Read the complete 2026-10-31 briefing
Erickson links tariffs, beef imports and war to farm anger
In an Oct. 30 post, Erickson links tariffs to lost crop buyers, beef imports to rancher anger and a drawn-out war to higher fuel prices, then ends with a midterm appeal.
Erick Erickson used five short sentences on X to trace a chain of economic costs from foreign trade partners to farm country to every household that buys fuel. The Oct. 30 post ends with a three-word line pointed at the ballot box: "Then do midterms1." For families who live off crops, cattle and a full diesel tank, every link in that chain lands at the kitchen table.
“Then you import beef and piss off our ranchers.”
Here is the post in full, as Erickson wrote it: "Start trade wars and impose tariffs on allies. They stop buying our farmers’ crops. Then you import beef and piss off our ranchers. Then start and drag out a war that raises gas and diesel prices and piss off everyone else and make the farmers even more mad at harvest. Then do midterms1."
Read in order, the post's chain widens with each step until it takes in nearly everyone. It starts with trade: by Erickson's account, tariffs on allies lead those allies to stop buying American crops. Next he turns to ranchers and says beef imports anger them. Then comes fuel: a war that drags on and raises gas and diesel prices, a cost he says reaches "everyone else" and hits farmers a second time at harvest1.
Farmers appear twice in that chain, once for lost buyers and again for the fuel bill. The final line turns those costs into a political bill, due when voters reach the midterms1.
Economic policy should be judged by whether it helps families form and afford children.
Those measures are the test to apply to the costs Erickson names. Do they help a farming or ranching household carry a lost crop sale and a higher diesel bill and still raise children, or do they leave those costs heavier? Before the midterms, every candidate asking for farm-country votes should answer that question on the record, and families should hold them to the answer.