this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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LeopardsAteMyFace

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'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.

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Nobody in Wilder, Idaho expected this. The tiny farming town of 1,725 people—where nine out of ten voters backed Donald Trump in 2024—is now scrambling to figure out what comes next after federal immigration agents swept through in mid-October and arrested more than 100 Hispanic workers at a local horse racetrack. So far, 75 people have been deported, and the farms that keep this place running are facing a labour shortage with no easy fix in sight.

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[–] Darkness343@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago

Weren't those idiot rednecks supposed to breed like rabbits and have their kids tend to the fields?

Where did we go wrong?

[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Nobody in Wilder, Idaho expected this.

Underfunded, understaffed, undermined US public education

[–] The_Almighty_Walrus@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

"I never thought the leopards would eat MY face!" Says woman who voted for the leopards eating faces party

[–] Afaithfulnihilist@lemmy.dbzer0.com 32 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

This is the first step, the next one is buying those farms when the farmers default and then the final step is rich people gobbling up all of this property to turn it into factory farmland.

During the transition we're going to see Americans starve. Some of us will die but that is a sacrifice they are willing to make for more profits.

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 7 points 18 hours ago

They also plan on renting those people back to the farms.

Nah, we won't starve, they'll just start a new brand of food called soylent green.

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 11 points 17 hours ago

It doesn't matter. They will vote red next time.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 22 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Thing Conservatives were warned was going to happen, happens. Conservatives shocked: "who could have seen this coming?"

[–] douz0a0bouz@midwest.social 12 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

They might not have actually seen it coming. I grew up in a place like that and the echo chambers are real and debilitating. There is a reason most rural areas only have fox as their news broadcaster. Information deprivation and misinformation has been the plan for decades.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 4 points 18 hours ago

"Nobody could have seen this coming" said about an event that everyone else saw coming still doesn't make me very sympathetic.

[–] Daedskin@lemmy.zip 15 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

As someone who used to live out in the farmland past Wilder — having to drive through Wilder to get to Boise — basically all the farm workers you see are Hispanic. Wilder itself is this tiny town surrounded by farmland. It boggles my mind that people presented with those facts day-in and day-out never put two and two together that removing or scaring away the demographic that makes up all your workers means your town becomes worthless.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 6 points 14 hours ago

Conservatism is built in reality denial and magical thinking. That's literally the entire foundation of it. Anything that isn't politically correct to the current party narrative is immediately dismissed or denied. The modern Republican party is a Maoist cult of personality.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 17 points 21 hours ago

Oh no, white people will have to harvest their own potatoes!

Well, they can't sell them anyway cause the processing facilities are having labor shortages too. Wonder why...

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 11 points 22 hours ago (1 children)
[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 150 points 1 day ago (2 children)

John Carter runs a security company that worked at the racetrack, and he's a Trump supporter himself. But what he saw that day shook him up. He watched agents point automatic rifles at people and set off flash-bang grenades while arresting Ivan Tellez, who allegedly operated the track.

It wasn't just Immigration and Customs Enforcement, either. Multiple agencies turned up—federal, state, local. The sheriff came through on horseback. A black military helicopter circled overhead. Adults, including parents holding toddlers, and plenty of teenagers got their hands zip-tied. Everyone at the track was rounded up and herded to one end.

Carter's own 14-year-old daughter was there. She got zip-tied, too. He saw officers pointing guns at teenagers. The whole thing felt less like a law enforcement operation and more like a military raid.

Well, sounds like they had the day they voted for.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I would bet my next paycheck that he's still a Trump supporter.

[–] apftwb@lemmy.world 14 points 19 hours ago

"look, there's a lot I disagree with the president on, including pointing a gun at my daughter. But I'm really... But I really like what he's doing with immigration."

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 9 points 21 hours ago

Can we call them nazis yet, or is that still an "exaggeration"?

[–] Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 83 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

"Nobody in Wilder, Idaho expected this."

That just confirms how out-of-touch these folks are. It still boggles the mind, that so many people had no idea that Trump was actually going to do the things he kept saying he was going to do.

