www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/05/white-rural-rage-myth-00150395
What Liberals Get Wrong About ‘White Rural Rage’ — Almost Everything
Author does a remarkably bad job at describing and excusing what amounts to millions of people who believe bald faced lies and propaganda rather than evidence. It's way too easy for media to call election lies a difference of political opinion when lies are not opinions. They are lies. Not one apologist for right-wing idiocy ever talks about the obvious and repeated belief in proven lies. Write an article about the belief in lies and rural voters. Hate is exactly the right word if the worldview is a construct of Trump's lies. In the end, these people believe in a liar and conman who uses historically divisive language in messaging all the time. There is no excusing that and calling it something other than hate when it ends with 1200 charges and hundreds of prison sentences for insurrectionists is, in a word, deplorable.
Dude splits the baby by claiming it's not "rage" but "resentment" because resentment is rational and borne from experience.
That's potato/potahto - the resentment is rooted in imagined experiences, such as the author's lie that Clinton called all rural voters "deplorables." Or the "migrant invasion" or Portland burned down (RIP Portland) or death panels. You get the idea.
Anger arising from believing obvious lies does not mean it is from experience - it is irrational rage.
The author likes to play the "I'm rural card," so allow me: I'm rural too. I see the rage, lies, and irrationality every time one of my GOP neighbors (and there are a lot of them) brings up something in the news or in politics.
Recently, a conservative friend expressed his frustration that “democrats want an open border with Mexico where illegal immigrants could just flow in unchecked.”
I told him that that was surprising, as an open border would go against democratic border policy, and I told him that that sounded like propaganda.
I asked him if he could name any actual democrats in office who had declared a want for an open border or had tried to create laws for an open border.
He couldn’t cite any, but he said he heard it from enough sources that it must be true.
I showed him actual democratic statements and policies on the border. I showed him opinion polls of democratic voters showing that very few people actually want an open border. And I reminded him that I’ve been his friend for 10 years and wouldn’t lie to him.
I asked again, do you think there’s any chance that his image of democratic positions on the border had been shaped by straw man arguments and propaganda, given that such democratic positions only seem to exist in the minds of conservative pundits.
He said no.
I don’t know how to change these minds. Propaganda is a hell of a drug.
He couldn’t cite any, but he said he heard it from enough sources that it must be true.
The GOP echo chamber is working.
You can't reason people out of positions they didn't reason themselves into.
The irony here is that Republicans have always wanted open borders, because they are the party of big business, and open borders reduces labor costs. Their M. O. for the past 40+ years has been to claim that Democrats are in favor the policies that the GOP is actually in favor of. It's the only way for them to get votes, because their policies are both wildly unpopular and economically and geopolitically disastrous.
I got a friend who leaves OAN on all day at the shop and he said almost this exact same thing to me. I didn't think to mention the points you said, but he followed it up with a "What do you think about them not allowing crosses on the easter eggs but ok with the LGBT stuff". I kind of facepalmed and muttered something about the separation of church and state.
Like... Dude.... Biden was in church on easter... Trump was inciting his voters to assassinate the president and hawking bibles.
It doesn't matter. I warned him it would rot his brain. It doesn't help if he has 4 guys buying into it with him.
He's mostly a both sides suck type... but I can see him clearly taking a detour.
He owns a gun so that's something they get him on a lot.
I reminded him that the only guy that actually said we should take the guns first and sort it out later was Trump. Just goes in one ear and out the other.
They can never put 2 and 2 together that an authoritarian will be the one taking your guns away from you.
They can never put 2 and 2 together that an authoritarian will be the one taking your guns away from you.
This makes it sound like you don't understand their position. They obviously believe that authoritarianism can come from the "left", not just the "right".
Well he always says at least the one thing he can count on republicans is to not take his gun.
That's the one thing he is absolutely Mark Twain sure about and it just isn't so.
Tell him Ronald Reagan favored an open border. Bring a bucket, so you can pick up his brains after his head explodes.
I was born in rural New Hampshire, yet have lived in rural Bible Belt for most of my life. The author here talks about rural Maine, which is considerably more polite than rural South, from personal experience.
But I can also say with 100% certainty that the primary issue with rural voters is the PRESTIGE that is associated with conservativism, NOT the policy-making. This is why the cognitive dissonance is strong with conservative voters across the board, not merely with Republicans. They believe that what they believe is right and moral regardless of the actual outcome...regardless of the rampant abuse and poverty that results.
The secondary issue, is that most of them are "single-issue" voters who are willing to damn every other policy in existence if it means their particular concern gets addressed. Now, single-issue voters ASSUME, incorrectly, that by voting for somebody who aligns on their single issue, then only that issue will be addressed, and everything else will stay the same. That politicians may have their own agendas, but that those agendas will get lost in the sea of politics; that the worst it is going to result in, is taxpayer money being redirected to a politician's side-project. Which, while they'll call it deplorable, they'll just say something about "both sides" to handwave the fact they absolutely condone corruption so long as it means that their one issue with policy gets fixed.
These issues, while great, are not insurmountable. The first step, is to be calm and level headed no matter what is said. Much like internet trolls, conservatives "win" when someone gets riled and heated against their words. This does mean that reaching out to conservatives is not for everyone, ESPECIALLY it is difficult for women due to the inherent misogyny and patriarchal totem-pole attitudes conservatives tend to have.
The second step is to use knowledge of a thing and systems, to establish authority on what you are saying. If it seems like you don't know what you are saying, then they'll immediately shut you out, even if your information is correct. This is the worst part, since as I stated above, getting people "heated" means they "win" and therefore have ground to completely and utterly ignore what you are saying.
Third step then is to undermine their morality. This is most effective when you can use Bible verses to back up what you say, but simply holding to compassion is usually enough to give pause. Being able to be like this in public is most effective, since their primary motivation is prestige (hence why I said you have to establish authority with them in some way for them to listen). This is also why, if can isolate a conservative with a bunch of liberals, most conservatives will switch to liberal for nothing more than the social acceptance aspect. They then ALSO (not always, but most of the time, according to a study I read) tend to STAY liberal, because they afterward tend to view conservative dialogue with misinformation and false morality. Very similar to those who get rescued from cults, act.
That third part is the hardest part, because without undermining their morality, they'll ignore, willingly, everything else. And you can't be too blatant about it, else they'll revert to the cultism and block out everything as "you just hate conservatives!" It is hard, but it is doable. And NECESSARY. These are otherwise (mostly) perfectly regular people who have just been gaslit HARD into believing that if they just cling to their beliefs with enough faith, that everything will work out. They are being taken advantaged of, one and all, and are in dire need of help.
I used to be rural. And then I moved to the city because the rural people were fucking monsters to me.
I moved to the city because moving out of poverty seemed impossible in the rural area where I grew up. I know for a fact there are no jobs in my career field out there. My social evolution took time because that experience was all I knew at the time. Growing up in the woods, going to a Pentecostal church, going to school in a sundown town - this is not an appropriate upbringing for a child to easily step into a 21st century adult life. I needed time to grow into that.
