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 CenterāsĀ 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 Trumpās extraordinary rural white supportāthe most important story in rural politics in decadesāis something many scholars and commentators are reluctant to explore in an honest way.
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What isnāt 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 didnāt destroy the family farm, college professors didnāt move manufacturing jobs overseas, immigrants didnāt pour opioids into rural communities, and critical race theory didnāt close hundreds of rural hospitals. When Republican politicians and the conservative media tell rural whites to aim their anger at those targets, itās so they wonāt ask why the people they keep electing havenāt done anything to improve life in their communities.
No one chooses to be born out here, but yes that is part of the attitude people foster, which is part of the problem.
yeah, i suppose given the cost of moving to a more urban place, that it would be rather restrictive wouldnāt it?
Having grown up in suburbia all my life, and disliking it. Rural america seems like a nice escape. Guess thatās just the one sided nature of my experience though.
If we werenāt talking America Iād tell you rural is better in every single way when compared to suburban, suburban living is a hellscape that has no right to exist imo. Itās just that rural in America means you are actually disconnected from society at large. You arenāt outliers surrounding and supporting a large city, not a tight knit community, but a single person or family living far away from anything or anyone with delusions of true independence. It fosters incredibly anti social attitudes, where anything that is different is bad.
The only replacement for the society they are missing out on for most people out here is whatever hick church they go to. And that feeds into many of the awful aspects of life out here.
the whole reason iād want to live rurally is so that i can experience something other than city life, part of the allure of that is that you can just do whatever the fuck you want out there, without bothering other people. Therefore, nobody else has a reason to be bothered by you.
Church could definitely influence that. But rural living is a very disciplined thing and you need to approach it specifically. Otherwise itās a mess.