[–] PapaStevesy@lemmy.world 15 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

It's actually even more mind-numbingly stupid, these people (read: racist rural Americans) have been calling for this for decades without considering just how much they directly benefit from illegally-cheap immigrant labor.

[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 11 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (2 children)

I mean, it gives me pause to think about how I benefit from cheap exploitative migrant labor.

I was talking with my mom recently, and we came to the conclusion that it's not possible to buy something new in the US that does not have inhumane practices as part of the product at some point. Basically, the are no morally "good" things you can buy.

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 5 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Hand made items from local merchants...and for example I don't mean ordering gems/beads from China and stringing them, I mean like a person who makes wooden or ceramic beads and threads them. But then there is the cord, so you'd have to spinbyour own twine etc

[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Unless every part of it came out of that merchants back yard, then it probably had exploitation at some step. Roads are frequently cleaned and maintained using prison labor. Cars are partially assembled all over the world in order to find the cheapest labor and materials...

I literally can't think of a single thing I've bought in my lifetime that didn't have industrialized human misery as a component or result of it's production.

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I know. You'd have to have your own forest and farm land, raise sheep to make yarn, etc. Best we can do is as local and artisan as possible

[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 1 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

Even then, I live on stolen land. I didn't steal it myself, but at some layer I'm complicit, because I bought it from someone who bought it from someone else... Until you get to the guy that stole it in the first place, and he probably stole it because of the value it would have in the future. I don't want to be here, but I don't have anywhere else to go. Even my own backyard is rooted in human misery.

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 1 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

We have to move forward and make reparations where possible, and try to live a better consumer lifestyle. But until billionaires are brought into check this world is rife with exploitation.

[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 1 points 17 hours ago

We have to move forward and make reparations where possible

Agreed, but it can be hard to find the path when it hasn't really been used for decades. At a certain point, you're just trampling a new path to somewhere, over the stuff that is just trying to exist in the gaps.

[–] howrar@lemmy.ca 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Products made without exploitation exist. But if you're among the people being exploited, you won't be able to afford them.

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[–] Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago

I'm from the area. I'm not kidding when I tell you most of these people are too fucking stupid to draw the connection. Out-of-touch is such an under-exaggeration that its fairly depressing. The vast majority of people in that valley have no capability to correlate who they voted for to what is happening to them.

[–] thlibos@thelemmy.club 2 points 18 hours ago

I guarantee you that a non-neglible percentage of these maroons knew exactly what Trump is and exactly what would happen to the migrant workers in their town, and happily voted for him anyway. A good chunk of them actually hate the browns (and trans, and students, etc.) that much.

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 24 points 1 day ago

Trump is a horrible person, but as a politician he says the quiet part out loud. Anyone that is surprised by his actions is an idiot.

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 29 points 1 day ago
[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 33 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I hope every Latino immigrant leaves or refuses to work the fields in these Republican towns, so they can figure out what their votes and immigration policy stances mean.

[–] Soleos@lemmy.world 4 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

Most immigrants were there in the first place because they have people to feed. What do you suppose they should do as an alternative after they refuse to work in those fields?

[–] howrar@lemmy.ca 5 points 19 hours ago

Whatever the alternative, it's better than dying in a prison cell.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago

Work in another area that's had many immigrants deported, but in an area and industry that doesn't fellate Republicans.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 1 points 14 hours ago

If staying on a farm, something like a field in Vermont or in the PNW Cascades area. If something like construction, it's in demand all over the place.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 50 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Nobody in Wilder, Idaho expected this.

Yet most of them voted for exactly this to happen (to someone else...)

[–] yesterday@lemmy.ca 49 points 1 day ago (2 children)

'We rely on Hispanic labour,' he told The New York Times this past Sunday. 'Nobody thought something like this could happen here.' Wilder felt far enough off the beaten path that residents assumed the aggressive immigration crackdowns they'd been hearing about were a big-city problem.

They actually said it. Incredible.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 15 points 22 hours ago

The only moral immigrant worker is my immigrant worker.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 9 points 23 hours ago

You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land—the common clay of the new West. You know... morons.

[–] ArmchairAce1944@lemmy.ca 54 points 1 day ago (14 children)

He is going to cause a famine, isnt he?

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