the 21st Century). Taber is an educated and experienced expert in alternative aquaculture and greenhouses, and she's full of the energy it'll take to sell innovations to the most traditional cohort of our very diverse society. 

Taber has interesting things to say about saving North Carolina farmland from disappearance, which even Steve Troxler thinks is our number one problem going forward. Says Taber,

“It is not population growth that’s causing our farmland to go under. That’s what happens to farmland after farms go out of business. When farms go out of business, it’s that they’re not making as much money as they should be,” she said. “Farmers here in North Carolina are often making as little as half as much per acre as their peers in Georgia and Virginia. That’s us not putting our land to work effectively.”

If North Carolina’s farms were more profitable, Taber says, "developers would have fewer tracts available for development."

For Czar of NC Agriculture, It's Good Ole Boy vs. Brainiac Innovater

Sarah Taber, Insurgent Democrat

The most popular campaign photo of Sarah Taber is the one copied here, which is a studied pose, yes, but she looks to me like someone who knows farm work and heavy work at that. The look is especially crucial when you're a woman running with the boys, not to mention against a very popular incumbent Commissioner of Agriculture.

Did I say "running with the boys"? 

The boys should be so lucky to keep up with this woman, or any farm woman for that matter. Taber published an amazing little essay in The Nation in January of this year and did some woman'splaining to the men about the importance of her gender on farms: 

"We’re the ones who balance the family books, take outside jobs, handle invoicing, and turn raw crops and livestock into goods ready for people to buy. We are the business backbone that makes farm country work." 

Her personal background sounds raw enough to trust and real as dirt: "I grew up working on farms. I got good at chores, sure — but I also got good at the livelihood part of agriculture." She built a business being expert in aquaculture and aquaponics and greenhouses. She started her consultancy in 2006 to help farms and farmers transition away from traditional crops like tobacco and toward non-traditional but highly lucrative forms of agriculture -- growing food under glass or in water. She has a justifiable brag: 

...growing vegetables in greenhouses [is] a great livelihood if you get it right—but if you get one detail wrong, you’ll lose your shirt. I’m proud to say every single one of my farm clients is still in business. Altogether, they’re now worth $4 billion. [The Nation]

She alludes to a cascade of bad practices and bad decisions that some big (and a few small) farmers have engaged in, struggling to make lucrative what often has not been lucative: "Rural poverty causes radicalization. So does pollution from farms. Farm radicalization isn’t just a local problem. Farm outfits that hire undocumented workers put serious money behind hard-right legislators and sheriffs who pledge to collaborate with ICE. That means local country politics can get ugly. And those ugly politics don’t stay local. They can undermine democracy for the whole state." 

Taber holds a doctorate in plant medicine from the University of Florida. In her case, education has sparked an imagination for big agricultural projects that could actually save the planet, like the idea of turning abandoned oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico into seaweed-growing operations that could cleanse Gulf waters of their pollution.

On sarahtaber.com, her professional consultancy site that's disappeared from the Web in favor of taberforNC.com, she self-identified as "crop scientist and writer." Regrettably (for me at least), she decided to highlight in her campaign lit her academic credentials a little more than I think can help her with a population used to good ole boys who are careful not to act too smart. Very first words of autobiography on her website: "Dr. Sarah Taber." Because I R also an overeducated "Doctor" and happened to have been close to lots of farmers growing up and heard their jibes, I tend to wince when I hear someone describe themselves as Doctor So-and-So. Might as well go ahead and parody yourself as "Perfesser So-and-So" for the country folks, cause that's what they're thinking. When is the flashing of higher education ever not off-putting as a social class marker?

Nevertheless, for her obvious smarts and practical wisdom, not to mention her vision for expanding and improving vegetable production in North Carolina, Taber is revolutionary as a candidate, but she'll have to be more than that to pull anywhere near even with the popular Republican incumbent.

Steve Troxler, Incumbent Commissioner of Agriculture (since 2004)

Photo Joseph Bradley, for The Assembly

Here's Troxler's history of election margins, making him often the most popular Republican on the ballot below President:

2004 -- his 1st election, he won by 2,287 votes or 50.3%

2008 -- won with 52% of the vote

2012 -- won with 53% of the vote

2016 -- won with 55.56% of the vote

2020 -- won with 53.86% against an unconventional woman, Jenna Wadsworth

His popularity rose steadily after his first election but dipped noticeably in 2020 and possibly because his Democratic opponent came at him from a novel direction. Sarah Taber will be his second time up against an accomplished, out-of-her-traditional-womanly-lane candidate who may come off a little more electable than Wadsworth was.

