My Point of View by Jennifer Vogt-Erickson

I still believe in rural America. Rural America is where I live and where I’m from.

A second Trump administration does not bode well for rural America and for those of us who want Albert Lea to continue to be a livable place for generations to come.

Jennifer Vogt-Erickson

The Biden/Harris administration has worked tirelessly over the past three-plus years to reduce inflation to target levels, and the current inflation rate of 2.4% is nearly there. Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPs and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, major bills funneling money to rural areas.

Lina Khan, the fearless and brilliant chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), takes on giant corporations like Google and Amazon that dominate markets and use anti-competitive strategies that harm small businesses and increase costs for consumers. Their work particularly helps rural areas because we are far from the urban centers where most of the money flows. Another example is the FTC’s new rules that prevent auto dealers from adding junk fees and using bait-and-switch tactics that cost consumers about $3.4 billion each year.

Billionaire businessmen don’t want someone like Khan around because he has our back. They threw their support behind Trump and prevailed.

My first thoughts last Wednesday morning were about the Ukrainian people. They fought valiantly to maintain their independence and defend their lands against Russia’s illegal war. Trump’s victory hurts Ukraine and helps Putin.

As for Robert Hoffman’s imagined reaction of Harris supporters to Trump’s victory, his predictions are bizarre and built on deliberately false premises. These are intended to divert attention from Trump supporters who violently sought to help Trump undo Biden’s victory and sabotage the constitutional order on January 6, 2021.

Hoffman’s assessment is clearly off-base, but it has a purpose, and it’s not a good one. It is an authoritarian control strategy to undermine truth with a storm of lies until people struggle to separate fact from fiction.

Who has the upper hand when citizens can’t sort through the noise to find good information to make informed choices? Certainly not us in rural America. This will benefit Trump and his billionaire friends at the top.

Last week I listened to people talk about their fears of a second Trump administration. For example, what happens if we lose the ACA and our pre-existing conditions are no longer covered? Diabetes, cancer, epilepsy, heart disease and even pregnancy; These were all ‘denyable’ conditions before Obama’s ACA made it illegal for health insurance companies to charge people more for or exclude coverage for these conditions.

Votes are still being counted, but the entire federal government will likely be under Republican control next January. Senator John McCain was our anchor for the ACA in 2017, and now he’s dead. Who is left in the Republican party to oppose Trump on our behalf? Maybe no one, and we are the ones who will pay for it.

Republican control of Congress would also make it possible to pass a federal ban on abortion. Women are already suffering and dying in many states because of Dobbs (for example, 18-year-old Nevaeh Crain in Texas, who lost her baby and her own life). A federal ban would supersede state laws. This is about control of women, and women will pay the price.

Evangelicals again preferred Trump by a wide margin. In rural areas like ours, I see a huge disconnect between “Christian” and “Christ-like.”

The label “Christian” on its own doesn’t mean much. It can be good, it can be neutral, it can be bad. Christ-like behavior should be the standard for evaluation rather than any label.

This distinction is important for this reason: People have often done terrible things under the label “Christian.”

The men who covered their faces with white hoods to scare people were Christians (specifically White Protestant). The Nazis in mobile death units, who shot babies in their mothers’ arms, were in the same situation. So did slave owners in the South, who bought at auction the chained survivors of the brutal Middle Passage. So did the Catholic priests who conducted inquisitions and developed sadistic methods of torture and execution.

See things as they are. Does the behavior match the label? Unchrist-like behavior, such as glorifying greed, “punishment,” and apathy, brings suffering and hell to the world, even if one labels oneself “Christian.”

Many voters thought they were throwing bricks at Washington. Maybe it felt good at the time, but that brick will probably land back in our face and cause us pain.

We have much work to do to normalize respect for the fundamental human rights of all people, rebuild community trust, and restore the liveability of the countryside.

Jennifer Vogt-Erickson is a member of the Freeborn County DFL Party.