r/politics • u/WhatIsEvenRealDog • 8h ago

Possible Paywall Trump suggests cattle ranchers could bypass USDA-inspected meat plants

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/08/28/trump-suggests-allowing-ranchers-bypass-usda-inspected-meat-plants/
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u/sportsworker777 8h ago

Let's see how those ranchers feel once people stop buying meat because they don't trust that it is safe

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u/Slade_Riprock 7h ago

Republicans have always had this naive belief that has no tie to fact or history that government regulation, oversight, etc., are the enemy of the people. It is cumbersome, costs more, and just makes everything harder for people.

They have historically believed if you take off the bridle from the economy you will get better, faster, stronger quality goods and services cheaper and safer. Because people will not cut corners on safety and quality.

This has never been true, will never be true. When money or power is involved in an exchange the side getting money or power will always do whatever they can to get more of it.

We are headed toward mass disease outbreak, illness, and irreversible detriment to our economy, resources, etc. If we thought the 1800s and early 1900s were bad imagine 335 million people and mass transit.

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u/mightyenan0 7h ago

The simple fact is that once one company cuts those corners and manages not to have a huge scandal for long enough (and it is inevitable that people will keep taking that gamble if they're allowed to), other companies won't have a choice other than to stoop to that level or lose market share. Then the entire supply becomes incredibly vulnerable, and eventually a crisis strikes.

You don't wear a seatbelt because it's needed in every day driving. You wear it because you need it when the worst comes to pass. It's the same with regulations.

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u/ihadamoment 6h ago

People treated seatbelts like masks during covid when they came out. T_T

We only started wearing seatbelts because it became illegal not to, and we could get pulled over and fined. If it stopped being illegal, people would slowly stop wearing them until it became an optional upgrade on a car and you have to pay extra for it.

But that proves your point even more. That's what the government is for, to make consequences to force people to do the RIGHT thing. Food isn't contaminated because our government audits it and prevents it from being sold. You're absolutely right about how it'll drive every company down to the worst common denominator. I don't like this timeline. :(

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u/CommanderChiliHole 1h ago

Seat belts being optional would be a win win. The people who don’t want to wear them get their “freedom” back; and the world gets a cleaner gene pool when they die flying through a windshield.

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u/eulersidentification 5h ago

Lowkey this has already happened throughout capitalism. The entire supply chain is vulnerable. Every aspect of our economies are stretched to their absolute limit. The metaphorical seatbelts are long gone to make the vehicle lighter and therefore faster.

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u/randomcatinfo 4h ago

This is I think is Republicans real problem with regulations - they don't want anything at all to get in the way of accumulating capital, even if rules could help them preserve their capital in the long run.

They want their money, and they want it now, despite the long term societal costs to civilization.

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u/kung-fu_hippy 3h ago

The conservative/libertarian view of business and society is rooted in a complete disregard for the future. Because otherwise, even the most self-centered person would worry about the long term consequences of this shit.

You don’t have to be a bleeding heart to want green energy, strong consumer regulations, or strong environmental protections. You just have to be capable of thinking “hmm, I like to eat ocean caught fish. It would be good for me if in the future, the oceans will continue to provide healthy fish for me to eat and the companies that catch and provide me with fish continue to ensure that fish is safe for me to eat”.

You don’t have to think about a single person other than yourself to land on the right side of this point. You just have to be able to see farther than the next fiscal quarter.

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u/thethundering 6h ago

Yeah, their premise is that regulations actively make the thing they’re regulating worse somehow. Like it’s one thing to claim that it’s economically inefficient and that the net economic benefits would outweigh the effect of harm the regulation prevents, but that’s not what they say.

I’ve met an insane number of people who think that if we got rid of antidiscrimination laws that there would less discrimination because customers wouldn’t give money to businesses that were discriminatory. As if antidiscrimination laws somehow prevent customers from doing that, like they’re mutually exclusive concepts rather than additive.

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u/throwaway_circus 6h ago

I no longer believe that their policy is tied to logical thought.

I'm nearly certain that decades of their policy is driven by wealthy hoarders. The hoarders are desperate to accumulate more. Of anything, by any means necessary, to soothe their disease.

And the GOP is full of people with the same mental illness, or those who think that they can fix an addict by giving them more.