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I'm glad you've evolved.
going to school in a sundown town
what decade if i may ask
I am glad that you did that for yourself. BTW there is a lot of material on Ask A Manager for people in your shoes, who don’t have the requisite middle-class family upbringing, are the first in their family to go to college, etc. Alison Green and her commentariat, between them, have so many helpful tips, and many writers and commenters are, like you, escaping from impoverished backgrounds.
I grew up in and around a rural conservative town in Canada .
The racists xenophobic crackpots were always there , they just kept it hidden unless they were with someone with similar interests.
Trumps rise gave these guys the courage to step out of the shadows and become more vocal.
I remember once when I went on Facebook and friended an uncle who we used to work closely with on his farm. The guy was spouting nonsense about Muslims and Mexicans right after trump started.
Before that, I had never heard him say that ,but when I asked a cousin they said ya he was a bit wacky the whole time.
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You need to record this shit and publish it. Fuck these people. I have zero tolerance for "patriots" who jerk off to the thought of killing Americans
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Rural voters: It hurt itself in its confusion. Somehow it's still everyone else's fault.
I've never been rural but what I wanted for them was healthcare and what they wanted for me was suffering. They have disasters we send relief, we have disasters they fight it on the senate floor. I can see that the wedge is being driven by foreign entities like Russia and China, but the crack is real, so this time Sherman's going to have to keep marching and cross the ocean too
This is my experience, too.
These days, there are no "rural folk". There are city people in the city, and there are suburban people everywhere else. Maybe 1/10 "rural" people actually live a rural lifestyle. Most of them have access to every single amenity provided to city folk.
Real rural folk don't go online, they have shit to do. Wood to cut and chop, pens to muck out, fields to plough. But they don't do that shit anymore, they just dress up and play pretend and drive big trucks and then go home and jerk it to hentai for some weird reason...
Any idea why cities seem to be less affected by the propaganda and lies?
Variety of reasons. People in cities see and interact with folks who are different from them more often. Those different people go from a scary unknown to Bob down the street who has the cute dog.
People in cities also tend to have more education.
It always comes back to broadening one's experiences, it seems.
RIP Portland
I was in portland during the "worst" of the riots, and frankly i couldnt tell you anything was happening. Seattle board up a bunch of windows in their down town, but that was about the only sign i could see. Blown so far out of proportion
I work in downtown Portland. My gas bill is so expensive since I had to armor plate my car to survive the zombie hordes that my mileage is in the single digits now. I've only been killed 3 or 4 times, so I consider myself lucky. Unlike my son who goes to college in downtown Portland and is murdered almost every day after classes.
Zombie profs grade hard.
Fair, but the left does consistently condescend to rural voters. It's all over this sub. Do they deserve it because they believe the lies that Trump and his ilk are serving up? That's not rhetorical. I don't have an answer.
But I do know that even Hilary Clinton is on record that her "basket of deplorables" comment was a factor in her election loss. It's idiotic for a politician seeking national office to marginalize tens of millions of voters just to throw off a smug one-liner.
Trump does it all the time, and it also was a factor in his 2020 loss. I'm in a very distinct minority here, but I think he gets crushed in November. He's marginalizing anyone and everyone who isn't full MAGA. That won't win a national election.
There's a pretty big difference between rural voters who are simply not very experienced in a metropolitian area (big city metro area) or don't have higher education of any kind, and the simply racist idiots.
This is the first nuanced post in the thread. Thank you.
Granted, it was a stupid thing to say that half of P01135809 supporters were "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic."
But it's weird that rather than saying "Fuck you, no we're not," the response instead from his supporters was to agree.
Because she was right and they knew it. Rural people aren't dumb, and they're well educated. They know what racism and sexism are, and they know that those beliefs are wrong. But they also know that those beliefs are a convenient way to explain their low wages, lack of universal health care, crumbling infrastructure, lack of pensions, etc. When then only people of color you interact with live in the poorest neighborhood of the city that's 45 minutes away, it's easy to conclude they are poor because they're lazy or dumb, and not because their ancestors a century ago were the most prosperous demographic in town so the white population rioted, massacred their ancestors, burned down their wealthy businesses, and stole the property, and then 30 years later razed the neighborhood they'd moved to to make room for the new interstate highway system.
Also, how thin skinned are they that they can't get over one comment? The GOP insults liberals constantly, and loudly hates leftists. It's telling that there's only one comment they usually mention, and that's because it's so rare for Democrats to insult Republican voters.
To go with a much much older comparison, few people in medieval times would ever interact with Jewish people, since they typically lived in their own communities (either as an enclave within a city, or a separate village entirely). The major exception were tax collectors, who were notorious for overcharging for taxes (since nobles wanted X amount, and said collectors could keep the difference between what was gathered and what was owed). It wasn’t a racial/religious thing per se, but if every noble’s stooge you ran into belonged to a single group (regardless of how representative of that group it was), it was easy to paint a broad stroke. Doubly so when the clergy were more than happy to use the same brush.
Why is it incumbent upon the left to understand why the right is angry at everything but it’s not incumbent upon the right to understand why people want to be able to live their lives in the 21st century and freely express their gender/sexuality, have freedom over their own body, and a government that works for people?
Why is the onus always on the left? Are the right not capable of critical thinking and self reflection? If the answer to that is no then what is the point in trying to engage with them?
Yup. Don’t ask me to be understanding of someone who refuses to be understanding of me. Caveats apply fpr age and disability, but not for rural conservatives who are suckered by prejudice.
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the right does not care about others feelings b/c they think they have god on their side
If you check the composition of rural voters, there's a significant part of them that is racist and another large chunk which is very fundamentalist Christian. Those groups together are powerful beyond their numbers. FOX news is their preacher and they obey like parrots.
In the cities there are idiots, no doubt at all. But, there are a lot of educated and experienced people who know that a world where we all have our rights protected and where we have an economy that lets us all succeed is a better world than rural farm country with Sunday go ta meeting political rallies.
I can't get through to them. I've tried many times. I can't describe how strange things get with them when I try to talk to them. Even if I got my kid gloves on. They just get quiet and end the conversation.
That's odd. Most of the YouTube videos I see of conversations like that will usually end when the Right spouts total nonsense and there just isn't anything left to discuss. It's like 30% of America is constantly high on some kind of mind-altering drug, and a lot of them are almost constantly raging.
Don't judge them through youtube videos. Try talking to them yourself. It's heartbreaking. They are lost and I believe they can't be reached. It's sad.
Why would I want to waste my time and brain cells on that kind of crap? Yes, they're in need of psychiatric help. No, I'm not a shrink.
Happy cake day!
Maybe the writer should look at COVID and tell me why I'm wrong to think they are dumb. They turned a simple thing like wearing a mask into a political agenda and then expect doctors and scientists to save their loved ones. The best ones are people who think they can afford complex, expensive medical equipment to save them.
Rural Maine is a damn sight different than rural Kentucky or Missouri. The author needs to start traveling in those rural places.
Of course, as soon as the locals find out he's "not from around here" and has a college degree, he will have a vastly different experience.
I thought the same thing when I read that part. I laughed and said, Come to ohio, bro. You ain't seen nothing yet.
How are they different? Your comment is pointless unless you explain what you're talking about.
Republicans trash their states then blame it on democrats in Washington. Their rage is justified, but misplaced by design
Perfect example, texas, a state run by republicans for decades blaming dems for their problems.
