{"id":552,"date":"2026-07-01T11:36:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T11:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=552"},"modified":"2026-07-01T11:36:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T11:36:41","slug":"the-unlikely-cause-bringing-liberals-and-conservatives-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=552","title":{"rendered":"The unlikely cause bringing liberals and conservatives together"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cThis is demonic stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s downright abusive.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cThat sounds like torture to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s inhumane.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>It causes \u201cphysical problems and psychological anguish.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>These are quotes describing the pork industry\u2019s standard practice of confining pregnant pigs in tiny crates, called gestation crates, which are so small that the pigs can\u2019t even turn around. Millions of pigs in the US are locked in these crates at any given time, and they\u2019re in them for virtually their entire lives.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=550\">Who is actually ruling Iran right now?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Those damning quotes, however, weren\u2019t uttered by animal rights activists, but, rather, by pundits and politicians from across the political spectrum. In order: far-right commentator Mike Cernovich, Fox News host Tomi Lahren, liberal New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, and Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Veronica Escobar (D-TX).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>These are just a few of a surprisingly bipartisan collection of politicos who\u2019ve come to vocally oppose gestation crates, which have long been a hidden farming practice but are now at the center of a high-level fight in Congress. At issue, specifically, is a piece of legislation called the Save Our Bacon Act that would invalidate state laws that ban the crates.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>For decades, the meat industry has been able to reliably depend on congressional Republicans going to bat for its interests. But the fight over gestation crates now shows that previously solid support may be crumbling at the edges. Taken together, the building opposition to gestation crates demonstrates how animal welfare \u2014 often considered a largely liberal concern \u2014 has become increasingly bipartisan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h2><strong>The Save Our Bacon Act, briefly explained<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Although congressional Republicans have traditionally voted in line with industry, that isn\u2019t the case with the general public, who tend to vote in favor of animal welfare issues when they\u2019re on the ballot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>In the early 2000s, voters in purple Florida and deep-red Arizona approved ballot measures to ban the use of gestation crates. Some prominent conservatives stuck their neck out on the issue, too. Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the hard-right conservative, was a spokesperson for the Arizona proposition, while Matthew Scully \u2014 a senior speechwriter for President George W. Bush \u2014 published the book <em>Dominion<\/em>, a rousing call for animal protection written from a conservative Christian perspective.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Then, in the following years, a  passed laws similar to those in Arizona and Florida.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>But, in 2016 and 2018, voters in Massachusetts and California went a step further than other states when they overwhelmingly approved ballot measures that not only prohibited in-state farmers from caging pregnant pigs but also prohibited their supermarkets and restaurants from <em>selling<\/em> pork from caged pigs, no matter where they were raised. (Disclosure: I worked on the Massachusetts ballot measure in 2016.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>In response, meat industry groups \u2014 led by the National Pork Producers Council \u2014 sued California and Massachusetts to repeal the laws and worked with Republican members of Congress to introduce legislation to do the same. The groups argued the laws would raise production costs for farmers and food prices for consumers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>The legislation, however, didn\u2019t get far, and the industry lost each lawsuit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>After this string of losses, the pork industry groups have tried again, this time with an effort called the Save Our Bacon Act, which would overturn Massachusetts\u2019 and California\u2019s laws and prevent future similar ones. Despite perhaps surprising pushback from a group of House Republicans, in April, the House included the Save Our Bacon Act in its version of the Farm Bill, the large legislative package that covers much of America\u2019s agricultural and nutrition policy and is typically reauthorized every five years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>The next step is for the Senate to finalize its own version of the Farm Bill \u2014 and then, the two versions would need to be reconciled. It\u2019s uncertain whether the Save Our Bacon Act will make it into the Senate\u2019s final version, and, so far, things don\u2019t look good for its proponents. The legislation didn\u2019t make it into the draft, and one of its Republican cosponsors, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), recently withdrew his support for it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>With Republicans controlling the House and Senate, and congressional Republicans historically voting in line with what the meat industry wants, the decline in enthusiasm and breaking of ranks on this issue reveals a shift in the politics of animal welfare. What happened?<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=548\">5 books that define America \u2014 for better and for worse<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h2><strong>People don\u2019t like to see animals in tiny cages<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Despite its apparent faltering, this is the furthest that the Save Our Bacon Act has gotten in Congress, which means that, for many members, it\u2019s the first time they \u2014 and the pundit class that influences political debates \u2014 have learned about gestation crates. And when most people learn about them, they don\u2019t like them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cWhen I pull out my phone and I show [members of Congress] what a gestation crate is, the shock in their eyes is so clear and present,\u201d Josh Balk, of the animal welfare group the Accountability Board, told me. \u201cIt is so obviously cruel and inhumane that it does not matter where someone is on the political spectrum to come to that conclusion.\u201d (Disclaimer: I worked at the nonprofit Humane World for Animals from 2012 to 2017, where Balk also worked.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>A 2025 poll found that 84 percent of Americans outright oppose caging pigs, while only 10.5 percent approve of the practice. And when asked about factory farming practices overall, Democrats are actually only slightly more likely to oppose them than Republicans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>So it makes sense, then, that the National Pork Producers Council seems to be actively avoiding showing people what gestation crates look like. Its X timeline is filled with posts about the Save Our Bacon Act but includes no pictures of pigs in the crates.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>The National Pork Producers Council didn\u2019t respond to an interview request for this article.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Conservatives have also found reasons beyond animal cruelty to criticize the Save Our Bacon Act, according to Liam Gray, executive director and founder of the Wilberforce Institute, a conservative and libertarian animal welfare group.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cRegardless of the political perspective you\u2019re coming from, there\u2019s a whole lot of reasons to be against it,\u201d Gray told me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>For example, there\u2019s the question of states\u2019 rights. Some prominent Republican elected officials don\u2019t buy the pork group\u2019s argument that California and Massachusetts can\u2019t set animal welfare standards for food products from other states sold within their borders. Others  that the will of California and Massachusetts voters shouldn\u2019t be overturned.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>On top of causing a rift among Republicans, the legislative fight has even caused many pork farmers and companies to criticize the National Pork Producers Council. Some farmers never used crates in the first place, finding them cruel, while many have already switched to crate-free systems and want their industry to move on from the issue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>The fight over gestation crates could be just a temporary schism between Republicans and the meat industry, but there are other signs that animal welfare is now breaking more across party lines \u2014 most notably, the conservative push to also reduce animal testing. Gray, for his part, is confident it\u2019s all a harbinger of what\u2019s to come. \u201cMore and more, the fight for animal protection is less about left versus right, and more about people versus special interests,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><em>A version of this story originally appeared in the <\/em><em><strong>Future Perfect<\/strong><\/em><em> newsletter. <\/em><em><strong>Sign up here!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=546\">America\u2019s housing was built for a world we no longer live in<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><span>See More<!-- -->:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Animal Welfare<\/li>\n<li>Future Perfect<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How the Save Our Bacon Act is scrambling traditional politics to prevent animal cruelty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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