Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker presented Donald Trump with this hat when he visited the Dairy State on October 24th.
In high school, Scott Walker’s nickname was “Desperado,” and given his dismal election forecast, the moniker “desperate one,” definitely seems a good fit these days.
To reverse Desperado’s fortunes, anything off-putting to voters is suddenly and magically disappearing in Walkerworld. Old Scott Walker backed a lawsuit seeking to kill Obamacare and its coverage for pre-existing conditions protections it provides. New Scott Walker is Florence Nightingale, claiming he always supports coverage of preexisting conditions, calling it “very personal to me.” (Never mind that, pre-Obamacare, there seems to be no record of Walker addressing this issue.)
Walker, who made the biggest cuts to education in Wisconsin’s history, has lately been billing himself as the “Education Governor.”
Walker, who made the biggest cuts to education in Wisconsin’s history, has lately been billing himself as the “Education Governor.”
Now, the Dairy State governor finds himself at the helm during an historic dairy farm crisis and has the President of his own party making matters worse by declaring a trade war on pretty much the entire world, stifling a dairy industry that is heavily dependent on exports and exacerbating an already severe oversupply problem.
And what do you do when this same President decides to visit your state? If you're Scott Walker, you once again flip the script and hope Wisconsinites believe your lyin’ eyes.
That’s how it played out on Wednesday when Trump visited Wisconsin, whose dairy country (western two-thirds) led the nation in farm bankruptcies last year, and things are likely to be worse this year.
While any rational thinker would criticize the President for shutting down hard-fought export dairy markets, in the days before the visit Walker expressed his gratitude for what Trump has done, calling his recent renegotiation of NAFTA “good news, at a time when we definitely need good news.”
As Walker introduced Trump, he screamed, “Unlike so many politicians in the past, this President never forgot his promise to help dairy farmers across this country! He’s making dairy great again in America and it starts in Wisconsin!”
He even gave Trump a hat.
Not only is Walker being intellectually dishonest in cherry-picking one battle from Trump’s global trade war (especially since 61 percent of dairy exports go to countries other than Mexico or Canada), but this new NAFTA is not “good news” either.
Dairy expert Pete Hardin, editor of The Milkweed editor, says Trump’s dairy trade war with Canada was a “phony contrivance” from the start, and calls the high-fiving over the new NAFTA “bull flatulence.” He stresses that “two recent trade inequities remain unaddressed by the new trade deal: Canada’s subsidies for firms processing dairy protein powders, and Mexico’s 25 percent tariffs on U.S. cheese imports.”
Hardin argues that the positives will barely move the needle in dairy exports to Canada, and calls claims to the contrary “baseless.”
Dick Groves, editor of the Cheese Reporter, says as long as Mexico’s cheese tariff (maintained in response to Trump’s continued steel and aluminum tariff) remains in place, trade with Mexico, the country serving as the number one export market for U.S. cheese, is still “worse off” than before Trump started his trade war.
Bottom line: The governor of the Cheeseheads called a deal “good news,” even though we are worse off with our number one cheese export trading partner.
Bottom line: The governor of the Cheeseheads called a deal “good news,” even though we are worse off with our number one cheese export trading partner.
And this is just one part of the massive, ongoing Trump trade wars that are continuing to hurt dairy markets in China, Japan and many other countries.
Come on Desperado, you’ve got to come to your senses! Stop insulting the intelligence of Wisconsin voters with yet another absurd campaign season extreme makeover.