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On October 21, Donald Trump held a rushed meeting with the Argentine president, Javier Milei, the wild-haired populist that many call “The Madman.” The event would have profound impacts on America’s ranchers because Milei, who was in DC begging for American money to dig him out of a crypto-funding scandal, had another request, and he wanted Trump to say yes to both. Trump quickly gave the first yes when, even in the face of DOGE, budget cuts, government layoffs, healthcare cuts, and SNAP defunding, the U.S. president agreed to send $40 billion of your tax dollars south for a crypto bailout. Trump then sent shockwaves through America’s ruby-red ranching community when he also agreed to the other request: the U.S. importation of massive amounts of Argentinian beef, a move everyone knew would gut the American cattle market.
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Ranchers across the nation, who mostly supported Trump in 2024 and who have endured a seemingly endless series of droughts and bad market years, did not take kindly to it. It riled them enough that they immediately did something almost unheard of in the Trump era — they issued public protests and demands for reconsideration from reliable Republican voters.
But just as Trump does with so many working people who have proven their MAGA devotion, he responded to these most loyal supporters by letting them know exactly who was boss.
That clapback happened one day later, when on October 22, Trump fired off a social media post in which he emphatically told American ranchers that not only would he continue his plan to import MadMan’s beef, but also that the only reason ranchers had a pot to piss in at all was because of him. That came as a surprise to hard-working American ranchers from Florida to Oregon who regularly endured endless days in the wind, snow, and mud, often tackled weeks of backbreaking fence building, were used to hot summer days stacking hay, and expected dozens of sleepless nights during calving season. Trump made it known that none of that mattered. Ranchers were but a sniveling herd of hind-tit-suckers who owed their very existence to him and his benevolence.
Having grown up on a multi-generational high plains ranch myself and having spent too many days fixing fences and a lot of nights pulling calves, I knew this would go over about as well as a big-city insurance salesman intruding into the ranch during branding.
You might expect Steve Daines, the senior senator from Montana, a place full of ranchers and people making TV shows about ranchers, to throw a hissy fit and get this fixed, but Steve had already been busy bootlicking the very same Argentine madman with whom Trump had just saddled up. Daines had made his position official earlier this year when he posted this celebratory picture of himself smiling with Milei.
Ranchers are right to be pissed about being shot in the back like this by a man who is supposed to represent them. But this picture, which at the time of this writing is still proudly displayed on Daines’s own Facebook page, is not even the full extent of the proof of the crime. Nope. Ol’ bootlicker Daines went even further; he was so devoted to Argentina that he made it a warm family affair by bringing his wife, Cindy, to an official meeting with Milei. A meeting so crucial that the Argentinian press reported on the front pages as having been held even before Milei met with Trump.
American Ranchers who are praying that this is all just a bad movie will take no solace from Daines’s toothy smile or from what he must believe is his divine instruction to screw them over. It’s right there in the phrase on that gaudy gold chainsaw they are all fawning over, “Las fuerzas del cielo” or “the forces of heaven.”
Those of us close to Montana politics know this is classic Daines. He’s a professional poser and expert bootlicker who happens to play a senator role in our bad movie. It’s part of a script that should also be quite familiar to all Americans. Every good Western contains a despicable character just like Steve Daines. You know, the worst kind of pick-me politician who makes a big show of religiosity and public virtue, but privately gets off on siding with the criminal gang that’s about ready to rape and pillage the entire town.
Daines would have been great for so many roles, but he seems perfectly typecast as a character like Hedley Lamar, the corrupt Blazing Saddles politician lounging with the meathead villain Taggart, using his tongue to bathtub-scheme about ruining the lives of the good people in Rock Ridge. (watch this clip - and don’t you dare come at me over this - thank God the woke police have not erased all of the true classics from YouTube!)
This clip makes me laugh, but the problem with Daines is that he’s neither funny nor an actor. He really is just a classic old west backshooter, and he really believes his constituents are just as dumb as Mr. Taggart. He believes he can keep fooling them into thinking he’s on their side. But this time, Steve posted pictures of it all to prove otherwise.
Ranchers ain’t buying it. These people, who are struggling to maintain the last true family businesses in American agriculture, are in a constant, margin-stealing battle with four mega corporations that control almost all meatpacking in the United States.
Those big corporations want Argentinian beef imported so beef prices fall and ranches go bankrupt. They are ready to swoop in with their VC buddies to buy the family ranches. It’s what the vultures call “vertical integration,” it’s already happening to thousands of farms, and ranchers are rightfully scared to death of it.
Almost every cattleman’s association in every state has issued emphatic public statements criticising Trump by name. It’s a huge deal. These are reliably red organizations that have never before criticised anything to do with MAGA. Yes, many also contain caveats, but the anger emanating from ranchers and rural communities is palpable, and the betrayal from posers like Steve Daines is infuriating.
Western Livestock Journal, a widely read, century-old publication that has informed generations of ranchers, including my parents and grandparents, recently issued a shocking and illustrative statement that contained these straightforward words:
“The biggest annoyance in all of this is that the majority of farmers and ranchers supported the president in his re-election bid. He needs to do damage control to return support to those who have supported him.”
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association also issued a rebuke typical of other trade groups across the country.
“The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and its members cannot stand behind the President while he undercuts the future of family farmers and ranchers by importing Argentinian beef in an attempt to influence prices.”
Ranchers and farmers are all angry and scared, but Trump is not on the ballot in 2026. His enablers are: Steve Daines, Ryan Zinke, and scores of other republican posers. If all Americans, especially ranchers, want to stand up for themselves, their livelihoods, and the legacy of American independence, then they’ll first need to unelect all of the suckup Republican Senators and Representatives who would rather shoot their own constituents in the back than stand up to Donald Trump and his mad crypto cronies.

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