Plus Taber is going squarely at Troxler as corrupt, the single biggest factor -- if it's true -- known by political science to motivate significant shifts in the vote. Sarah Taber herself summed up the Troxler era in her piece for The Nation, "Why I'm Running for Commissioner of Agriculture":

We’ve had the same commissioner of agriculture for 20 years, despite a series of fumbles and corruption scandals on his watch. He presided over the largest crop insurance fraud ring in US history. His department tipped off meat plants suspected of animal abuse before a “surprise” inspection. His greatest success was encouraging China to buy North Carolina-grown tobacco—only for Trump, for whom the incumbent helped raise funds and votes, to destroy that market with a trade war. 

Meanwhile, Taber claims, Troxler and his aides "misspent taxpayer dollars on high-end lodgings and dining."

So why is ole tobacco-farmer Troxler so popular? Says Taber, he's actually quite unpopular with an increasing number of farmers. Her evidence is partly anecdotal: 

I’m struck by how eager North Carolina’s farmers are for change. It’s not hard to see why. After you account for inflation and population growth, North Carolina’s farm economy has shrunk by 19 percent in the last 20 years. Our farmers and ranchers feel it. And they know what the problem is: corrupt leadership. One hog farmer put it to me this way: “Politicians are a bit like piggies. They’re frisky when they’re little. But then they discover corn and become hogs.” He paused and went on. “Maybe it’s time to put this one in the smokehouse.”

But her best evidence that Troxler's popularity may be illusory is numbers:

In 2020 several North Carolina farm counties voted for the Democratic candidate for commissioner of agriculture [Jenna Wadsworth], and not by a little: Anson. Bertie. Northampton. Hertford. Vance. Hoke. Chatham. Watauga. Halifax. Warren. Edgecombe. Our incumbent doesn’t win because of the farmer vote .... In 2020, hundreds of thousands of suburban North Carolinians voted for both Joe Biden and a Republican commissioner of agriculture who’s wildly unpopular in much of our actual rural farm country.

Why would our suburban brethren, who only look at meat when it's under cellophane, stick with Troxler? Explains Taber, "Because he looks and sounds like what suburbanites think a farmer should look like."

Looks are important, O my brethren, especially in politics. If this is the year the progressive resistance rises up against the corruption of Trump and the extremism of Mark Robinson, Michele Morrow, Dan Bishop, at al. then constant pounding of the message of Troxler's corruption might wilt that big bushy mustache.

Un-Trumping North Carolina: Democrat Jenna Wadsworth for Agriculture Commissioner

Let's call Jenna Wadsworth "The Dirt Road Democrat on a Mission To Bring North Carolina Agriculture Into the 21st Century."

She's been coming on strong all year, a blast of youthful energy ready to break both an age and a gender barrier in North Carolina politics, running for an office that's been in the idle hands of an aging white guy for long enough. She is a clear down-ballot asset for all Democrats running in North Carolina this year.

In November of 2010, she became one of the youngest -- at age 21 -- elected officials in the state, earning a seat as a supervisor of the Wake County Soil and Water Conservation District where she's continued to serve ever since. Though born in Wake County, she touts her growing up on a dirt road in Johnston County on her grandparents farm where she learned how to raise corn, soybeans, tobacco, cattle, cotton, and hogs -- all the major food groups of Southern agriculture!

A dirt road farm kid, yes, but also a major brain, as she qualified for the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, no easy feat. She went on to graduate magna cum laude from NC State University in 2011, after she'd been elected a supervisor in Wake for Soil and Water Conservation. Since that election of 2010 she's been very active in pursuing farmland preservation and "local foods enhancement" projects and conservation easements.

Face forward? Yes. "Jenna is the Co-Founder and former Co-Director of a progressive nonprofit called New Leaders Council – North Carolina. She serves on the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Alumni Association’s Board of Directors, is an active member of both the Young Elected Officials Network and Local Progress, and she speaks to international delegations for the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitors Leadership Program and US AID--resulting in her recent appointment to the North Carolina chapter of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. She became a small business owner in 2017 and works as the Managing Partner of her political and fundraising consulting firm Elevated Prospects, LLC."

She still farms several acres of vegetables and is a card-carrying member of the Farm Bureau. 

