Red-state teachers are currently in open revolt against the failure of conservatives to deliver on their economic promises. Republicans in these states embraced tax cuts because (as they told everyone) this would unleash the economy and prosperity for all would soon follow. What happened instead is the same thing that always happens when supply-side economics is attempted -- falling tax revenues which force massive cuts to what were formerly untouchable parts of the budget. Like education. But the teachers are tired of taking it on the chin and are now fighting back. They're sick of being paid a pittance (compared to teachers in other states), they're sick of the lack of resources for their students (books and classrooms that are falling apart), and they're sick of dodges like four-day weeks which desperately try to paper over the hard, cold fact that if you cut taxes on a massive scale, you will have less money to spend to educate your children.

So far, the teachers seem to be winning, or at least making a lot of forward progress. They have a built-in secondary advantage that other workers don't, which is something so obvious most don't even think about it: when teachers strike, students stay home. When students stay home, they disrupt the working lives of their parents, especially for those with children too young to be left unsupervised. This means that people from every part of the economy are very personally affected by a teachers' strike in a way they wouldn't be if any other industry stopped working. Parents are everywhere, in other words.

But while it is heartening to see teachers winning as they push back against conservative economic orthodoxy, there's a more interesting situation beginning to develop in red states (and even in red areas within blue states). Because farmers are also about to take it on the chin. And how they react may influence national politics much more than some red-state teachers getting a long-overdue raise.

President Donald Trump has fired the opening salvos in a trade war, mostly directed at China. China is now firing back. They just announced tariffs on over a hundred individual American products. This is in response to Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum, so there are a few token things (like scrap metal sent to China to be recycled) included in the list, but mostly it is directed squarely at Trump country. New tariffs on pork products and fruits and nuts are all going to impact farm regions. What's worth pointing out, too, is that this is just China's reaction to Trump's initial tariffs -- Trump's second round was a lot bigger, and China was the direct target. China still hasn't yet announced what tariffs it will levy in response to the second round of Trump's tariffs, but they will be forthcoming soon. It's not hard to guess what will account for the lion's share of these tariffs -- all you have to do is look at what American products make the most money in China. Topping the list are aircraft and soybeans. Now, aircraft manufacturing is a fairly specific industry that only affects a few areas (Washington state, where Boeing is headquartered, for instance), but soy is a major crop grown across much of the Midwest and Plains states. If we continue along the path Trump's trade war is on, then the hardest-hit Americans will be pig farmers and soybean growers. Or, to put it in political context, areas which voted overwhelmingly for Trump.

How much of a political problem this becomes for the president (and for Republicans at large) will likely be determined by how long the trade war lasts. Will this all be extremely temporary or even prove to be just brinksmanship? Well, Trump already has one win in this column, as he browbeat South Korea into a new trade agreement with the leverage of the steel and aluminum tariffs. But China might not be so quick to acquiesce. Their economy (and their form of government) is much more insulated from the popular opinion of its own citizens, which gives Beijing a freer hand to play macroeconomic hardball.

If the tariffs on both sides only last a few months and a new China-U.S. trade agreement is settled before harvest season, then the impacts will be minimized for the president's party. If Trump can boast about a big "America First!" win over China right before the election, then he might maintain his support from the farmers.

But if it drags on for month after month, with no end in sight, then those farmers are going to be getting more than a little bit worried about their bottom line, and some will even be wondering how they're going to make it through next year. Cheering Trump on from the sidelines is one thing, but being used as pawns to be sacrificed to further Trump's trade policy is another. Farm income was already projected to be down this year, and that was before Trump even started talking about tariffs.

Downturns in a farm economy are particularly brutal. Anyone not old enough to remember the 1980s (quick quiz: what was "Farm Aid"?) may not have a clear picture of this, but downturns in farm income can (and do) devastate small towns and even medium-sized cities in the rural heartland. If farmers have no money, then the farm equipment dealer has to shutter his doors. If farmers have no money, then farm-area downtowns dry up and disappear, one boarded-up storefront at a time. Rural economies are very dependent on how farmers are doing, to state the obvious.

That's all fairly pessimistic, or at the very least premature. The first round of Chinese tariffs hasn't even taken effect yet. Perhaps the disruptions won't last too long. Perhaps both Trump and China will back off at some point. And perhaps the economic hit won't be so bad for the farmers. Perhaps.

But if the Trump trade war lasts into the summer and beyond, it is going to be bad news for Republicans, especially those in the House. GOP representatives from farm regions will have a tough political choice to make -- either support Trump's trade war, or buck the leader of their own party. Both carry political risks for them. This may not be as big an issue in the Senate, since statewide races draw on a wider pool of voters (across all parts of the state's economy). But it could be crucial in certain House races -- even those within blue states. For instance, California has a lot of almond growers in its Central Valley, and these usually-red House districts were already being targeted by Democrats this year. The new Chinese almond tariff might be crucial in flipping these districts to Democratic hands in November. And that's just one tariff out of a list of over a hundred.

If Trump's trade war drags on for months, then it's going to be increasingly obvious that the people getting hurt by it the most are Trump's most loyal voters. Getting hit in the pocketbook is going to test his support like no other issue has. If a soybean tariff is added, then this will affect farmers across a lot of very red states. If their own GOP representatives aren't fighting back against the tariffs (and Trump's trade war in general), then opportunities will open up for Democrats who swear to fight hard against the Trump trade war. It could expand the map for Democrats in dramatic fashion, in other words.

After the 2016 election, coastal media elites realized they had been missing a big story in what they sneeringly call "flyover country." In reaction, they sent out some intrepid reporters on "safaris" (how condescending!) to red states, to find out what Trump voters were really thinking. This didn't last long, although you still will see occasional reports "from the heartland" where some big-city reporter travels to the hinterlands to sit down at a local diner for a few hours and shoot the breeze with the locals.

The red-state teachers have sparked off another wave of this phenomenon. We're now getting nightly national media reports from places like Oklahoma and Kentucky, which is rare indeed. But my advice to the news reporters covering these strikes would be to stick around for a while, even after the teachers have gone back to their classrooms. Drive around to some counties that have fewer people living in them than the New York City or Washington, D.C. suburb these reporters live in. Talk to some farmers about Trump's trade war. Find out what they think. Because, come November, it could be another big political story that otherwise would have been ignored.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant