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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[–] Afaithfulnihilist@lemmy.dbzer0.com 33 points 2 days 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 2 days 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.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] douz0a0bouz@midwest.social 13 points 2 days 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 5 points 2 days ago

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

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 143 points 2 days 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 2 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] apftwb@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days 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 8 points 2 days ago

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

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

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

[–] Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 82 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days 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 16 points 2 days 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 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 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 2 days 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 3 points 2 days ago (4 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.

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[–] Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days 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.

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 22 points 2 days 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.

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[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 16 points 2 days 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...

[–] Daedskin@lemmy.zip 14 points 2 days 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 1 day 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.

[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Nobody in Wilder, Idaho expected this.

Underfunded, understaffed, undermined US public education

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 30 points 2 days ago
[–] Etterra@discuss.online 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)
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[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 50 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days 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 2 days 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 16 points 2 days ago

The only moral immigrant worker is my immigrant worker.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 9 points 2 days 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.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 34 points 2 days 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 5 points 2 days 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 6 points 2 days ago

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

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day 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.

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[–] ArmchairAce1944@lemmy.ca 53 points 3 days ago (9 children)

He is going to cause a famine, isnt he?

[–] Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 30 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Don't worry. Elon Musk will just build robots to do all that labor. Just wait. 5 years, tops.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You said five years ten years ago!

[–] ArmchairAce1944@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

People give the Soviet Union a lot of shit for their 5 year plans that never seem to fully pan out. But no one gives a fuck about Elon Musk's predictions.

Similar to how the Ford Pinto is still a joke in the auto industry even though Teslas are much, MUCH more fire/explosion prone than a junk car from the 1970s and have killed far more people. The death rate of Pintos vs. other cars of the period was not as different as some people think, but the death rate of Teslas? That is higher.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

Teslas are also a joke, especially in the industry, and Elmo's bullshit is similarly panned.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

It turns out robots are much more useful as an excuse to suppress workers rights and wages than they are at doing real work.

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[–] Darkness343@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

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

Where did we go wrong?

[–] Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca 35 points 2 days ago

Dear Wilder, Idaho, welcome to the find out phase that follows fucking around. Enjoy getting what you voted for. I hope your whole town goes fucking bankrupt.

[–] thesohoriots@lemmy.world 36 points 3 days ago (1 children)

They finally got their own private Idaho.

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[–] Ragallos@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Having grown up in Idaho, not too far from Wilder. All I gotta say is, fuck em. Stupid bootlickers only "didn't know to expect this" because they're fucking stupid. Glad I can continue to hate Idaho forever. Disgusting place.

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[–] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 days ago

Forgot to pay the protection fee.

[–] The_Almighty_Walrus@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

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

[–] BigMacHole@sopuli.xyz 15 points 2 days ago

Thanks OBAMA!

-This Town ~~Probably!~~

[–] KingGordon@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago

You can tell it’s fascism by the way the fascists fascist!

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