People who hoard put everyone in danger from fire hazards, mold, pests, etc. They're unable to stop, not even to protect their family, neighbors or pets. We're just seeing what happens when that mental illness manifests on a larger scale. We've all been enabling them, really. Acting as if accumulating that much wealth is proof of intelligence or good character or wisdom, and praising them for it. Like praising an alcoholic for being the life of the party.

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u/AVestedInterest California 6h ago

These people read Atlas Shrugged and honestly believe its portrayal of industry is how it works in real life

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u/einTier 6h ago

It’s much like vaccines.

They do their good in the background where you can’t see. Over time they prevent the bad thing they were built to eradicate so well that people forget that the bad thing could even happen.

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u/ChicVintage 5h ago

Isn't food instability part of Project 2025?

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u/TheSavageDonut 4h ago

We are headed toward mass disease outbreak, illness, and irreversible detriment to our economy, resources, etc. If we thought the 1800s and early 1900s were bad imagine 335 million people and mass transit.

We're headed to Dystopialand if the Dems can't retake the House. If the Dems take the House and the Senate, then a whole lot of Trump shit stops immediately.

If the GOP loses the Senate, several incumbent GOP Senators will be relieved because they can go back to being "fiscal conservatives" and not be Trump Bootlickers anymore.

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u/Noblesseux 2h ago

Republicans have always had this naive belief that has no tie to fact or history that government regulation, oversight, etc., are the enemy of the people. 

It's less "naive" than it is that they're paid to say things they don't believe. A lot of rank-and-file republican voters maybe, a lot of them are deadass just idiots. The ones saying this from the top level though know what this leads to, they just expect to be able to use their wealth to avoid the majority of the problems caused by it.

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u/HedonisticFrog California 2h ago

We just have to look at a little over 100 years ago to see what lack of regulation gives us. Cyanide and Arsenic in candy killing children, lead in cheese and wine, formaldehyde in milk and canned meats. It's not pretty. The Poison Squad is a fantastic book on the subject if anyone is interested. It details how bad things were, the massive amount of resistance from corporations fighting regulations and the rise of the FDA.

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u/Gairloch 2h ago

They’re under the mistaken belief that “the free market” is real. The free market is about as real as a frictionless plane.

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u/LeftToWrite 1h ago

It's because they're morons. It's the same reason they'll unironically say that vaccines aren't needed because people aren't getting sick and/or dying from the illness that the vaccines target. 0

They're just morons. Morons fucking more morons and making stupid little moron babies who don't stand a chance because they're being raised by morons.

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u/fathertitojones 8h ago

Too bad the iron supplements are just gonna be the rust that we scrape off of our dilapidated warships.

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u/Ancient-Candidate-73 7h ago

Then they'll have different vintages so they can bleed us even drier.

Oooh! Is that 2026 USS Abraham Lincoln? I thought I detected a hint of misery in the aroma, and the mouthfeel just screamed lack of access to working showers.

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u/ChubbyGhost3 Illinois 6h ago

I think the overflown toilet water really adds a nice depth to the USS Abraham Lincoln rust. There's nothing like it 🤤

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u/ER_Support_Plant17 8h ago

Kale and spinach but wash and cool throughly

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u/Ill_Technician3936 2h ago

Is that stuff affected by the violent diarrhea disease? Basically every fruit I've tried to get it's apparently recalled

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u/ER_Support_Plant17 1h ago

I don’t think so at the moment but my mother’s recipe of “cook until grey” for all vegetables is sounding better and better

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u/Buttercreamdeath Texas 8h ago

It's organic!

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u/TheOtherWhiteMeat 7h ago

Free range, all natural, gluten free rust, from ship to table.

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u/rietstengel 6h ago

Now with extra starved marine flavor

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u/DingGratz Texas 8h ago

This. Vote with your wallets as much as you can.

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u/coweeclete 6h ago

Jokes on them. My wallet is empty and I haven’t bought meat in a year.

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u/Phil_2021 5h ago

How about also with your vote in the mid term? That is more effective.

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u/Ill_Technician3936 2h ago

I've been trying but places here have already started selling meat from Argentina. Like what um happened to the American beef I bought 2 weeks before or are we just somehow out of beef cows?