Running campaign ads promising to "fix Texas" when the same Republicans have been office for like what? 17 years? Maybe longer?
You never see articles for conservatives titled "what you don't understand about Liberal rage".
It's really exhausting being in the group thats expected to kneel down and try to listen to them and understand their feelings like they're upset toddlers. And at the same time, they dgaf about our concerns, our feelings, our reasons for doing things the way we do and voting for who we vote for. Fuck em.
Agree. It’s like The Allies trying to better understand where the Nazis were coming from. What’s the point and what’s to be gained?
More Democrats in office? If you want to win national and statewide elections, you can’t paint every white rural voter as a Nazi.
Even if it’s just 1 in 10 voters who can be reached by engaging instead of vilifying, it can turn an election.
There is little distinction to be made between a fascist and one who supports fascists.
Is there any supportive data on the conversion from idiot MAGA to Democrat?
Of course not, but you are pre-supposing that every white rural voter is an "idiot MAGA" and that's simply not true.
Look at any voter role in the general canvass books, which are available online. Even the reddest rural counties have registered Democrats and between a quarter and a third are unaffiliated.
These people are not fascists or in support of fascists. They should be engaged and not marginalized as they can turn an election in the swing States.
My feelings exactly. And in my circles, I'm the a*hole for saying it.
You never see articles for conservatives titled "what you don't understand about Liberal rage".
This is in response to a book about white rural rage. This was started because a bunch of whiny toddlers wrote a bitchfest about people they didn't agree with.
No reason for someone to write "What conservatives get wrong about liberal rage", because that isn't the book that was written.
I'm white and rural. The only "rage" I have is that there is a possibility that Trumplethinskin could be president again
Trumplethinskin is good. Thank you for this contribution
Welcome. :-)
My experience in a deep red state hasn’t been rage. It has been a rebuking of “experts”, “data”, “research “, and “establishment “
I put those in. Quotes because my experience is that those people don’t think the experts, data, research, or establishment can be trusted.
The real question is WHY they feel that way. Then we can find a solution to fix it
It’s more that they think the term “expert” has been co-opted by democrats.
If you tell them “experts say…” what they hear is “experts that are democrats say…”
They think there are conservative experts out there being silenced…so they gravitate to Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson.
It’s like a confirmation bias…your expert analysis disagrees with my preconceived opinions, so there must be a conservative expert out there that will reinforce my beliefs. I’ll go find them.
What seems to be the actual issue is that they were never educated on sourcing and what makes a reliable source.
Because they don't have any concept of this, they think that right wing radio stations and balding cosplayers on YouTube are just as reliable as the country's top scientists and doctors.
Yes it all comes back to education, you’re right.
one of the reasons why texas wants to fund vouchers w/ public money so they can indoctrinate the young in charters schools
Not necessarily true. My high school did a really great job educating us on sourcing, reliable resources, and critical thinking. It still graduated a shit ton of right wing assholes.
In my community, I think the problem is religion, lots of Southern Baptists in my hometown. Kids learned all the critical thinking skills, but let their church’s beliefs come first. If their church didn’t have an opinion, then they would use their brains.
It sounds like they didn't learn the critical thinking skills, then.
They did, they just selectively apply them. It's kind of bonkers.
That's not critical thinking, then.
It's like saying "they learned the scientific method, they just don't apply it"
Then they aren't scientists, they are charlatans
Well, the men on FOX wear suits and they're all white, and the women all wear tight skirts and are pretty. They must be telling the truth. /s
At this point I don't think there are really any undecided voters. Not really.
Either you are disgusted by Trump and can see that he is lying sack of shit or you can't.
If you can't then the only reason is that you vibe with his hate.
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1mo
It’s more that they think the term “expert” has been co-opted by democrats.
If you tell them “experts say…” what they hear is “experts that are democrats say…”
They think there are conservative experts out there being silenced…so they gravitate to Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson.
I think this is hilariously sad.
This just reinforces the saying, "truth has a liberal bias."
Oh absolutely.
Also I amended my original response because I didn’t know anyone could see below the deleted message
Your message was great. I am not rural. Always lived in cities. I appreciate hearing other's experiences. We need to understand.
how do you fix that though? Most of the alleged conservative experts aren’t experts, or they are selling a version of their subject matter that is completely at odds with the broader consensus. Someone has to choose to believe that. We've gotten to a point where the more of a crank you are, the more right you must be.
I live in a very deep red state and I agree that they have those attitudes. Of those who aren't neo-Nazis, racists, fundamentalist Christians, or Karens, the general attitude of all others has that distrust.
I think a good part of it comes from the way our economy has treated poor working-class people. Dems used to be supporting them, but they see the climate-change as a hoax and Clinton signing NAFTA confirmed for a lot of them that Dems do NOT support them. Naturally, a lot of that all stems from Republican legislation and propaganda.
They have a right to distrust. Their Republican leaders have not done anything for them. The Rs tried to kill all the unions except for the police and they shipped manufacturing to China, Vietnam, Mexico, and Indonesia. Those places are doing great today. Democrats have to reestablish that we support the middle-class (people and the concept) and will keep at it to help everybody succeed, not just a dozen billionaires.
Distrust of authority is baked into the American ethos to a large degree, and my theory is that it goes back to our undemocratic roots. Our government was founded on the belief that the masses cannot be trusted and that direct democracy is dangerous. If the government can't trust the people, why should the people trust the government? And, of course, we can see the anti-establishment, anti-government threads running throughout our nation's history. There's arguably nothing more "American" than being anti-american. Perhaps if our country was founded on faith in people, we wouldn't have such a problem with people believing that the government and other authority figures aren't to be trusted.
But that's just one part of it. There are a lot of other elements at play, like the influence religion has in America, or inequality and feelings of powerlessness, or racism, or even the actual examples of government and scientific abuses that people can point to, and I don't just mean things like the Tuskegee experiments or government colluding with corporations to harm workers, but even the incestuous relationship between industry and government that continues today where we see things like government covering up environmental abuses by industry. I think one of the funniest aspects of American voters is that half hate the government for screwing them over, and half hate corporations for screwing them over, even though it's really the government and corporations screwing people over together.
With respect, I think you're wrong about this. Our govt was not founded on the belief that the masses can't be trusted and democracy is dangerous. Why do you think that? Also, I would like some examples of government colluding with corporations to hurt American people.
Our govt was not founded on the belief that the masses can't be trusted and democracy is dangerous.
That's almost the entire reason for the Electoral College. The idea is that we can't trust the popular vote, so we have a group of people who can fix the election if the people "get it wrong."
I see now. I understand what you mean. I wasn't thinking of Electoral College. That needs to go.
It's also the reason we have a bicameral legislature. The Senate, as originally designed, was to serve as check against the popularly elected House of Representatives.
Not "rage." This can all be explained by Bohoeffer's Theory of Stupidity.
And Carlo Cipolla's "The five universal laws of human stupidity."
“Against stupidity we have no defense. Neither protests nor force can touch it. Reasoning is of no use. Facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be disbelieved — indeed, the fool can counter by criticizing them, and if they are undeniable, they can just be pushed aside as trivial exceptions."
