This is just more of the "clinging Bibles" and/or "deplorable" narrative being promulgated by people who have little to no interaction with rural communities.
I think you pander and spread lies. I live in a small village mostly white but people here would gladly have more diversity. It is too far from the city center and there are few houses that come up for sale. I used to believe like you but I was married for 20 years to a black man and grew up in the 50’s. I know what racism is and I live in the rural part of the country and there is no rage against people of color. Stupid polices, yes. You try to demean half of our fellow citizens to create division. Get out and your bubble and see the world as it really is. I did and I will never again waste time on books like yours and never again, after a lifetime as a democratic voter, will ever vote democrat again.
Thank you for your honesty Linda. Thank you for calling out the prejudices contained in this book and defending the honesty and true spirit of rural America. Using the term “rage” in the title certainly will help him sell books to his fellow liars whose goal is to promote this false portrayal of country folk. But, historically, it will backfire to an embarrassment for all of them when it is revealed that their own “rage” is the culprit of dissension. Personally, my family is trapped in suburbia for now, but long for the day to join people like you in rural America. Keep that spirit you show here. Your voice is beautiful.
You never went to the rural areas and actually talked to anyone, did you? I bet not. I know you never came anywhere near me to ask any questions. Instead you use stereotypes and BS to write a book about something you know nothing about. This book of fiction will come back to haunt you one day. I would believe the things you say but you're just another political hack who is trying to stir the pot. My advice to you is don't poke the bear.
In fact, we did. We reported from rural areas around the country and write at length about the people we met and what they told us. As part of the book, we also did something almost no one ever does: We spoke to non-white rural Americans, who make up about a quarter of the rural population. Their struggles and beliefs are completely ignored, and we have a whole chapter about them.
It doesn’t feel like you did. For example, your section on the pickup. Basically, you appear to think of it as a fashion statement or signaling display.
I live in rural Virginia. Nearly all of my neighbors have pickups. Why? Two major reasons, both practical. First, someone, usually meaning the homeowner, has to haul the household trash to the transfer station for the dump. That’s a dirty, often smelly mess that you don’t want in an enclosed car.
Second, many people out here have animals and/or large family vegetable gardens, or trades jobs that involve hauling equipment and tools. That means you’re hauling manure, hay, straw, bags of feed, topsoil, and plants. Or generators, drills, power saws, etc. And while you may not haul your horse often, it’s a whole lot safer to have the option to pull a horse trailer than to have a sick horse colicking and no way to get to the emergency vet.
It’s also a lot cleaner to haul dirty power tools in a pickup than a SUV. Most rural people don’t ever need to haul a full sized sheet of plywood, but most of my neighbors take their trash to the transfer station every week. So having a pickup is almost essential, but a particular length of truck bed is not.
It’s a lot more of a simple practical choice than you appear to believe. And yes, if you are getting a pickup, nowadays people are more likely to choose one that can double as a family vehicle with a second row of seats and some creature comforts.
That’s just one example, but to me it suggests a tendency towards preconceptions rather than trying to understand the daily realities of living outside of the city.
I also think you greatly underestimate the impact of the widespread loss of rural manufacturing in the past fifty years, and the resultant impact on rural demographics, but that’s another discussion.
I am going to add one more example. You described the difference between the number of people who actually live in rural areas versus the number who say they would like to as an example of revealed preferences. In other words, you think they really don’t want to as much as they say they do.
In fact, the likeliest reason for the discrepancy is that there are relatively few jobs available in rural areas, unless you are able to work fully remote. Many people who would prefer to live in a less urban setting are unable to do so because they cannot find a job. The evidence to support this interpretation would be the migration patterns we saw during the pandemic, when people were able to work fully remote and began moving out of major cities. They wound up in rural areas and smaller cities and towns.
This has important implications, because much of the political polarization we are seeing is exactly what you would expect from rural areas that have lost so many of their younger and better educated people and are disproportionately older. Reversing the loss of rural manufacturing and encouraging remote work would both revitalize these areas and moderate the political divide.
A great example of the covid crazies from the professional set who were cheering "lockdowns for thee but not for me" set is the impact on Munising, Michigan. So many people who had money and could afford to do so - clearly not the real working class - overwhelmed the tiny town and Picture Rocks and the nature pathways that the state/county has had to re-do it and now there is a fee to use it. They did end up opening small cafe-like businesses to feed the throngs of people who descended on them. It was a real Boomtown, for a minute. I wonder how many are still open today...
