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.
That’s just starting a new liberal city in the middle of Trumpistan. It’ll be like Austin or Atlanta even if everything goes perfectly.
I say we get a few California and New York billionaires to just buy a small shithole town in rural Appalachia or Louisiana or something. Give every resident $70k a year, for free. Free healthcare, college, job training, for life. Fix up their houses and their infrastructure. You could probably do it all for just one billion dolllars. And slap banners everywhere saying COURTESY OF THE US DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
Shower these dumb fuckers with cash so they’ll shut up about the culture war shit. And then in a generation when their kids are educated, they’ll be normal, non hate filled people.
Only if you ignore all the talk about communism communes and socialism. And yes of course there will be pushback and unrest. You have to win them over. But it can be done. Especially by showing them a way to preserve their communities and ways a life.You’re not going to win anyone over if you never try.