Ooh I love that.
Look them both up. They explain everything about now.
Cipolla's Law 3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
I feel like this law has long been encapsulated in the expression cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Bingo.
Yes, such resentment is a real phenomenon in rural areas. But words matter; rage and resentment are not interchangeable terms. Rage implies irrationality, anger that is unjustified and out of proportion. You can’t talk to someone who is enraged. Resentment is rational, a reaction based on some sort of negative experience. You may not agree that someone has been treated unfairly, but there is room to empathize. ...
I sympathize with the idea that, as Schaller and Waldman and many other commentators have pointed out, in terms of policies, Democrats arguably do more for rural areas and rural residents than Republicans do. After Democrats passed Obamacare, rural residents stood to gain the most in states that expanded Medicaid, but two-thirds of uninsured rural residents missed out because they lived in states that refused to expand coverage — and those states were almost exclusively governed by Republicans. Paul Krugman is often quick to point out that “ because rural America is poorer than urban America, it pays much less per person in federal taxes, so in practice major metropolitan areas hugely subsidize the countryside.” And it is true that the Biden administration is currently overseeing billions in new federal spending that is disproportionately going to rural communities across America.
So, the problem Democrats haven’t been able to solve isn’t policy; it’s politics. And Democrats who give in to the simplistic rage thesis are essentially letting themselves off the hook on the politics, suggesting that rural Americans are irrational and beyond any effort to engage them.
Being resentful of the "politics" (read: messaging, propaganda) while the actual policy helps you is inherently irrational. And to me, that isn't a call to write them off as beyond engagement, but that the engagement has to be crafted to match their irrational idiocy: you can't treat these people like intelligent adults, but as know-nothing sheep. That's why Republicans who hate them (and know that Trump really does hate them, how they speak, how they dress, their religion, everything but their usefulness to him) do so well among them. The GOP gives them an identity and something to rage against, and that matters more to them than any policy.
Consider this:
When these two preferences diverge, we argue that rank-and-file Democrats reliably prioritize policy preferences over symbolic attachments, but rank-and-file Republicans tend to reconcile the conflict in favor of their symbolic attachments to their ideological identity. ...
The most prominent feature of this disconnect, how-ever, is its asymmetry—that is, symbolic conservatives are far more likely to express liberal policy preferences than symbolic liberals are to endorse conservative policies. In fact, according to Ellis and Stimson (2012) whereas there is little conflict among liberals between their symbolic identification and their operational preferences, two-thirds of symbolic conservatives experience conflict with their operational policy preferences on economic issues, cultural issues, or both. ...
Second, ideological identity is more salient for conserva-tives than liberals. One’s conservative ideological identity more commonly overlaps with their partisan, racial, and religious identities than for those who espouse a liberal identity, giving conservatives a simpler identity structure, or a “mega identity” (Mason 2018b), which increases the salience of identity conflict and reduces tolerance (Brewer and Pierce 2005).
Everything we know about their voting habits bear this out.
Rural communities, much like disadvantaged neighborhoods in urban areas, are more likely to suffer from chronic health conditions, a challenge compounded by the closure of local hospitals and a shortage of health care providers. Rural economies often struggle with limited employment opportunities and infrastructure deficits, issues that should resonate with many post-industrial urban areas facing similar challenges. Additionally, educational disparities persist across the U.S., with rural schools facing funding shortfalls and teacher shortages that parallel urban struggles to provide equitable educational opportunities. I can anticipate the frustrated Democratic response: “We tried to give them what they want, and they continue to vote against their interests.” Waldman said as much in 2022: “One thing you absolutely cannot say is that Democrats don’t try to help rural America. In fact, they probably work harder at it than Republicans do.” ...
However, that is exactly what a focus on resentment helps us to understand. This is not rage against the people trying to help. Nor is it an excuse. Resentment, instead, asks us to consider how rural voters’ choices are frequently rooted in values and place-based identities that place a strong emphasis on self-reliance, local control and a profound sense of injustice regarding the lack of recognition for rural contributions to society. There is no “mystery” to it. Rural Americans often prioritize their way of life over immediate economic gains that are often promised (and not always delivered) by policy solutions. My research suggests that their perceived resistance to certain policies, and especially a political party that advocates for a multitude of governmental correctives, is a complex reaction stemming from years of economic transition, dislocation and yes, harm from policies they were told would help.
Sure, “Hollywood didn’t kill the family farm and send jobs overseas. ... College professors didn’t pour mountains of opioids in rural communities,” as Schaller and Waldman write. But rural people do know that federal agriculture and trade policies pushed by Democrats and Republicans did destroy many rural economies. Rural people do know that liberal elites stood by as rural students became one of the least likely groups to attend college, and one of the most likely to drop out. So they benefit from Obamacare and vote against it; can rural people contain multitudes, too? ... But it is often not enough given the historic underinvestments that plague many rural areas; and Democratic “solutions” have yet to solve the health care crisis, the jobs crisis, the growing number of teacher shortages. Celebrate, sure. Acknowledge the long road ahead, too.
Give me a fucking break. One, if trade policies were bipartisan, why would Democrats be blamed but not Republicans? Nicholas can't tell us that, because the answer is... not flattering to this population. Two, we already know these people don't respond to policy, how would bolstering investment in rural states help? Three, Democrats didn't "stand by" and watch Red state education collapse. They do bolster education where and when they can, especially for the poor. But guess what, education is largely a state concern, and guess who controls these states. Again, all of these problems track back to Republican policies, policies these people continue to vote for! And now Republicans have even convinced their rural supporters that education is evil. Yes, I wonder why there are teacher shortages in communities that despise teachers and threaten them with arrest for teaching about LGBT. Yes, I wonder why health care is atrocious in rural states that refused Medicaid expansion and threaten doctors with arrest (a common theme, eh?). Blaming "Democratic 'solutions'" for these failures when Republican policies—and their unconscionably stupid voters who think Trump gave them Obamacare subsidies—is veritably insane.
But this flies in the face of what research on resentment actually tells us. For many rural residents, the solutions they seek may not always come neatly packaged as government policies, white papers or policy briefs pumped out of a campaign war room. I’ve found that resentments exist because self-reliance and local problem-solving is intrinsic to rural identity, and self-reliance is something by nature resistant to government policies emanating from Washington, D.C.
What mind-numbing platitudes. How do you think Democrats are going to fix your teacher shortages and lack of health care with "local problem-solving?" Nick doesn't offer any concrete policy, either from himself or from these people, because, obviously, there aren't any. It smacks of Reagan, as he was shutting down all of the mental institutions, that local communities and churches would fill the void, while federal funding was reduced and block-granted to the states to do with as they pleased.
Guess what happened.
On specific issues, this politics would acknowledge that rural and nonrural Trump voters see issues through different lenses, even if, come Election Day, they are voting the same way; you have to talk to them differently. On immigration, it would mean accepting the fact that, in some communities, particularly those with financial challenges, concerns about the social burden of immigration is not always an expression of hate. It would look at a data point on distrust in media and seek out a reason — perhaps a self-critical one — for why rural people are the most likely to feel like news does not portray their communities accurately. It would speak directly to the challenge posed by artificial intelligence and technological progress that, once again, will likely concentrate benefits among those who have already benefited and leave rural communities behind. It will see the moral costs as well as the economic costs of those developments — the end to heritage industries, the pollution of the land, the erasure of rural dignity — and recognize how demoralizing it is to be told that they should just learn to code “ for God’s sake.”
