THE HOME OF DWIGHT EISENHOWER and Amelia Earhart is rarely part of the national conversation—but that could be about to change.
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that → change → conversation
It is becoming clear that the race for Senate this year could be a huge upset.
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race → become → Senate
In the nineteenth century, Kansas was the scene of violent clashes over slavery, which temporarily earned it the moniker “Bleeding Kansas,” and in the twentieth it was the birthplace of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court’s historic ruling finding racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional.
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segregation → earn → schools
Kansas has voted Republican in every presidential contest since 1968 and hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1932.
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Kansas → vote → 1932
In light of that history, it would be foolish to get one’s hopes up too much about the Senate contest there this year.
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it → get → contest
After all, the Republican incumbent, Roger Marshall, won his 2020 race by more than 11 points.
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incumbent → win → points
But he isn’t sounding confident.
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he → sound → ?
At a recent debate, he bellowed over boos from the crowd, “What you’re going to get from me—you may not agree with me on everything—but you’re going to know exactly where I stand.”
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I → bellow → everything
That sounds like someone who feels trapped and is making a virtue of necessity.
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who → sound → necessity
Marshall is trapped.
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Marshall → trap → ?
Like nearly all Republicans, he has lashed himself to Donald Trump as Odysseus bound himself to the ship’s mast.
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Odysseus → lash → mast
He has bowed and scraped to MAGA with the best of them, even going so far as to praise Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s cracked Make America Healthy Again agenda while measles deaths mount—and now he cannot escape.
Midterm elections are nearly always referenda on the sitting president.
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elections → bow → president
You can track the out party’s likely performance by knowing the popularity of the incumbent president.
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You → track → president
Though Kansans have a higher opinion of Trump than most of the country, his standing in the state has eroded.
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standing → have → state
At the start of his second term, 60 percent of Kansans approved of Trump’s job performance; today, only 47 percent do.
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percent → approve → performance
Among independents, 59 percent disapprove.
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percent → disapprove → independents
Like the rest of the country, Kansas has been burdened by high costs, but it’s been hit particularly hard by Trump’s trade and immigration policies.
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it → burden → policies
A Wichita State professor of international business estimates that Kansas is one of the most trade-dependent states in the country.
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Kansas → estimate → country
One in six jobs in the state is directly tied to exports.
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jobs → tie → exports
Some tariffs might temporarily boost prices for some domestic products, like beef (which helps ranchers), but the chaotic implementation of the tariffs vitiated even that scant benefit.
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implementation → boost → benefit
After imposing tariffs on imported beef, Trump repeatedly withdrew or weakened them, only to announce in August that the United States would temporarily lift tariffs on up to 660 million pounds of imported lean beef trimmings in an effort to reduce prices at the supermarket.
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States → impose → supermarket
As Americans have fully digested by now, tariffs are taxes that raise the prices of things we buy.
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we → digest → things
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, whose last foray into helping consumers was a recommendation that we all raise chickens in our backyards, seems unwilling to acknowledge the inevitable conflict between pandering to producers and pandering to consumers.
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we → help → consumers
She announced that the new policy would “protect the American rancher” and “the American consumer.”
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policy → announce → rancher
This was tough for both of Kansas’s Republican senators to swallow (as it were).
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it → swallow → senators
Marshall said he was “frustrated” by the president’s actions, while Jerry Moran, apparently asleep for the past ten years as Trump has flattened every laissez-faire principle imaginable, urged the president to “let the free market work.”
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market → say → president
Kansas’s beef with the administration goes beyond cattle.
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beef → go → cattle
Kansas is the largest wheat-producing state in the union, and the twin blows of record-high diesel fuel prices and rising costs of fertilizer due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have been painful.
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blows → produce → Hormuz
This year, farmers are in doubt about how much to plant as export markets have been thrown into turmoil by Trump’s trade wars.
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markets → plant → wars
Marshall bleats wanly that “the tariffs are working,” but tariffs on steel and aluminum have damaged the state’s large aviation industry, and as one small business owner observed sourly, her fertilizer bill had tripled this year and her diesel bill had doubled.
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bill → bleat → industry
One of Kansas’s largest employers is the Canadian aviation firm Bombardier, which employs more than fifteen hundred people (and two thousand more in other states).
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which → employ → states
While slapping around Canada, Trump has name-checked Bombardier, saying their products are not “good enough” and threatening to ban sales of their products in the United States.
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products → slap → States
(If their products are so bad, why are people willingly buying them?)
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people → buy → them
Employees at one of Bombardier’s Wichita plants were rattled.
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Employees → rattle → plants
One told a Washington Post reporter, “This is ridiculous.
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This → tell → reporter
We have thousands of Americans working here.”
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thousands → have → Americans
The Post delicately added that the employee used a profanity.
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employee → add → profanity
Kansas’s two Republican senators are looking at their shoes and kicking sand, though Marshall did post that “I’m going to fight to keep Bombardier’s over 1,200 Kansas jobs.
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I → look → jobs
I’ve already taken that concern inside the Oval Office.”
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I → take → Office
Here’s another reason Marshall has cause to feel trapped: The Democrats have chosen a fantastically appropriate challenger.
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Democrats → ’ → challenger
…and 13 more, not listed.
The Aporia