Anecdotally commenting, I grew up three blocks from the border of Detroit. I was born in '66. My first full-time job out of high school was in downtown Detroit for an man of African descent, most of the employees were as well. We got on very well. I never attended university but married a man who earned a B.A., M.A., J.D. Ultimately, and now, we are 24 years into him working in "Higher Ed." administration with direct reporting to the Univ. Pres(s). I have been privy to far more repulsive behavior of all personnel - from tenured professors, adjunct, T.A.'s, administrators, financial development, board of trustees - than I would ever have suspected from the outside.
The outrageous behavior of the academia - which has grown worse with each successive year - is the source of my "rage" as a person watching from the front row. I voted for Trump - a man I barely heard of before 2015 and knew nothing about - twice. I do not worship him. If you were sincere in your efforts to understand, you would write about the issues all people - not just rural (I know it's the theory you are trying to support) people - are concerned about. In light of the fact that your substack has such a small readership, perhaps you would be will to engage here as to avoid being found out that you really just hate people who don't think as you have been trained to think.
Liberal inner city politics put on the rest of the country and you call middle america racist. Middle America wants to be left alone and not have the inner city agenda of the mega. Cities shut down their throat
Patronizing liberal whites, especially elitists in this community, are some of the most inadvertently racist people in America. Though they're too busy virtue signaling to realize it.
Waldman's book is just the latest version of the "deplorable" narrative being promulgated by people who have little to no interaction with rural communities.
I think it could be fairly argued that over the past 45 years, many of those rural areas have actually been net capital exporters to those cities. When they began to quickly degrade the effective capital flow inhibitors between states in the late 1970s, and they all but eliminated them by the early 2000s, they began to experience huge capital flight. Combined with capital "G" Globalization, which I think could be fairly argued, has made most people in most countries in the world worse off than they otherwise would be had it not happened (and ironically led to less international trade since, in my view at least, demand is the final source of trade), those areas have been deliberately drained. They are in a similar, though far less bad, situation to many people in many parts of Africa, where in those parts more of their capital has been used to inflate the value of select prestige North American cities' real estate than has been used to build their water and electrical infrastructure. And even most of those of us who don't live in those areas and are doing fine are worse off since we have far, far less scientific research and innovation due to the great decrease in research labs that has accompanied this.
Paul, please indulge me in this thought experiment:
Just suppose that Trump wins the majority vote in November, and whatever superficial reasons the electorate may have for doing so, the majority of those that vote for him understand that the consequence will be the end of democracy and the tearing up of the Constitution.
Looks as though Paul doesn’t want to or doesn’t know how to indulge you. You posit that the electorate majority may for “superficial reasons”, vote for Trump knowing the consequence of his election will be the “end of democracy and the tearing up of the Constitution”.
The desperation in your question is both insulting and laughable. I suggest you buy and read his book as I’m sure you need all of his misguided influence to help fend off all of the “white rural rage” you may encounter during the upcoming Presidential campaign.
If you were so confident that your righteous elitist view that voters (unlike your all knowing self) will not have the sophistication to cast an honest informed intelligent vote, you wouldn’t sound so fearful. The “what then?” In your post is telling.
Please stop with your electoral snobbery. We, the people, not going to let this election play out like the last one. In spite of your infatuation with destroying voter choice because you don’t think we are smart enough to chose who will be “your next President”. MINDFUL people will vote and our Constitution and Democracy will endure.
I voted for Biden but never again and that goes for the once life long affiliation with the dems. Covid lies forced me to step outside the NPR bubble and see how bad it was. Would I vote for Trump? Only if I was forced to. I will vote for RFK Jr. If you believe that he is a conspiracy nut then I also know why you believe Trump would end democracy. Media telling you so - as though our lost media is a source of education. You tell me why nearly unvetted, most male, from over 150 countries, 10 million strong should be flowing into the country. And if you believe that is the republicans fault, or these are all war torn refugees, I would remind that a large cohort are Chinese, then once again I would point to the source of that belief. Biden could have left the policies in place that had it under better control. At the time I listened to NPR and did not see what was really happening at the border. To be lied to after being told that one was so smart as NPR tells its listeners and to hear the phony “discussions” - it took a fake and manipulated pandemic to wake me up.
We must be psychotic not to have impeached and removed from office a President who does everything he can to fend off desperately needed moves to control our southern border. I suggest that everyone look to what Bret Weinstein has to say about the Darien Gap. We don't need to wonder why we had 110,000 fentanyl deaths last year. We don't need to wonder how it was that the ball of scum who murdered Laken Riley got into the country.
