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it's both and more. nothing is as simple as a soundbite.

the people in those states are afraid of "the liberal agenda". they're being told that the Democrats are gonna take their meat and force them to eat bugs and lab grown slop. naturally, they're completely unwilling to ever Even try any of this stuff they hate, but that's neither here nor there. this constant cycle of fear and outrage gets their votes. who should they vote for? the guy that promises he'll stop the other guy from force feeding you bugs, or the one that never Even mentions this clearly important election issue?

this particular fear cycle was likely created and pushed by the beef industry that is large and strong in those states. cattle farming is by far the most environmentally inefficient way to produce protein. it's like 10x worse than chickens which are like 10x worse than the worst plant. this is a common leftist talking point these days. it's part of the rhetoric. so the idea that liberals are going to come after beef isn't entirely just based on media lies. if they go out and try to find opposing ideas they'll find that the left hates their cows and wants them to become vegan.

and i mean, there are people on the left who would force that kind of thing on them. look at lemmygrad and the tankies. that's my key ideological difference with communism. the state shouldn't force these practices, but i also don't think it's realistic to believe that America is anywhere close to ever doing that. the only states that would ever use the law to force someone's eating habits for cultural reasons are currently using that to ban lab grown meet.

I, as a leftist in America, genuinely hope that one day lab grown meat will be as cheap, good, and available as regular beef while being more environmentally friendly. i hope that this gets some hardcore beef eaters to realize that flavor is more important than whether something died to make it. lab meat is already outperforming natural steaks in flavor because it's literally designed to have perfect marbling. if we just let this play its course, we could probably expect many of them to eventually switch over. it may take a generation or two, people are very stubborn, but it could be very good for many things in the long run.

this sentiment alone is enough to scare conservatives. they don't even need the media or big beef to scare them. we're doing that on our own.

just like ever issue, the reality of it is nuanced and gray. most people aren't willing to read that much or think that hard about their feelings. they'd prefer a string of tiktoks or political tweets that dumb it all down to one sentence.

if you ever find yourself saying "it's not that complicated it's just..." you probably need to read more into that subject. it's always at least that complicated.

edit: lol, literally in this thread someone pointed out another angle that i didn't. these states are full of people that work in the cattle industry. no one wants to see their town become Detroit.

Who is "they"?

As the article notes the largest meat packers are at least somewhat against this and are themselves investing in cell grown meat. The National Cattleman's Association stance on the issue, also noted in the article, boils down to "It's fine, it just needs to be labelled so consumers know what they're getting."

I think the only "they" we can define here are the Florida and Alabama State Legislatures.

If I was a Rancher, and I'm not terribly far removed from that, I wouldn't want cell grown or cultivated meat banned. I'd stand up a production center for it on my ranch right next to my cattle and sell both.