Republican incumbent Steve Troxler squeaked by Democrat Britt Cobb in 2004 to win the office and has been reelected easily since then. This year may be different. Troxler is best known in these precincts for being a lax enforcer of civil penalties and lax on citing violations of milk grading standards and unwilling as a public official to take a hand in protecting poultry processing workers from COVID-19.

After President Trump ordered all meat-processing plants to stay open at the end of April, Troxler bragged that no meat plants had shut down in North Carolina and that he intended to keep them all open. He seems to have Trump's general level of empathy for front-line workers. He defends factory hog farms and their right to pollute the air and water of their neighbors.

Jenna Wadsworth presents a clear contrast on issues. She supports the growing of hemp as a cash crop and supports the legalization of cannabis and thinks the Department of Agriculture can have a strong hand in preparing farms for appropriate responses to climate change, which brings with it disastrous weather challenges for all farmers.

Who Said Republicans Are Good With Money?

An audit of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, run by Republican Commissioner Steve Troxler (he's the one on the left, holding his cousin), found that for the fiscal year 2009-2010, the department's Consumer Services & Standards Division failed to collect over $2 million in fines assessed in civil penalties against liquefied petroleum (LP) gas operations.

Violations ranged from a lack of on-site “no smoking “ signs to tanks and piping not protected from vehicular traffic, faulty valves, inadequate employee training and plants operating without required licenses.

The nearly 7,500 violations occurred at 1,189 facilities, including LP gas bulk storage plants, farms, schools, businesses, industrial plants, correctional institutions and campgrounds.

Source: Triangle Business Journal.

It figgers, since Republicans are consistently doctrinaire on non-regulation, except that, O my brethren, the non-regulation of LP gas operations can blow you up into tiny bits and incinerate your world. Or, as State Auditor Beth Woods wrote in her investigative report, "... certain violations present threats to public health and safety or could cause significant property loss."

Mr. Troxler's yadda-yadda in response to the audit (along the lines of "We're taking steps in order to take certain steps to be able to step up to doing something about this") appears to be nothing more than stone-walling.  

'Course, arguably the worst non-regulator in the state is Madam Cherie Berry in the Department of Labor, who is a poster child of malfeasance.

Cutting The State's Budget Is Gonna Be Soooo Easy!

Steve Troxler, the Republican incumbent Commissioner of Agriculture in NC, has refused to give Gov. Bev Perdue recommendations on where to cut spending in his department.

The Guv had asked every cabinet official to submit budget numbers to her reflecting a 5 percent cut in spending, a 10 percent cut, and a 15 percent cut.

So the first department head to cry "no possible cuts here!" is one of two Republicans on the Council of State.

Yeah, balancing the state's budget is gonna be an absolute breeze for the new Republican-dominated General Assembly!

Heartbreaks II

Commissioner of Agriculture

Ronnie Ansley (D) 1,941,167 (47.95%)
Steve Troxler (R), incumbent 2,107,270 (52.05%)

Commissioner of Labor

Mary Fant Donnan (D) 1,993,251 (49.40%)
Cherie Berry (R), incumbent 2,042,059 (50.60%)

Supreme Court Associate Justice

Robert H. (Bob) Edmunds Jr. (R), incumbent 1,562,453 (51.02%)
Suzanne Reynolds (D) 1,499,978 (48.98%)

NC Court of Appeals

John S. Arrowood (D), incumbent 1,319,800 (46.32%)
Robert N. (Bob) Hunter Jr. (R) 1,529,583 (53.68%)

It's a shame about these two judge races. Bob Edmunds is a partisan Republican, famous in 2008 for uttering the words (and in Watauga County, too!) that he was all there was standing between good God-fearing North Carolinians and (eek!) godless Democrats. Words to that effect. Anyway, everyone who heard him knew what he meant.

If it's a shame about the judges, it's a disgrace about the Agriculture and Labor commissioners. Putting the Elevator Lady back in office, following the manifold scandals of her failures as a workplace regulator, defies expectations as well as logic. Troxler is the best friend Monsanto has ever had in NC and seems to think it's just fine to gas farm workers, as long as they're poor and migratory.

There are almost 50,000 provisional ballots in NC that won't be certified and counted until next week (which is why the state has not been called for Obama yet, though he's leading). The estimate is that as many as 65% of those provisionals will end up being counted, and about the same percentage of the ones ruled eligible will be Democratic ballots ... not enough, probably, to change any of the close races above.