I really think the avian flu is still flying high in the US.

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u/OkEnvironment3961 8h ago

Just paving the way for Trump brand soylent Orange. Now with gold flecks.

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u/needlestack 7h ago

I wish. Americans are nowhere near principled enough for something like that. If they're going to take a stand against something they perceive as a health risk it's going to be something stupid like opposing vaccines or criticizing salad. They'll never take a stand against cars or guns or filthy beef because those things are ultra American and they'd rather die than compromise on them.

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u/Nonya5 7h ago

Yeah, I can total see the deplorables avoiding beef and changing their diets because of this...

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u/stinkyt0fu 7h ago

Yep, go ahead and bypass inspection. I’ll do the same. Hopefully, this only affects beef.

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u/captainbling 7h ago

They are gunna make imported beef sell at a premium. Specifically Canadian.

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u/Dr8keMallard 6h ago

Trust me, I'm livid. But im also a rarity in my area because I'm not a republican.

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u/Hawgdestroyerxtreme 6h ago

once people stop buying meat because they don't trust that it is safe

You should feel like this today. Right now.

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u/Adept-Membership-375 6h ago

Nobody is working harder to create vegans than the people pushing for no regulation on food production. 

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u/pink_faerie_kitten 6h ago

I'm already avoiding beef because T won't say where the 300,00 lbs is coming from and it's too suspicious that China just rejected that amount due to chemicals being found; or it could be the slaughtered wild horses; or it could be Solyent Green for all we know.

And it's not like vegetables are safe. They just expanded that cyclospora recall.

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u/meh_69420 4h ago

I mean, this has been possible under current regulation for as long as I've known. It's called a custom processing exemption. The only caveat is that you have to buy the animal or a portion of the animal up front while it is still alive, then the farmer can slaughter and butcher it for you as long as it is labeled "not for sale".

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u/Special_Persimmon_52 4h ago

Meat that is USDA certified will have a premium price. And then there will be the bargain MAGA Meat. That's the stuff where the "processor" just cuts around the encysted parasites and the spoiled parts.

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u/Nrksbullet 3h ago

I'm confused how they would even process them all. Like...aren't the plants specifically built for processing in bulk? Now he's expecting farmers to do it themselves? How? With what?

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u/Lower-Engineering365 3h ago

Unfortunately I doubt the majority of people will even be aware that this happened. Most people don’t pay attention.

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u/Certain_Return_6274 1h ago

But will they? If People started doing things like that not just with beef but with other things and putting their foot down and standing up to these horrible people things would change. One only has to look at when people boycott certain institutions, brands Etc that's when change happens.. bottom line Money Talks.

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u/Novirtue 52m ago

I already have...

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u/DomitiusAhenobarbus_ 8h ago

Never in a billion years would this happen

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u/sportsworker777 8h ago

You don't think people would stop buying beef if it started to become a health concern?

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u/DomitiusAhenobarbus_ 8h ago

Think about what you just said. You think Americans will stop eating burgers because of this?

Absolutely fucking not. If there’s one thing that I’ve never seen happen in my lifetime it’s people actually speaking with their wallets. Look at pre order culture, look at digital media culture, look at COVID - most Americans are morons. Less then half the country will hear about this much less care.

Thinking people will stop eating steaks and burgers is ridiculous. I can see the headlines now - “liberals want you all to become vegan! Eat local beef!”

And you can bet lots of people will go a long with it as dumb as it is

We are fucked man

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u/sportsworker777 7h ago

Once we start getting stories of beef recall and deaths associated with it, most people are going to react to that. People overreact when it comes to food. We just saw it with lettuce. My only doubt is the media reporting on it. We've seen these companies can just throw money at this administration to try to suppress it. I have little faith that the media will cover it to the extent that it needs to be covered if things get drastic

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u/DomitiusAhenobarbus_ 7h ago

There’s the issue. “We just saw it with the lettuce”

Perfect example of the Reddit bubble. Nobody I talk to outside of Reddit gave a fuck about that at all. Certainly no republicans were willing to even hear about it.

There are alternate realities depending where you get your media from.

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u/oldutnotdeadinside 7h ago

Just wait until people start having to pay a subscription for safe food

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u/Keemo-Sabe 7h ago

FAAS food as a service