Not one of these is a policy suggestion, but how to manipulate this population with messaging. That last bit is the cutest one. Should we tell them coal is never going away? What lie should we say instead? Avoid the issue entirely and drone on about their communal resilience, stroking their metaphorical cocks, while avoiding anything approaching a solution? Yes, I could see it working, as it does for the GOP. But that's the perennial issue with Dems: they like to talk about policy and the truth is your coal industry is dying, polluting, and it ain't coming back, so you can either deal with that reality with imperfect action, or vote for shysters who will leave you uneducated, poor, sick, and dead. And they chose poorly.
And it would give agency back to the 1 in 5 Americans who call rural areas home, not through a lengthy list of policy correctives but through a politics of empathy and shared authorship and civic engagement. Is that really so hard?
Biden's out there on the picket line with the working class. He speaks from the heart, at their level, and has the most trade protectionist agenda of any president in decades. The Democrats who run in Tennessee and Nebraska aren't coastal elites sneering down at them. They're people who live there and do all of this.
And it's not moving the needle.
This shoddy analysis and faux expertise does real damage. It is clear that the overwhelming portrayal of rural America as angry and irrational feeds into and amplifies the divisions between rural and urban Americans, overshadowing the shared challenges and aspirations that cut across these geographic lines.
I am so very sorry, but huh? Criticizing Waldman and Shaller’s book is perfectly fine, but miss me entirely with the smoothing-over of Trump voters as decent people who basically want the same thing as us, but are disaffected and don’t see themselves reflected in the Democratic party. We are so far past that it’s actually hilarious.
Calling them rage-filled hate-monsters may not be a tool for pulling them out of the MAGA trance, sure, but acting like their demands and obsessions have a rational basis or simply reflect a “shared sense of place” is nonsense; placation and appeasement have been tried, over and over. If it truly was “rational resentment” rather than “irrational rage” animating these voters, it would follow that they’d care at least slightly about policies to help lift up rural communities, rather than shoveling more money on the billionaire class at least…a little? Right?
The rural identity has been fully coopted by propaganda training them that they are a special class, that the benefits of modern society are zero-sum, and that anything negative about Dear Leader is a vicious lie cooked up by the blacks/gays/jews/feminists/whoever fits the narrative of the day. Free-to-consume right wing fear mongering dressed up as news is reasons roughly one through one million that we are in this mess. This article somehow fails utterly to account for this, which renders it pretty useless in my view.
Read and understand this:
I don't care about your "resentment". Get fucked.
We want to live in a world with concepts like UBI and healthcare for all where you don't have to be resentful of anything other than like how much bigger of a television your neighbor has and they say no way we won't even consider anything along those lines because what if "the others" are helped in the process. They have all the hate of the sith and none of the cool outfits.
Call it w/e social pathology you want - I'm tired of shitheeled peckerwoods fucking up the social fabric of this nation.
Replace the word 'rage' with the word 'fear', then. As a person who grew up poor in the rural Midwest, I can say with some authority that change is the thing driving people toward the Republican ticket. They don't necessarily agree with anything Trump says, but they trust that their vote for 'small government' will keep things from getting worse for them. In small town America, anything new or different is bad. They aren't foaming at the mouth and spouting racist, homophobic themes in public spaces, but they are doing it very quietly at the dinner table.
Yes. This has been my experience, too.
That's where their similarity to al Qaeda comes from and why the term "Y'all Qaeda" is appropriate. Fear of change, racism, fundamentalist views on culture and religion, all lead to the rage when the situation is right.
I haven't sat down at the dinner table with them in a long time. I won't do it anymore. I tell my husband, "they're gone, you can't reach them."
“Some liberal thinkers called out the left’s reflexive condescension and dismissal of rural voters that escalated during the George W. Bush administration and peaked with Hillary Clinton’s campaign and her dismissal of Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables.” Some said the party should increase attention to rural issues and nearby rural communities”
Remember liberals, Hillary said something mean 10 years ago. Therefore their wrath is justified to any extent. Also if you get upset when they say something mean to you personally, you’re just triggered. And should get over it.
I grew up in a small-town rural working class community and in my experience a majority (perhaps only slight) are in-fact inclined towards racism and xenophobia. That is to say, a majority do seem to believe that “outsiders” and “illegals” are the source of their decline and problems.
White rural rage is the code word for Selfish. They are selfish and entitled. The mentality and perspective of boomers passed down into the next generation while the rest of the world tries to move forward as a society.
That selfishness not only encompasses racism, it also transcends it. It's why they hate everyone including themselves.
who gives a fuck about "white rural rage" that's none of my business, I'm just tired of that orange f*uck face.
I always see these articles where liberals try to decipher the conservative mind.
I’ve never seen an article about “what conservatives get wrong about liberals”
It's hard to stretch the word 'everything' into an entire article.
It’s resentment. Resentment and spite.
The author has gone on to explain that his word choice was aesthetic. His publisher wanted a title that would be punchy, and White Rural Rage fits much nicer on a book cover as well as being fewer syllables making it catchier.
And there are legitimate grievances. These are people who suffer greatly in late stage capitalism. The local doctors have gone and been replaced by corporate hospitals in cities an hour drive from their homes. Small family farms aren’t able to support themselves, with most farmers posting losses while corporate farms make record profits. They are told by people in suits how prosperous the country is but they aren’t seeing it. Schools funded by busted trusts that teach monopolies good, actually, are all they see of education.
I grew up in rural Tennessee. Liberals get nothing wrong about “white rural rage”. These are fearful, angry people who despise everything outside their small, mostly homogenous communities.
I still remember my adult relatives talking about “the race war” when I was a kid, and musing with glee about “pickin’ ‘em off one at a time when they come out to the country”.
Rural Americans are generally not good people. Never have been. Exceptions exist, but the rule remains true.
It's not just rural voters that think this way. Witness blue state democrats that voted for Reagan, or union workers that pretty much shut down any notion of HillaryCare (1992 lolz) because it had like a $1 copay for drugs... I was in Detroit at the time working for one of the Big 3 automakers and the reception that her proposals received by the rank and file was pretty much the end of it.
It's more than rural think vs urban think. Its a lack of collective social consciousness. Anything from healthcare for all to free college to mass transit is perceived as benefiting THEM, not US.
At this point, the onus falls on Democratic officials and candidates to do something different because they are the ones losing rural voters election after election. They’ll need to acknowledge that a laundry list of policy “solutions” is likely to fall on deaf ears.
Solutions stem from recognizing that people have legitimate grievances and offering help. Even Obama was talking about how screwed these places have gotten when he made his "clingers" remarks and he got skewered for it to this day. Every politician is obligated to take a magical mystery tour through rural America. Democrats are held to an impossible standard with these people where you can deliver all the results you want and tell them how important they are but in the end a huckster blaming all their problems on foreigners and gay people will get their votes. We owe rural America more, but I'm not sure what else we can say to cut through the resentment and distrust. Unless the expectation is we simply start treating people in the rural out-groups worse and drop environmentalism.
