Tom Scocca: This piece about how Democrats have alienated rural America because they don't understand what rural Americans want contains not one word describing what Republicans have done that's more attractive

This piece about how Democrats have alienated rural America because they don't understand what rural Americans want contains not one word describing what Republicans have done that's more attractive

What Liberals Get Wrong About ‘White Rural Rage’ — Almost Everythingwww.politico.com The 'White Rural Rage' narrative gets the research wrong. I know, because some of it is mine.

"What views?" "Oh, you know the ones"

jinx, lol

bsky.app/profile/insa...

This is an amazing paragraph, trying to draw a meaningful distinction between rural white racial resentment and… some other things. But *which* anxieties do rural whites feel about their communities? *Which* rural ways of living are they worried urban America would erase? "Oh, you know the ones."

That paragraph is almost content free. Rural people are unique because they are scared of threats to rural areas because they live in rural areas.

Meanwhile they will lustfully fantasize about cities burning down and cannibalizing them.

If "rural voter" hadn't become a shorthand for "angry MAGA racist" you'd think that what rural people wanted are good environmental policies and programs that brought healthcare, broadband and employment opportunities to their areas. And the "rural voter" doesn't care about any of that.

Conservatism helps rural ways of life by moving their jobs overseas, destroying the climate (which can make farming more difficult), getting hospitals shut down and letting opioid abuse run rampant and you'd just never know that from media coverage of rural politics.

I can't get over Arkansas' "Right to Mine" law, obviously named to evoke salt-of-the-earth coal miners or whatever. But it's a preemption law against localities regulating CRYPTO MINING! So now the Arkansas countryside is blighted with these datacenters. www.nytimes.com/2024/02/03/u...

Anxiety, Mood Swings and Sleepless Nights: Life Near a Bitcoin Minewww.nytimes.com Pushed by an advocacy group, Arkansas became the first state to shield noisy cryptocurrency operators from unhappy neighbors. A furious backlash has some lawmakers considering a statewide ban.

ughhhhhhh

🤦🏽‍♂️

Don't forget about mega-farms, which pollute rural waterways and make it unpleasant to live anywhere near them. And how Wisconsin led the nation in farm bankruptcies under Trump, and when asked about it, his Ag Secretary said "get big or get out". www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/agr...

U.S. Agriculture Secretary: Family farms might not survivewww.cbsnews.com "In America, the big get bigger and the small go out," Sonny Perdue told dairy farmers in Wisconsin

If I give the benefit of the doubt and say, ok, it’s not anything racist, then I would like to know what “rural ways of living” people in urban areas would just love to erase if they could.

I guess no one is asking about urban voters' fears that their way of life (public transit, diverse neighborhoods, nearby amenities, flourishing arts scene) may be destroyed?

the great sin of Democrats each and every time is that they are failing to do what various right-wing rural white bigots want that's it--that's all the nonsense about elitism, being out of touch, whatever, it's just failing to do what right-wing white rural people want

Well and we don't visit often enough and won't go to church any more

and all those sinful librul churches don't count

https://bsky.app/profile/brendle.bsky.social/post/3kljvvm4gi224

was i rejected from jury duty for being the Jury Duty Strangler??

Because you're not supposed to say what it is out loud where just anyone might hear it

Dems have refused to cater to racism and therefore are unfit to serve the farming communities of America.

COLLECTIVIZE THE FARMS!

As someone who lives in the rural US people have been sending me this all weekend and I am similarly unimpressed. The genre of ‘rural whispering’ articles is so tiresome.

Does it say, be more willing to hate peoples?

In Texas, the GOP has rewarded its most faithful voters with no broadband & no Medicaid expansion (leading to rural hospitals closing). Now the forced vouchers will likely hurt their schools & Friday night lights, ie the hallowed football program.

Am white liberal. Also came from rural America. Y’all. I don’t even know what rural white folks want. I don’t think they do, either! Obama was not wrong when he said they are bitter, clinging to their guns and cigarettes.

I'm a white progressive. I grew up in the south. People there are disillusioned by political authority in general because they see both parties as being governed by and for the rich. Of the two parties, one of them literally cannot say anything nice about poor people. The other is republicans.

There are poor people in cities too that vote for dems. So what are they hearing that the rural poor aren’t

The truth: Democrats try to make a social safety net for the poor by taxing the rich; Republicans give tax cuts to the rich and pay for them by cutting social safety nets.

My feeling is that they see and talk to a neighborhood of folks every day. In rural America, a farmer can go days without really talking to their neighbors. Maybe a wave from the tractor. The rural world is very, very small.

That farmer isn't poor. The labor he hires probably is but somehow they never get interviewed for these articles

The “independent” family farmer of yore is not today’s reality. It was barely the past’s reality, in fact. Farmers are landed gentry. Land has incredible value and that land is heavily subsidized by the US Government. The rural poor we’re trying to suss out here are not landowners.

I grew up in Rural Northern Wisconsin. Started Republican like my folks and eventually figured out that wasn’t a political party I wanted to associate with. Anyway, N WI is different than the rural south. There’s no history of “the rich” there except for the tourists from Chicago. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Exactly. There are no rich people there so your demographic is not represented by any political party. I'm the only one in this comment section who I know for a fact is not fake, so I want to be clear that discriminating against people based on where they're from isn't better any than transphobia.

Its comments like this that scream out for a bsky downvote feature.

Republicans aren't required to do things for their constituents. The "we get to do whatever we want as long as we stick it to your perceived enemies" is the whole of the platform and politico knows it.

Frank Wilhoit: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

Works every time.

oh, you know the ones

The article also talks a lot about rural "community" and "way of life" while scrupulously avoiding any discussion of how that is defined, particularly who is excluded.

Having run a race in Rural Texas, I can tell you unequivocally the author of this piece of completely full of shit.

I love how every piece on rural Americans usually focus on the white farmers and not their workers or other minorities that might be in the region cuz I can tell you they think differently on the Democratic/Republican divide.

Is there even one piece on Iowa voters that stops into the Mexican restaurant and talks to the immigrant or first generation owners and staff?

Once this piece gets to policy specifics rather than messaging it just seems to boil down to devolution and being more conservative on immigration. Which, ok just say Newt Gingrich. But then it even acknowledges that successful rural Democrats do not message like Newt Gingrich

It's one long argument about whether his "resentment" is a more precise word than "rage". OK! The book title is somewhat hyperbolic re the average rural resident, although it makes not a bit of difference! I give up, please stop talking at me!

This is really lazy thinking, Tom. Believe it or not, voter outreach entails reaching out to the voters. When voters say they feel like they're not being heard, boneheaded skeets saying they're dumb for thinking that is asinine. And a recipe for a red November.

"Here's a grab bag of meaningless words. Yahtzee!"

Trouble reading, James? It's a straightforward skeet.🙄

It's gobbledegook, and you seem like a really overly condescending person

It's utterly vacuous bullshit. What's "voter outreach" in this context? Right: you have no idea.

Lol. You seem very willing to engage in discussion on the issue. No wonder you feel affronted by the article. 😂

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