Montana Tribal Citizens File Lawsuit Over Alleged Voter Suppression

Does GOP control of the U.S. Senate hinge on stopping Natives from voting in November?

Animal Agriculture Conference Asks: What’s the Future of Our Food System?

Iowa’s environmental crisis has policy leaders and farmers challenging corporate agriculture

The Joy of Door Knocking

The BirdDogs have found a way to make political action fun and effective
Read →

The 10 Rural Districts That Could Swing the House

Candidates in rural battleground congressional races are pivotal in deciding who controls the U.S. House

The Christian Right’s Playbook to Elect Donald Trump in November

And how voters can use the tools of democracy to counter their plans

Politics & Policy

GOP Election Deniers Are in Position to Subvert the 2024 Vote Tally

More than 100 election administrators across eight swing states believe the Big Lie
Mike Ludwig, Truthout

What Makes Rural Voters Tick?

Decoding the Democrats’ dilemma in rural America

The Dark Money Defunding Rural Schools

A network of right-wing billionaires have bankrolled a war against public education. Now they’re stepping up attacks on rural legislators—but communities are fighting back.
See all →

Native Life

Water Protectors Use Novel Legal Tactic to Challenge the Dakota Access Pipeline

Novel anti-SLAPP laws could help uncover Dakota Access Pipeline secrets

The Indigenous Growers Reviving Hemp’s Deep Roots

“Cannabis and hemp offer solutions to many challenges in an industrial society”

Federal Courts Sentence Native Americans to Longer Prison Terms

How federal authority over tribes fails to provide equal justice under the law
See all →

Food & Agriculture

The Farm Bill Must Support Farmers Affected by PFAS Contaminated Sewage Sludge

Maine stepped up to protect its farmers. It’s time for Congress to protect farmers nationwide.

National Farmers Union Pushes Congress on Farm Bill

Iowa farmers warn of lost opportunities to expand the agricultural safety net

How Harris’s Economic Strategy Could Help Farmers

Taking on monopolies and lowering consumer costs is both a winning political strategy and the right thing to do
See all →

Science & Environment

Project 2025 and Its Plans for the Nation’s Public Lands

Native leader says massive deregulation would lead to “total desecration”

Signs of a Ceasefire in Michigan’s Energy Wars

Rural comunities have been fighting for nearly two decades over large-scale solar and wind farms. A new law might turn down the temperature as the state seeks to reduce carbon emissions from generating electricity.

What’s Fueling Michigan’s Green Energy Backlash?

A renewable energy push is bringing millions of dollars to Michigan’s rural communities. But not everyone is pleased.
See all →
Keep an Independent Mind

Sign up to receive twice-weekly Barn Raiser updates on original, independent reporting from rural and small town America.

mail

Religion

Civil Religion as a Gateway to Christian Nationalism

The inclusion of “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance was a sectarian move whose exclusionary effects are increasingly evident in today’s religious landscape
Pigs on a truck on their way to a slaughterhouse

God and Hogs

The vertical integration of faith and death at Tyson Foods
a red rural church in the background with fields of crops in the foreground

The Politics of Loving Your Neighbor in Rural America

Reflections of a Lutheran pastor in Dunn County, Wisconsin
See all →

Arts & Culture

Country Queers Spread the Love in Rural America

Rae Garringer’s new book documents more than a decade of LGBTQ+ rural life

A Supper Club State of Mind

Wisconsin has more supper clubs than any other state. But how long will this iconic institution survive?
See all →

History

Land of Liberty

Myth-making in the early American republic

Jim Hightower Confronts the 1980s Farm Crisis

"It's the same old story—Reagan helps the rich, and Lord help the rest of us."
See all →