It's just racism in a 21st century wrapper....nothing more.
Shall we enumerate what MAGA gets wrong about..reality?
User deleted comment
1mo
“A Majority Of White America Is Recklessly Ill-Informed, Delusional, Bigoted, Entitled, Dangerously Arrogant About It, ”
Haha great, now do Black America.
This isn't a good article. The crux of it is that what is observed is not rage but resentment with the distinction being that rage is irrational. The resentment that rural people feel which is supposed to be rational is described this way.
In recent years, that rural political identity has morphed into resentment — a collective grievance against experts, bureaucrats, intellectuals and the political party that seeks to empower them, Democrats.
But then the author goes on to say
I sympathize with the idea that, as Schaller and Waldman and many other commentators have pointed out, in terms of policies, Democrats arguably do more for rural areas and rural residents than Republicans do. After Democrats passed Obamacare, rural residents stood to gain the most in states that expanded Medicaid, but two-thirds of uninsured rural residents missed out because they lived in states that refused to expand coverage — and those states were almost exclusively governed by Republicans.
So, according to the author, the resentment that rural people feel toward democrats is rational because Republicans obstruct rural people from enjoying the benefits of policies that democrats passed. That's supposed to be rational resentment, not rage.
They go on to talk about democrats inability to connect with rural identity, but that basically comes down to rural people don't like it when anyone not like them is in power.
Ultimately, the article is a great example of how being more nuanced isn't the same as being more correct. Rural people don't deserve criticism for their hobbies, or their taste in food, or music, but their politics, the leaders they choose to support, the policies they applaud, should not be immune to criticism. And there is much to criticize.
Rural voters have had the same grievances for decades.
They pay taxes like everyone else but the don't see that they get very much for their taxes. Their roads are full of potholes, the have no transit service, police service is slow or unresponsive they have no paid fire department, their healthcare is limited and their schools are bad.
This is all true but it happens like this because it is so expensive to provide these services to sparsely populated communities.
However, it still leaves a feeling of not getting what they pay for so rural voters lobby for lower taxes so in their mind anyways they can stop paying for all the services the cities get.
Cultural issues are just another layer of the same cake. When African Americans or transgender people or whatever minority gets media attention it plays into the 'being ignored' feeling as the attention is on these groups problems and not on them. This ignored feeling can manifest in anger but it doesn't for everyone.
The kind of populism game that Donald Trump plays just leans into these feelings more. He says the stuff they're feeling and while nobody has a solution for these feelings it makes them feel less ignored and that's the good feeling they vote for.
At the end of the day though it's all 'feels before reals' and no solutions of any substance are ever provided. It's a politics for the ignorant but enough people have bought into it Republicans are rolling with it.
Their roads are full of potholes, the have no transit service, police service is slow or unresponsive they have no paid fire department, their healthcare is limited and their schools are bad.
All of which are largely due to their municipal, county, and state governments. They don't seem to see the connection between the way they vote and the policies they end up with. It's like they want what Democratic cities have but just painted red and playing country music and without all that Democrat governance.
Aren't most of those things paid for by local taxes?
It's not just that it's more expensive to maintain things in a lightly populated area, but poorer areas generate less tax revenue to do it with.
And the rest of us have paid through the nose to bring them the services they do have. You have clean running water in a rural area? Thank a grant from the federal government. Telephone service, and now high speed internet? There's a FCC fee that all of us pay for you to get it. That road you drive on to get to the big city two hours away? Yep, thank the feds again for the highway system. The rest of us pay for the lifestyle of rural voters while they complain they aren't getting even more.
preach on. They are massive tax sync holes, while they pretend they are an island.
You are overestimating the urban contribution to rural areas.
Most of the money sent out of the government is for medicare and social security, not infrastructure, that is everywhere, not just rural counties. The money in/tax out split correlates more with high vs low income counties, urban centers typically are high income. Places like New Mexico or the Beltway with a large federal presence also get more money because well...the government has to pay for its employees and other assets.
There are plenty of knocks against rural counties you can throw out but this one is pretty misleading.
Every time I see a project announcement in my rural community, the source of funding is X amount from the state and "2X (or more) from a Federal grant"
An awful lot of funding for local projects (rural, urban, and in between) comes from Federal grants.
Yes. It all happened to them, not because of them. Choosing to live in a sparsely populated area means no services. If you want good hospitals, good schools you have to live where people live. When I moved out of rural Ohio and into suburbs, I was amazed at all that was offered to me. I would talk to people that live in cities and suburbs and they would tell me how much they wish they could live out there in country (where I grew up) and I would look at them and say, You have no idea how good you have it here. I will never go back. They're like, Really!? smh. Country (rural) life is a lot harder. If you are not a farmer working the land, you have no business trying to live out there.
love the TOYOTA CAMRY in the driveway. "maga" but leave the cars to Japan
How about I just don’t care? Resentment, rage, whatever. I don’t care.
You should care. Because that rage is the same which rose Hitler to power. Same thing will happen in the US very soon.
I think he cares that it is rage and racism, he just doesn't care what lame term is used to refer to it. We know what it is, and we all know it leads to authoritarianism and millions being harmed.
We're trying to be made to sympathize with people who want us dead. We're allowed to say, "no."
I live over in Europe, right next to Germany (Denmark). I am 73 years old and have had uncles who survived German concentration camps. I have lived right next to all the Eastern European dictatorships and also seen dictatorships in Spain, Portugal and Greece in my lifetime.
What worries us (like in "panic") over here is that nearly all the non-MAGA people in the US really don't have a clue to how much/how little it takes to create a dictatorship. - Just "saying No" is really not going to cut it.
From afar your country is now in such a disarray that creating the dictatorship is not hard to do any more. Green light for all parameters.
So non-MAGA (Make Another Germany Again) people needs to organize so they are ready to take to the streets and actually fight physically for keeping your democracy. Like Ukraine did in the "Orange Revolution" some years back.
Sure, we see a lot of hand-wringing, No's and "this is dangerous" but we see nobody organizing the masses to follow that "no" up with the necessary power.
Don't rely on free and fair elections this time. Expect chaos. Start thinking about whether the Army will help you keeping democracy. Start thinking about how the National Guards in the various states will react. Who will they support in a chaos situation ? Who will state police support ? How can you stop Fox News and similar from broadcasting all the lies? Things like that is what you should be doing right now.
The rage is based on having to keep a lid on their racist and homophobic beliefs. It’s that simple. These are the people who thought school was in their way. They spend all their energy on conformation bias that they are the victims of someone else’s victory.
My entire family is rural and they're part of the white rural rage. I don't get anything wrong about them. I simply don't care. It's not my job to understand them. They've voted against their interests for decades and now deal with the consequences.
Yep deplorables are dangerously stupid.
It’s adorable that they think they can gaslight the rest of us like they can their brainwashed cult…
What is a "liberal" anyway and why does this author think none of them are rural or white?
The only thing people got wrong was thinking that people who back Trump are redeemable and not just full on genocidal fascists who want everyone that looks or thinks differently from them dead. That might have been true in 2016.. might.. but now, No, it isn't. If you're backing Trump you are declaring that you want everyone else to suffer and die in your suicidal quest for racial and ideological "purity"
I blame meth.
