By Stuart Williams

Lubbock County, Texas

The Business of the Future

People all over this state–Democrats in particular–are ready to get on with the business of the future. We acknowledge the legacy of the past. We’ve heard the stories. We know the achievements. They’ve been drilled into us as “the glory days.”

But the past is the past. Lyndon Johnson and Ann Richards and Barbara Jordan aren’t here anymore and they aren’t coming back. The waiting is at an end.

We are the ones, we are the ones we have been waiting for.

The mission and the coalition and the focus of the Democratic Party this time must be and will be quite different. No more waffling. No more qualifiers. No more missed opportunities. It’s time to pick up the slack and fight the wrenching poverty in our midst, and challenge Republican hypocrisy. Hundreds of thousands across Texas with broken bodies, broken hearts, deferred dreams and empty wallets are depending upon us, and we cannot fail.

In 2017 alone, Texas had the largest population growth of any state in the nation – adding 399,734 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But rural America is not growing, even though agriculture accounts for every one of every eleven jobs in America.

Food Security and Opportunity for Rural Poor

The rural poor have far less food security, job opportunities, or access to healthcare, and these problems increase exponentially among rural minorities. Black women are dying at frightening rates after childbirth in Texas. Texas Republicans are pushing a voucher education program that will destroy public rural schools, schools that overwhelmingly serve black and brown students. The FCC ruling against net neutrality, leaves small and far-flung rural minority communities even more isolated. The first step towards success is a good, clean, fair Farm Bill in 2018.

Republicans, including Jodey Arrington (R-Lubbock), are outlining their priorities for the 2018 Farm Bill. Their policies will be another disaster for rural Americans and our most vulnerable Texans. “As we craft the next farm bill,” Arrington said, “we should continue to monitor the effectiveness of all programs, but especially SNAP, which accounts for 80 percent of all spending in the farm bill.” Republicans are dropping the other shoe.

Make no mistake, Republicans will try to force through HUGE cuts to SNAP, even as that program remains vital to rural communities’ survival, including Arrington’s own district, 18% of whom live in poverty. Many rural counties in Texas remain perennially poor. Crosby County for example had been in persistent poverty county since 1980, with a rate of poverty of 23%, a number which grows to 34% among the county’s children. Poverty is deep and sustained in much of rural Texas and rural America.

We lack leaders with the courage to stand up and try to mitigate poverty’s varied and multifaceted effects on our people and economy. The GOP sets up the false narrative every Farm Bill that the bill must be divorced from SNAP and TANF, and only concern itself with crop insurance, conservation programs and other agricultural protections. We must understand that poverty, farming, and rural economic development are all deeply interconnected. Small and medium sized farmers depend heavily of Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and healthcare and anti-poverty programs to survive. SNAP provides access to food for many in far-flung and isolated communities who would otherwise starve.

The GOP’s “everything’s fine” and “see no evil, hear no evil” attitude is disingenuous, and only allows more people to fall through the cracks. The Republican Party has forgotten about fair play, concern for agricultural beginners, the ability of people to achieve with a little help. Democrats must get educated about the interdependence of these issues, get more involved in rural and farm policy, and dedicate serious time and money to helping Democrats who will advocate for these necessary changes to run for office – particularly state office – in in rural areas.

Support for Young Farmers

As far as the current Farm Bill proposal under consideration, there is no provision for easier credit for beginning farmers. Many Ag & Natural Resource majors come out of college saddled with huge debt that makes it impossible to start a new farm venture or take over a family operation. It’s important for Democrats to stand up for college debt and refinancing because that directly affects young college educated people returning to farms or building businesses in the rural economy. Currently they start in the hole, and this Congress so far seems unwilling to give serious resources or aid to these young harbingers of the future. The GOP won’t throw them a rope or a ladder.

It can cost up to $8 million in loans or new capital investment to get started or take over existing farms. For black and Latino farmers/businesses in rural America these numbers are only worse. All of this is on top of a bill and policies that continue to enrich insurance companies at the expense of Main Street and corporate agribusiness. This bill continues to direct an overwhelming 70% of its breaks and inducements to the wealthiest 1% of farmers. Most small and medium sized farmers won’t see any benefit at all. This is the gift to rural Texas from this Republican Congress.

Young and Hispanic

Democrats have start to start moving.

The future of the Democratic Party and its road back to power lies in rural areas, particularly West Texas. It will be young, and it will be overwhelmingly Hispanic. Just this year Hispanics eclipsed white as the largest population in the state of Texas. Many West Texas counties are largely Hispanic yet continue to have no Hispanic elected officials either Democrat or Republican. As the clear majority in these counties, they remain woefully underrepresented both electorally and on the voter rolls and unengaged by either major party. By 2035, 15 years from now, the Hispanic population will radically alter the population landscape in West Texas counties such as Lubbock this and by 2050, the Lubbock Metropolitan Area will be 65.8% minority.

Democrats can’t win statewide until the tide rises in all our rural places. And the Republicans know it. GOP photo ops in front of tractors and wearing Dockers in cotton fields won’t suffice any longer. People deserve better leadership and they know it.

Our Work

The Bible tell us in James 2:26: “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” Prayer and faith that things will work out are not good enough. We have to work for change:

—Farm mortgages defaults are increasing.

—An opioid epidemic is sweeping rural America.

—Trump and the GOP Congress have put NAFTA in limbo, imperiling farm communities.

—Rural women can’t get access to basic obstetrics, and

—Rural hospitals, newspapers, and businesses are closing every day in quick succession.

We must pull together our communities, work hard in broadcasting our issues and registering our people to vote, and demand of Democratic candidates what they will do for rural people, particularly minorities and farmers concretely not rhetorically. Democrats must vote and most importantly, run for office.

We must vote in the March primaries and in November 2018 for the future we deserve. We are the ones we have been waiting for.