A long day means heading out to the Gulf of Mexico at 1 a.m. and returning at 6 p.m., after hauling and resetting 500 wooden traps that weigh nearly 150 pounds (70 kilos) each when filled with lobsters. The work is an orchestrated frenzy: one man hauls up the trap, another pulls out the lobsters, measures them, and stows them, while another cleans the wooden cage and stacks it, ready to go back into the sea a choreography of orange overalls.
Instead, Robertson said, voters are distracted by the political noise of President Donald Trump's policies, while the real drivers of grocery sticker shock- labor shortages, and tariffs-continue to tighten their grip. Deportations have thinned fields and stripped farms of undocumented workers who "overwhelmingly" make up the agricultural workforce. At the same time, new tariffs on staples like tomatoes, coffee, and orange juice are pushing up costs on imports, leaving few affordable alternatives.