So its not backwards and racist? Are you sure?
They don't think of themselves as backwards and racist. It's my belief they don't think at all.
All these rural country hicks gets
- free or heavily subsidized internet and mobile services.
- free money through farm payments.
- their health care facilities will be bankrupt without government help.
what a ungrateful leeches, they are.
Exactly. I try to tell them. They get quiet. They stop engaging in conversation. They can't be reached. I posted this because the author says that they can be reached. But I've tried. It's worse than the democrats think.
Generalizing rural voters is unhelpful. I cringed when I saw that “white rural rage” thing making the media rounds. Reality is more complex than that and not every rural voter fits the stereotype of a rage addled and bigoted Trump fanatic.
"Liberals" lol.
"They are driven by a sense of place, community and often, a desire for recognition and respect."
Fuck all those rubes and their desire for "respect". I live in white rural California and the locals are ignorant on nearly all topics and rage explains them perfectly. Rage at being complete losers being rapidly forgotten by everyone who matters in the world.
Ironically this thread is so full of rage and hate towards White Rural America.
I wonder if we'll ever as a society realize that we're so much more alike than we are different. We all hate those other people because they are so hateful.
Truth is most of the hate is hype and when any two random Americans sit together and talk, it's usually a pleasant exchange and we have a lot in common. That's my real world experience anyway.
Most people are nice and want the many of the same things as long as they aren't parroting soundbites that they don't even truly understand, which is what usually happens online.
My experience is trying to talk to people and sharing my thoughts and ideas and getting called a dumb liberal, or just being completely ignored or hated/feared because I support lgbtq people and abortion rights. We are not alike. At all.
You actually are. Try to talk to some of your liberal friends about gun rights, or pro-life and see what you're called.
That would be preaching to the choir, lol. We agree. My gay friends agree with my stance on abortion, labor unions, gun rights, Healthcare, and I'm called friend. Sometimes family. We ARE in this together. Which side are you on?
I think most of these articles rely on the premise that Trumps supporters don't see him for what he is. I disagree. They know exactly what he is.
To the rural Americans who have felt for years that they are taxed without representation. No one is listening to them. Manufacturing jobs are replaced with automation or shipped overseas. Etc. Etc.
To them, Trump is a grenade. Thrown in the middle of a government they feel has failed and abandoned them. They feel that the government is systematically unfair, broken, and beyond repair. They know Trump is crazy. That's the point. Bring the current government to its knees. Eventually, they will HAVE to pay attention.
Let me give a personal example.
I worked for a railroad for 30 years. I worked on call, 24/7/365. 2 hours to report from the time of call. Work day was a minimum of 12 hours, outside, in any and all weather conditions. Further, once finished, I could be called back 10 hours later to do another 12 hours. Zero sick days!
During our last contract negotiation, the railroads refused to negotiate in good faith. They offered wage increases that didn't keep up with inflation, let alone the increases they wanted in health care contribution. They wanted to eliminate one of the two crew members, creating serious safety concerns for both communities and workers. They absolutely REFUSED to negotiate about paid sick time.
All the craft unions stood together and rejected their offer. We voted to strike. The vote was approved.
Then Biden stepped in and said
"I Joe Biden, who claims to be THE most union friendly President ever, can not standby and watch, let alone allow, union members to practice their right to collectively bargain. Therefore, I am going to put my finger directly on the scale in favor of corporate greed. First, I am going to deny the unions the right to go on strike. Second, I am going to DEMAND Congress force the very contract that the unions voted down, on those workers" and then that is exactly what he did.
83 Senators, a large majority of both parties voted to force that contract on us. A contract devoid of a single sick day. The entire government told over 100k railroad workers that corporate profit was more important than they were.
So you now expect those same 100k workers, who happen to move 70% of our nation goods, to support the government who turned its back on them when they needed them most?
The idea that our great democracy is something worth defending only works if that democracy works equally for everyone. When democracy chooses profits over people, it isn't democracy, and it isn't worth defending.
Until our government realizes this, the underrepresented will continue to lob grenades like Trump at them.
83 Senators, a large majority of both parties voted to force that contract on us. A contract devoid of a single sick day. The entire government told over 100k railroad workers that corporate profit was more important than they were.
AND then, later, you got your sick days. Thanks to Joe Biden, yes, that one the President.
You are only telling part of that story.
You couldn't get everything you wanted. Running the railroads in a National Security issue. Sucks to be in an infrastructure position. How would you feel if you water were shut off because the treatment plant went on strike?
AND then, later, you got your sick days. Thanks to Joe Biden, yes, that one the President.
Biden had ZERO to do with getting sick days, that was the Unions. Second, they are sick days you will be punished for taking. So, are they really sick days if you can't use them?
You couldn't get everything you wanted. Running the railroads in a National Security issue. Sucks to be in an infrastructure position. How would you feel if you water were shut off because the treatment plant went on strike?
Im sorry to tell you, that dog won't hunt.
What other National Security Issue, is left to the whims of Corporate America? Especially Corporations that post hundreds of millions of dollars in NET profit, every QUARTER. If it is a national security issue, than lets nationalize the railroads. A precedent has been set for a President to do exactly that. On 26 December 1917, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson nationalized most American railways under the Federal Possession and Control Act, creating the United States Railroad Administration (USRA). It took control of the railways on 28 December 1917, and introduced several reforms to increase efficiency and reduce costs.
Had the railroads thought for one second that the government was going to protect workers right to collectively bargain, by going on strike, we never would have been in a position to do so. They would have been forced to bargain in good faith. Failing that, had the railroaders been allowed to strike, it would have been over in hours. The cost on the railroads would have been crippling. Let me remind you, the sick days we wanted, would have cost less than 1% of the NET profits the railroads made last year. Fact is, every other government contractor was required to give it's workforce 15 paid sick days. EXCEPT railroad workers. A fact that Biden could have easily changed by amending President Obama's executive order that required that companies that contract with the government provide employees with 15 paid sick days. He refused.
Your answer:
Sucks to be in an infrastructure position.
This is exactly what these people hear. Except they are hearing it from the government. Democrats want them to forget that, and vote to "protect democracy". Guess what? they don't think "democracy" is working. At least not for them. They ARE angry, and their answer is to watch the whole pile of shit go up in smoke. To them, the system is fatally flawed, and people like yourself telling them "sucks to be you" isn't helping. It just makes them more determined to watch it all go up in flames.
“If I suffer, everyone else must suffer” is all I took away from your post. It’s childish.
Then you have no intention of trying to understand what causes people to follow Trump, or to address their issues, causing them to further gravitate towards Trump.
Per your point, the citizens aren’t providing zero support. They’re supporting someone who will vengefully punish the people they perceive to be their enemies. You say they’re supporting Trump to “throw a grenade into the system” but that grenade is going to hurt their fellow citizens a lot more than it will Joe Biden.
Even if that alone is the case and Liberals are “all wrong” about judging them as terrified bigots, the fact that they’re willing to hurt other regular people by electing Trump because they’ve been hurt themselves shows that they’re still garbage. Fuck them.
