Brian Bengs Returns to Mamaw’s Porch: Rural America Is Hurting, and Washington Better Start Listening

Hey y’all! Pull up a chair, pour yourself a coffee, and let’s talk. Because I was more tickled than a pup with his first bone to welcome Brian Bengs back to my porch. We first met nearly a year ago, when Brian was in a camper during a terrible snowstorm. That’s the beauty of this porch: no fancy studio required. Just real people having conversations about things that matter. When I reminded Brian how long it had been, even he was surprised. But this time, our conversation went straight to the kitchen-table issues that keep people awake at night. The Rural America That Washington Keeps Missing I asked Brian what he was hearing from people on the ground in South Dakota. Not from political consultants, not from a glossy campaign memo, but from the folks he meets walking through towns. Some of those people voted for Donald Trump, perhaps more than once. My question was simple: how are they feeling now? Brian pointed to the affordability crisis. As he put it, people are struggling to afford groceries and a tank of gas at the same time. That is not an abstract debate about economic indicators. It is the daily arithmetic of a family deciding which bill can wait. A $1,200 Fill-Up and a Very Real Warning Brian shared a call he received from someone in a South Dakota town of roughly 200 people. The caller said he had just spent $1,200 filling his semi and more than $100 filling his pickup truck. His message to Brian was blunt: he could not keep doing this. Brian also described diesel prices approaching seven dollars a gallon during harvest season. Those were figures reported in our interview, not independently verified statewide averages. But the larger point deserves attention: when fuel costs soar, the consequences travel through every part of the agricultural economy. A farmer needs diesel to work the fields. A trucker needs it to move the harvest. A processor needs energy to keep food moving. And eventually somebody has to pay. Usually, that somebody is sitting at a kitchen table trying to stretch a paycheck. Tariffs, Cattle and the Cost of Dinner Brian described pressure on farmers from tariffs and on cattle producers from beef imports and market competition. Those pressures are not identical, and their effects vary by producer and market. But they belong in the same conversation about the vulnerability of rural communities. I reminded him that Ohio is a major agricultural state, too. People who have never driven past a cornfield sometimes forget how much of America depends on what happens outside its cities. Here is the question that keeps me up at night: what happens when producers and processors can no longer pass along their rising costs? And what happens when consumers can no longer afford the food on the shelves? Those questions ought to be keeping our elected officials awake, too. Showing Up Instead of Assuming Votes One thing I wanted to talk about was the difference between meeting voters and taking them for granted. I challenged the idea that an incumbent can simply assume rural voters will fall into line. Brian described walking through towns, being recognized from his ads, and having people approach him to talk. That matters. Whether someone agrees with Brian Bengs or not, people deserve to be heard face-to-face. Rural voters are not a political prop. They are families, business owners, farmers, veterans and workers who know when the numbers no longer add up. A Little Pharaoh Talk on the Porch And because this is Mamaw’s Porch, of course we had a moment of humor. Somebody made a crack about a leader acting like a Pharaoh—and how things did not turn out especially well for the Pharaohs. We had not rehearsed a thing. Somehow the conversation rolled right into my next question, as if we had planned it all along. Sometimes a laugh opens the door to the serious point: no elected official is royalty, and no officeholder is entitled to anybody’s vote. Why Independent Voices Matter Near the end of the portion of our conversation shared here, I spoke about the need for independent senators who will challenge the usual partisan machinery. I also reminded listeners that even small contributions—five, ten or fifteen dollars—can make a difference to campaigns they choose to support. Whatever your politics, learn about the candidates, ask difficult questions and demand answers about what their policies will mean for your community. Our government is supposed to answer to us, not the other way around. Pull Up a Chair. We’re Not Done Talking. We were talking about something as fundamental as whether people can afford to work, grow food and feed their families. And honey, that is not a small thing. It is the whole ballgame. Thanks for joining us on Mamaw’s Porch n Politics. Always pull up a chair and a coffee, and let’s talk. There’s always room for one more. Love, Mamaw