Recently, the Olympics kicked off in Paris, France. Every four years the citizens of the U.S. rally around the top athletes competing in their respective events in the Summer Olympics and root for the USA athletes to bring home a medal (I am not going to touch on the drama around the Opening Ceremonies, that is a column for another time). This type of unity is uncommon in this day and age, but it’s refreshing to see the citizens of our country and the media rally around those competitors.
I believe this kind of unity is deeply needed in our society right now. With the current election cycle, we have politicians pitted against each other working to deepen the divide in our country in an effort to gain votes. I would encourage you all to look for the candidates in this election who are looking to focus on unity as part of the platform they are running on. Regardless of your political affiliation, or that of the candidates, I believe this is one of the most important issues of this election.
We need to elect officials who are not out for self-promotion or working to further deepen the divide so common in our current political atmosphere. We need elected officials who are willing to work across party lines to ensure we are strengthening our great country and unify the citizens and regain that national pride that was so common in prior generations. They need to have the good of the country in mind, not the good of their party.
We are guilty of having divides in the cattle industry. Many of the various associations representing members in the cattle industry throughout the country have focused on one or two polarizing issues in order to garner membership. I get it, controversial issues promote membership. However, I think if we sit down a group of cattlemen in a room, they are going to find they agree on 95% of the issues relevant to the industry.
We are in a time that we need to unify around those issues and make a push together in order to pass legislation that would benefit the industry. On the same front, if there are harmful polices the industry needs to fight against, we need to stand together as a united front. It’s no secret that we are small sliver of the population, which makes it more important that we stand together with a united voice to be heard.
On this front, the independence of the U.S. cattleman has resulted in many cattlemen keeping their heads down and getting the job done at home, not jumping in and joining a trade association in order for their voice to be magnified. Unfortunately, in my opinion, those days are over. We need all cattlemen to join their respective local, state and national associations to help increase our voice.
Currently, there are efforts underway to do just that. We have covered these subjects in past WLJ articles. One such campaign underway is the Producer Profitability Initiative being spearheaded by the Montana Stockgrowers Association (MSGA). In the past year, policy was moved up through MSGA from the grassroots level to explore ways to ensure profitability and longevity to cattle ranchers throughout the nation. MSGA traversed Montana and conducted listening sessions gathering feedback on how to accomplish this initiative.
Many good ideas resulted from these listening sessions. Efforts to eliminate, or at the very least drastically reduce the estate tax for generational ranchers, are currently underway. Exploring tax incentives for protein producers is also being explored. I think we can all agree that efforts to increase profitability for U.S. ranchers and encourage the next generation to be involved in this industry are worth uniting around.
In my lifetime, I have never experienced as much divide in this country as we currently have. It does make me worried about the future for all of us and has me worried about the future state of this country for my children. I think we are at a pivotal point in history and either the divide worsens, or we start at the grassroots level and unite as a country around the fundamental pillars that made this country great and drastically eliminate this division in our country.
Make sure to do some homework before the election this fall and vote for candidates that are looking to unify the citizens and eliminate the divide. As a cattle industry, let’s stand together and enhance our voice and rally around the topics that we agree on and hold our trade associations responsible for pursuing those issues. I am optimistic that we can overcome this division and join together to unify these U.S. — DEVIN MURNIN