They’re supporting someone who will vengefully punish the people they perceive to be their enemies. You say they’re supporting Trump to “throw a grenade into the system” but that grenade is going to hurt their fellow citizens a lot more than it will Joe Biden.
Where were their fellow citizens when the government was turning it's back on them?
Would that be the same citizens that are telling them "it sucks to be you, You must be a terrified bigot or a deplorable?".
You expect some kind of loyalty from them. Why? The system has failed them. Repeatedly.
Let’s revise that.
The only thing the system has failed to do, with regard to the average Republican, is establish a state church and punish everyone who doesn’t attend. You seem intent on portraying Trump supporters as noble, exasperated patriots who have no option remaining but to burn the system down because they’ve been cheated and left behind. And while I respect the intent of your assessment, because I don’t enjoy the notion that some people are just shit, your assessment is not correct.
These people were left behind because they insisted on remaining in closed off communities, shunning education, progress, and intellect, while spitefully demanding the whole of society be dragged backwards because “I don’t want to have to tell my kids why those men are holding hands” and “I just don’t wanna live next door to ‘em!”
This isn’t about a contract negotiation or fair pay or Joe Biden fucking over the railroad union. It’s about a bloc of society furious that things change. They’ve been foaming at the mouth since the 1960s when black people demanded to be treated like humans and some dared to say the military shouldn’t have been in Vietnam. They’ve only gotten angrier since then because no one has given in to their stupid demands to put black people back in the fields and gay people in prison for merely existing.
They’re not patriots. They’re shitty people with shitty ideas.
The only thing the system has failed to do, with regard to the average Republican, is establish a state church and punish everyone who doesn’t attend. You seem intent on portraying Trump supporters as noble, exasperated patriots who have no option remaining but to burn the system down because they’ve been cheated and left behind.
Once again, your logic is flawed. These aren't Republicans! These are Trump supporters. They don't care about the Republican party, any more than they care about the Democrats. Their entire though process is based on the idea that the government has failed them. Trump isn't a Republican. He is a Nationalist.
The Republican party of old, is just as responsible for the problem in their eyes, as the Democrats. You say they shunned education, progress, and intellect. I say the Republican party fought tooth and nail to ensure that the money being made in this country, remained with the rich, and white. Funding for schools, and infrastructure were sacrificed. Money for those things can be made up with property taxes in larger metro areas. Not in rural America. This is what the Republican party wanted. An uneducated work force. Corporations could then come in, and with assistance from the state party, build non union factories. It's worked. Amazon!
That Republican party died the day Mitch McConnell said he was retiring. It had been on life support anyway.
This IS a fight about contract negotiations, and every time the person who was supposed to have won, didn't. It is about people who feel they have gone unheard for YEARS. Who have witnessed, and experienced the government and most Americans turning a blind eye to corporate greed, and the abuses they get away with on their work force and on the average American. They have worked, and they have paid their taxes. They see ZERO return on their investment.
This is where it starts, Not where it ends. Bigots, are bigots. Do you think Trump has the market cornered on Bigotry? I don't think so.
You erase Bigotry, with education, and cultural diversity. Oh, wait, we didn't fund the schools. We allowed our factories to be shipped overseas, or replaced with automation. But wait, we have this great new thingy, that will bring hundreds of NEW jobs! But we didn't fund the schools. Hey, look, the American economy is on FIRE!! Low unemployment.. Yadda yadda.. But we STILL haven't funded the schools!
My logic is flawed because reality doesn’t agree with your sentiments. Got it. No need for me to read or reply further, in that case.
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1mo
I've always believed that you can not effectively govern what you do not understand.
But what do democrats need to understand? As far as I can tell, the reason republicans do well in rural America is because they tell them what they want to hear. They don't do anything for them.
that seems to be the final conclusion of this piece: Democrats have the solutions, but they need to spend more time telling rural voters what they want to hear. 
Hear me out, if you will: What if people actually like small rural towns? What if people like owning acreage? What if there are people who like being surrounded by farms or nature? They like their way of life, so is it really outside the realm of possibility that someone (who is likely not from their state) campaigning on the idea that their lives are outdated, that their land should be developed into something more useful, that their traditions they hold dear are backwards, wouldn't exactly well received?
Nothing in this article said anything about owning land. Nothing in the article said anything about democratic campaigns centered on the idea that rural life is outdated.
Nothing you say rurals want explains why they want to erase black people from history, gay people from public life, restrict the rights of women, impose their religion on everyone, side with Russia against America, over throw the government or any of the other laundry list of things the right wants.
And out of every part of that strawman for why the right gets to wild out on the rest of us to retain their little patch of paradise, the one I'm quoting is just the Absolute Most!
that their land should be developed into something more useful
The issue with a lot of rural communities is lack of jobs. There isn't enough development to sustain the population. That also explain why rural areas are welfare areas. Lack of opportunities.
that their land should be developed into something more useful
I've never heard anyone saying we should go develop all the rural land into other things. I think people understand we need food.
Just that their votes shouldn't be worth proportionally than someone else's because of where they live, and the state should invest in services there, which I can sort of see someone misunderstanding if they try very very hard.
think people understand we need food.
Do they? We're destroying farms to develop land into subdivisions and shopping at a record pace.
I live in rural Tennessee. By and large it's not the left developing the land or the left moving into it. Nobody is under any illusions that it is. You're completely missing the mark on white rural rage, which largely comes down to a mix of fear of a changing world and general stupidity.
Who's we? The rural local town councils they vote for and land owners who decide to use their land for that sort of thing?
Are we supposed to take over and make their decisions for them?
And it's the farmers that are selling their land because they want to retire. Which is wonderful for them. But it's not a person buying the land. It's companies and sometimes its foreign companies.
You right about that. Nothing scares me more than the USA not being in control of our food supply.
Who has has there land forcibly taken to do that? The lands are sold by individual land owners to developers. Are you saying neighboring landowners should have a say over other people's land to prevent developement?
No.
What I would like to see is more zoning. I'd like to clearly (and ideally, permanently) define areas of our great nation for farming, nature preservation, and the like.
I would have assumed I'd have more support from the "go green" crowd, but times are strange.
Ah, that is what is being done in rural Oregon from my experience.
What if people actually like small rural towns?
Who's trying to outlaw small rural towns?
What if people like owning acreage?
Who's trying to decommodify land in America?
What if there are people who like being surrounded by farms or nature?
WHO IS TRYING TO PREVENT THEM FROM LIVING THERE???
campaigning on the idea that their lives are outdated, that their land should be developed into something more useful, that their traditions they hold dear are backwards
Who is campaigning on this? Who in America is campaigning on rezoning agricultural & mixed use zoning in rural areas? What does "their lives are outdated" even mean? Where is literally any of this coming from!?!?
Then maybe they shouldn't punish the rest if us with their insanity.
No, I'm type trying to "understand" their sort.
Hear me out: If you're not going to work the land, farming, you have no business being out there. Unless you're wealthy and want another vacation home in the country. It's hard to live out there if you don't know what you're doing. There are no services like in cities and suburbs.
What is being misunderstood?
Yeah, because all those hicks with Gadsden flags are just waiting for understanding, then they’ll accept government!
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