We say very clearly that rural America is hurting. But we refuse to justify attitudes that some scholars try to underplay.
Something remarkable happened among rural whites between the 2016 and 2020 elections: According to the Pew Research Center’s validated voter study, as the rest of the country moved away from Donald Trump, rural whites lurched toward him by nine points, from 62 percent to 71 percent support. And among the 100 counties where Trump performed best in 2016, almost all of them small and rural, he got a higher percentage of the vote in 91 of them in 2020. Yet Trump’s extraordinary rural white support—the most important story in rural politics in decades—is something many scholars and commentators are reluctant to explore in an honest way.
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What isn’t said enough is that rural whites are being told to blame all the wrong people for their very real problems. As we argue in the book, Hollywood liberals didn’t destroy the family farm, college professors didn’t move manufacturing jobs overseas, immigrants didn’t pour opioids into rural communities, and critical race theory didn’t close hundreds of rural hospitals. When Republican politicians and the conservative media tell rural whites to aim their anger at those targets, it’s so they won’t ask why the people they keep electing haven’t done anything to improve life in their communities.
I think Chomsky nailed it as far back as the nineties, at least. I cannot find the exact quote, but he was commenting on the “Angry White Male” thing and said that of course a great many people had the right to be angry about their situation, but that of course they’d be pointed at the wrong things/people either as deflection or as the (false) cause.
When people say that the cons manifested donnie vs. donnie somehow coming along and changing the cons, they are not wrong. It’s no coincidence that donnie is glued to grievance outlets like Faux and just repeats their bilge. When these angry people have been eating up Faux nonsense and a candidate comes along that just repeats everything on those grievance outlets, and gives them a permission structure to start saying some of the worst thoughts they have out loud, it’s all too obvious who they are going to vote for.
Naturally, that candidate will be doing absolutely nothing for them beyond their feels and will most likely just enact policies to make their situation even worse.
There are tens of thousands of towns that have no reason to exist anymore. The railroads don’t stop there anymore, coal isn’t in demand, or the factory where everyone used to work closed long ago. It’s a death spiral. Nobody who lives there can admit they need to cut bait and start over elsewhere. They cling to the past and the delusion that the world will go back to the way it used to be.
Biden already did the best thing that could be done for these people which is funding a massive expansion of rural internet. If corporations continue to be pushed into allowing remote work, these rural towns would see the new economic infusion they need to survive.
If corporations continue to be pushed into allowing remote work, these rural towns would see the new economic infusion they need to survive.
Biden forced federal workers back to the office. I don’t know why people keep trying to pretend we have friends in the capitol. We don’t.
I would say work from home is incompatible with government security and privacy requirements in most situations.
Endless excuses for Biden and his pro-corporate bullshit.
Endless complaints regardless of reality. Biden could personally cure cancer and you people would complain he didn’t cure AIDS too.
We’ll never know though because if Biden had the choice between curing cancer and protecting corporate profits he’d choose the corporate profits.
Don’t let the fact that Biden wants to raise corporate taxes, put a surcharge on stock buybacks, fight corporate tax evasion, and is the most pro-union president in generations interrupt your blind hate…
Yes Biden, like most trash procorporate Democrats regularly want to do things they have no ability to deliver. And flat out refuse to entertain alternatives they can.
put a surcharge on stock buybacks
Buybacks were illegal in the past. Make them illegal again. Do it today.
tldr; its racism all the way down but no one wants to call them on it. big surprise. no mention of the foxnews propaganda machine that instills/reinforces these ‘views’'.
“all the way down” is missing the heart of it. The article is describing people with real issues, who have really been let down and really need better from their government.
That this has been channelled into racism is awful and sad for everyone, for all the victims of misinformation.
It’s been channeled into racism, on purpose, by the representatives in government who are doing the “really need better from their government.” to the people. They’ve managed to implement policies that are actively harmful to their constituents, while convincing their constituents that it’s all some other group’s fault.
Except this happened for over 60 years.
The efforts to create a Great Society were stopped when it became apparent that the benefits of the Great Society would be shared by all. Responses to racial integration included closing school districts for years and filing public pools with cement.
The government was trying to do better, but since it wasn’t hurting the wrong people, the response was to make the government worse.
Try 300 years
A huge portion of the country has been let down by the government. You don’t have to be rural for that. Lack of healthcare, education, and support are nationwide. Not everyone decided to be racist because of it.
You do realize that all of those issues you listed are a direct result of Republican policy, correct?
Republican policy and Democrat “failures”. How many times do the Democrats get to fumble the ball or side with corporations over workers before this becomes a widely accepted fact? This isn’t intended to give the Republicans a free pass, but just to call out that the Democrats are either too stupid or simply not interested in solving the problem.
As someone living for decades in rural Mississippi, Rural conservatives are willing to hurt themselves if it means hurting others. They fight against raises for themselves so the “lazy” people dont get what they dont deserve. They fight against healthcare subsidies for the poor, subsidies that they themselves would qualify for, because they want revenge on “welfare queens”. They are horrid people that go to church every sunday to hear teachings against all of the shit they do.
I grew up in rural Missouri. Same thing here just as you described. My town had 300 people in it, but the town close by had around 8,000. Last I heard the hospital there was on the brink of collapse because nobody there can afford to pay after visiting. So most people won’t visit at all and die prematurely. Everyone is panicking because if the hospital closes the nearest one will be 1.5hrs away. A situation entirely preventable with subsidized health care. The hospital would get what they needed that way.