We must be psychotic to tolerate the criminal rot which makes life intolerable for decent people of ordinary means who live in medium sized/large cities. For reference, check out the genuine riot which happened about ten days ago at Six Flags Atlanta. That "incident" is emblematic of the lawlessness which honorable Americans of every race are terrified by.
We must be psychotic to allow pubescent children to make decisions which will result in medical "treatments" which would have made Josef Mengele blanch, and which, if not stopped in time, will leave them forever unable to experience normal sexual pleasure.
We must be psychotic to allow Drag Queen Story Hours, and books in school libraries which instruct grade school children in oral and anal sex.
We must be psychotic to have allowed the formation of the oligarchy which controls most of the country's wealth.
There are quite a few other signs of psychotic breakdown, but those will do for now. The psychotic breakdown you fear is your nightmare fantasy about the core of people who actually built the country, and gave refuge to your ancestors.
May the inane book quickly find the remaindered section it richly deserves.
Rural areas are failing in more than the US. The profits of farming, ranching, and lumbering are getting thinner - and climate change (droughts, heat waves, floods, etc) are making consistent profits far more problematic. Automation has reduced the number of jobs in farming and ranching, and there is another factor that I suspect is ver important. For over a century the brightest and most competent have been leaving the rural areas to pursue life in areas where they could better use their talents. The classic path is serve a term in the military, learn new skills and where opportunities are, and not return to where they came from. But the differential migration of the brightest and most competent make it much harder for the rural areas to adapt to change. You typically need a number of pioneers who will start the adaption and learn how to do it, and the larger population then copies the successful approaches. But the pioneers are largely gone and the apparent profit potential is insufficient to bring them back.
How arrogant to say the competent and brightest leave the rural areas. I moved to a rural part of New York in 1987 after living in several large cities, growing up outside a medium size town, and living overseas with the military. These neighbors are hardworking, moral, creative, and very competent. Try getting through life without them when your car stops, your septic system goes down, or your plumbing needs help. No computer geek can or would do these things and they require skills and imagination you probably lack,
There are many smart and capable people who live in rural areas - we met lots of them as we reported this book. But brain drain is also a problem all over rural America. It was something people brought up everywhere we went, whether it was the coalfields of West Virginia, the Albemarle region of North Carolina, or the Copper Corridor in Arizona. In all three of those places (and others), people told us about their own children who had left for the city. And we cite a poll showing that 60 percent of rural people advise their children to seek opportunities elsewhere. Pointing that out isn't a criticism of rural people, it's a plea to create a more dynamic future for rural places.
I just don't buy it. In both 2016 and 2020, Trump was awash in megadonor money. This time, he's flailing financially. Farmers in Iowa aren't going to put him back in office, and neither is the electoral college.
Hi Paul: Congratulations on your book. Your mention of the Gadflyer brought back memories of you publishing a blog piece on our failed drug policy from me back then. It was thrilling to see it online at the time, apologies as I always felt I should have done more. Anyway glad you and Tom have kept up your partnership and I look forward to picking up a copy and I'll try to keep an eye out if you do any public events in DC. Cheers, Bill
Many thanks for the chapter on non-white people. It got old, years ago, pointing out that those "Ohio Diner Safaris" only talked to the White customers, didn't go into the back to talk to the Black people doing all the work.
It's similar to the treatment of Evangelicals (not a small overlap with rural...), in which Peter Wehner at The Atlantic has written article after article about "evangelicals" that gives statistics that only apply to White Evangelicals (The 81% vote-for-Trump stat), rather as if Black Evangelicals did not even exist. (And he used the phrase "White Evangelicals" once in a book title quote, so he knew whom he was skipping over.)
Bringing up Black Evangelicals - or the voting patterns of rural non-White people - highlights that Trump voters have some other concerns in mind than religious views (since Blacks with identical religious doctrine vote oppositely, 20% for Trump) or their local-issue "rural" views, since rural non-Whites (your Pew Data link) are voting about 50% for Trump, vs ~75% for rural Whites.
You'll have to forgive me for drawing the very obvious conclusion.
I've noticed that the whining snowflakes complaining have very little that is substantive in terms of their objections and counterarguments. It just seems to be variants on screaming, "you don't know me", or screaming "you're not me/us so you never could know".
Ya know, the sort of emotional reaction that shuts down any useful discussion.
.....And also, completely dodges whether folks in these parts are driving the best bargain for their vote.
