09/02/2026
SOWING THE SEEDS OF DIVISION
A Republic, If You Can Keep It
Benjamin Franklin’s famous response at the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 — “A republic, if you can keep it” — framed the newly created American republic not as something guaranteed, but as an ongoing responsibility.
A responsibility requiring active participation, vigilance, and civic responsibility from its citizens.
More than two centuries later, those words still ask something of us.
Not only in Washington or on Election Day, but in the communities where we live, work, raise families, conduct business, produce food, and depend upon one another.
Recently, something happening in agriculture caused me to think about Franklin’s warning in a way I had not before.
WHEN POLITICS ENTERS THE PASTURE
Blue Dot Beef Suppliers is a rapidly growing agricultural network organized around political alignment.
Its rules state that the group exists to connect consumers with beef producers whose publicly stated political support or documented values align with its purpose.
Suppliers must be vetted before being identified as approved, and political activity, donations, endorsements, and affiliations may be considered when evaluating claims about a ranch, business, or owner.
Its public branding is even more direct:
“Democratic. Non MAGA.”
People are free to organize around their beliefs. Consumers are free to decide where they spend their money.
Businesses are free to express political values.
That is not the larger question.
The larger question is what happens when political identity becomes part of deciding which farmer, rancher, processor, business owner, or neighbor is acceptable.
Blue Dot is not the larger story.
The seed is.
What happens when we plant the idea that political disagreement should determine ordinary economic and civic relationships?
SUPPORTING VALUES OR SORTING PEOPLE?
Most of us make purchasing decisions influenced by our values.
We may support one company and avoid another because of its business practices, investments, advocacy, or priorities.
I have done it myself.
But there is a difference between asking:
What does this company stand for, and do I want to support it?
and asking:
What does this individual producer believe politically, and does that make the producer acceptable?
A ballot tells us which candidate someone chose. It does not tell us everything that person believes.
A party registration does not explain why someone registered that way.
And a political label cannot tell us whether someone is a good rancher, a competent veterinarian, a trustworthy processor, or a dependable neighbor.
A political label should never become a substitute for knowing the person.
RURAL AMERICA DEPENDS ON SHARED PROBLEMS — AND SHARED PURPOSE
Rural communities have always relied on interdependence.
Drought does not ask how you voted.
Cattle markets affect every rancher, even if they do not affect every rancher in the same way.
Feed costs, processor availability, interest rates, pasture conditions, and weather cross political lines without hesitation.
Agriculture has a way of reminding us that many of the problems we face are shared problems.
And rural America has traditionally operated according to a simpler understanding:
You may not be my political ally, but you are still my neighbor.
That is more than sentiment.
It is infrastructure.
Agriculture depends on relationships among ranchers, veterinarians, truckers, processors, mechanics, feed suppliers, equipment dealers, lenders, customers, and neighbors.
Those people do not need shared politics.
They need shared purpose.
The veterinarian needs to be a good veterinarian. The processor needs to process safely. The mechanic needs to fix the truck. The rancher needs to raise good cattle.
And when a neighbor needs help, rural life has traditionally expected us to show up before asking how that person voted.
There is a profound difference between building a community around shared purpose and building one around shared politics.
Shared purpose can widen the circle.
Political sorting tends to narrow it.
A functioning rural community cannot afford to require political agreement before cooperation.
POLITICAL MOVEMENTS ARE TEMPORARY. HABITS ARE NOT.
Political careers end.
Administrations change.
Presidents leave office.
Campaign slogans disappear.
The political issue dividing the country today may barely be remembered by our grandchildren.
But the habits we form around that disagreement can remain.
That is where this becomes a legacy issue.
Agriculture thinks in generations.
We think about land, soil, water, genetics, infrastructure, children, grandchildren, and sometimes people we will never meet.
But rural legacy is not only property.
It is also culture.
How do we treat neighbors?
Does a person’s word still matter?
Do we stop when somebody needs help?
Can two people who voted differently still work together the next morning?
Legacy is not only what we leave our children. It is what we teach them to carry forward.
Children learn community by watching adults.
They learn whether disagreement is something citizens manage or something that makes another person unacceptable.
They learn whether they should see the neighbor first — or the political label first.
Twenty years from now, today’s politician may be a history lesson.
The habit may remain.
WHAT ARE WE PRESERVING?
Those of us who care about rural America talk often about preservation.
Farmland. Family ranches. Agricultural knowledge. Soil. Water. Local businesses. The opportunity for another generation to remain on the land.
But perhaps we need to add one more thing:
The civic culture that allowed those communities to survive in the first place.
What have we preserved if the ranch remains in the family but the family across the road is treated as suspect because of the sign in its yard?
What have we rebuilt if the local economy survives but is divided into political camps?
Rural resilience requires connection.
More producers. More processors. More local businesses. More relationships between people who may not agree on everything but can still work toward the same practical goals.
That is what community does.
WHAT ARE WE SOWING?
Agriculture teaches patience.
Seeds become roots.
Roots become plants.
Eventually something that began small becomes part of the landscape.
That is why political sorting in agriculture deserves attention.
Not because one organization needs to be condemned.
Not because one political party owns the problem.
And not because Americans should stop spending their money according to their values.
But because we should remain vigilant about the civic habits we are planting.
If one political group creates an economic circle made only of politically acceptable people, what happens when the other side builds its own?
Then another industry.
Another profession.
Another community.
Eventually we may succeed in surrounding ourselves with people who agree with us —
and lose something more valuable in the process.
The ability to remain neighbors.
IF YOU CAN KEEP IT
Which brings us back to Franklin.
In 1787, Elizabeth Willing Powel asked what kind of government had emerged from the Constitutional Convention.
Franklin answered:
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
The republic was not guaranteed.
Keeping it would require active participation, vigilance, and civic responsibility from its citizens.
That responsibility still belongs to us.
Not simply to presidents, Congress, or courts.
To citizens.
To parents.
To business owners.
To ranchers.
To neighbors.
And to the people teaching the next generation what being an American neighbor actually means.
Political administrations are temporary.
Political movements change.
Campaign signs eventually come down.
But the civic habits we teach our children can survive all of them.
A republic does not require agreement.
It requires citizens capable of living together despite disagreement.
More than two centuries later, Franklin’s challenge remains ours:
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
The Constitution gave us the framework.
Keeping it is still our responsibility.
— Nick Ellenburg
Founder, Landnology™
Connecting rural communities through knowledge and stewardship.
