An Honest Assessment of Rural White Resentment Is Long Overdue
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.
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.
Biden bad
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.
Buybacks were illegal in the past. Make them illegal again. Do it today.
You do know that the president can't pass laws, don't you?
I do know that. And your question demonstrates you don't know what you're talking about. Feel free to look it up.
I looked. Biden tried to tighten SEC rules on stock buybacks and the conservative extremist 5th circuit court overruled it. I assume that is what you mean?
Do you think he regrets not fighting the legalization of stock buybacks when he was a senator?
Yes, since he has tried to undo it and been blocked by Republicans.
Sounds like we're just watching a dying old man trying and failing to fix issues he either helped create or refused to fight back when there was a chance.