- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
In the popular imagination of many Americans, particularly those on the left side of the political spectrum, the typical MAGA supporter is a rural resident who hates Black and Brown people, loathes liberals, loves gods and guns, believes in myriad conspiracy theories, has little faith in democracy, and is willing to use violence to achieve their goals, as thousands did on Jan. 6.
According to a new book, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy, these aren’t hurtful, elitist stereotypes by Acela Corridor denizens and bubble-dwelling liberals… they’re facts.
The authors, Tom Schaller, a professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Paul Waldman, a former columnist at The Washington Post, persuasively argue that most of the negative stereotypes liberals hold about rural Americans are actually true.
Rural America is mostly a wasteland. It’s either where people of means deliberately choose to live away from society, or it’s people who are too ignorant, poor and/or drug-addled to have much choice. Neither group is going to be left-leaning… and that’s why when you look at electoral maps, you see all that red.
Pick a highway, any will do, travel along it and tell me what you see. I already know. One little failed town after another. They might have a dive bar or ancient gas station, but most commercial buildings will be long abandoned. If you need anything, you’ll have to find a decent city with a generic walmart, dollar general, mcdonalds, etc. Long gone are the mom-and-pop grocers, general stores, etc.
The irony is these are solid red Republican districts. Cities have major problems too, but they are full of action; plans, projects, hopes of a better future. There is no future for the average rural American.
They are frustrated and angry, as well they should be. Too bad they can’t see the forest through the trees.
So true.
As a resident of one of these towns, another issue is that many people who are knowledgeable or capable are simply trapped. Several years ago in the area I live we use to have an economic development council that sponsored some proposals on alternatives to the anchor industry here (coal fired power generation), I shit you not, one of the remarks made by the workshops was a reference to a 2017 WSJ article that stated "rural is the new ‘inner city.’”
Rural areas have, and I’m quoting someone who presented at a workshop “lower economic status, lower education levels, higher wage gap, poorer health, higher rates of teen birth, and greater impacts from the opioid epidemic.”
The largest obstacle facing the trapped knowledgeable and educated people in rural areas is the obscene fucking cost of housing and the double-negative we’re facing on having little equity and cheap housing, where we want to move somewhere desirable and progressive having housing that’s beyond our lifetime earnings potential.
For the ignorant, this feeds into the anger cycle of wanting to just burn the whole thing down, and for the reds they look at every way they can fuck things up for the rest of us as a middle finger back at the country for the squalor they’re stuck with. They’d rather burn the forest down than try to fix anything, because they’re also lazy. Lazy in the sense of not wanting or accepting change. They’ll work hard at what they know, but learning new concepts is pushed against.
That doesn’t make it right, and I agree with you on all counts. Unity would get them a hell of a lot farther than the same tired old Reagan rhetoric they peddle. I’m just extremely fortunate in threading the needle through economic transition and getting to stay at my house without worrying about having to move, and I don’t like the city after having grown up in the Bay Area California. What you said still resonates with me as I can tell you understand it. We have no action plan and no hope because these towns are full of people who would just rather be angry than change.
One thing you can be sure of is that they all have a dollar store.