At some point even people who feel insulted or offended needed to use their thinking, strategic, Vulcan brain, not just their emotional brain. I know in practice it's very hard. If you've ever been in a discussion or debate with someone who feels insulted, offended, disrespected or disregarded by you, whether a romantic partner, a friend, a rival, it's very, very hard, pretty much impossible, for the original offender, seen as "arrogant" to make to make the other party feel un-insulted, un-offended, re-respected, or re-regarded unilaterally. The other side needs to come around and open up to that possibility by themselves. But emotionally offended people often want unconditional surrender or abject apology of the other side that it is not prepared to give.
Mr. Waldman—I am only @ 1/3 of the way into your book. You and Tom mention being “puzzled” on occasion. Having come from and still existing in that culture, I can explain that. It also helps that I have a double major in Sociology and Religion (B.A.’s) from DePauw University—1976. B.S. Agronomy from Iowa State University—1978
This is just more of the "clinging Bibles" and/or "deplorable" narrative being promulgated by people who have little to no interaction with rural communities.
As discussed in this old blog, https://lachefnet.wordpress.com/2021/01/13/a-belated-response-to-philpotts-racist-roots/ like other forms of prejudice, this narrative is based on preconceptions and stereotypes of one group of people made by another group that has made no real effort to understand anyone who isn't part of their own tribe or group.
I think you pander and spread lies. I live in a small village mostly white but people here would gladly have more diversity. It is too far from the city center and there are few houses that come up for sale. I used to believe like you but I was married for 20 years to a black man and grew up in the 50’s. I know what racism is and I live in the rural part of the country and there is no rage against people of color. Stupid polices, yes. You try to demean half of our fellow citizens to create division. Get out and your bubble and see the world as it really is. I did and I will never again waste time on books like yours and never again, after a lifetime as a democratic voter, will ever vote democrat again.
Thank you for your honesty Linda. Thank you for calling out the prejudices contained in this book and defending the honesty and true spirit of rural America. Using the term “rage” in the title certainly will help him sell books to his fellow liars whose goal is to promote this false portrayal of country folk. But, historically, it will backfire to an embarrassment for all of them when it is revealed that their own “rage” is the culprit of dissension. Personally, my family is trapped in suburbia for now, but long for the day to join people like you in rural America. Keep that spirit you show here. Your voice is beautiful.
You never went to the rural areas and actually talked to anyone, did you? I bet not. I know you never came anywhere near me to ask any questions. Instead you use stereotypes and BS to write a book about something you know nothing about. This book of fiction will come back to haunt you one day. I would believe the things you say but you're just another political hack who is trying to stir the pot. My advice to you is don't poke the bear.
In fact, we did. We reported from rural areas around the country and write at length about the people we met and what they told us. As part of the book, we also did something almost no one ever does: We spoke to non-white rural Americans, who make up about a quarter of the rural population. Their struggles and beliefs are completely ignored, and we have a whole chapter about them.
It doesn’t feel like you did. For example, your section on the pickup. Basically, you appear to think of it as a fashion statement or signaling display.
I live in rural Virginia. Nearly all of my neighbors have pickups. Why? Two major reasons, both practical. First, someone, usually meaning the homeowner, has to haul the household trash to the transfer station for the dump. That’s a dirty, often smelly mess that you don’t want in an enclosed car.
Second, many people out here have animals and/or large family vegetable gardens, or trades jobs that involve hauling equipment and tools. That means you’re hauling manure, hay, straw, bags of feed, topsoil, and plants. Or generators, drills, power saws, etc. And while you may not haul your horse often, it’s a whole lot safer to have the option to pull a horse trailer than to have a sick horse colicking and no way to get to the emergency vet.
It’s also a lot cleaner to haul dirty power tools in a pickup than a SUV. Most rural people don’t ever need to haul a full sized sheet of plywood, but most of my neighbors take their trash to the transfer station every week. So having a pickup is almost essential, but a particular length of truck bed is not.
It’s a lot more of a simple practical choice than you appear to believe. And yes, if you are getting a pickup, nowadays people are more likely to choose one that can double as a family vehicle with a second row of seats and some creature comforts.
That’s just one example, but to me it suggests a tendency towards preconceptions rather than trying to understand the daily realities of living outside of the city.
I also think you greatly underestimate the impact of the widespread loss of rural manufacturing in the past fifty years, and the resultant impact on rural demographics, but that’s another discussion.
I am going to add one more example. You described the difference between the number of people who actually live in rural areas versus the number who say they would like to as an example of revealed preferences. In other words, you think they really don’t want to as much as they say they do.
In fact, the likeliest reason for the discrepancy is that there are relatively few jobs available in rural areas, unless you are able to work fully remote. Many people who would prefer to live in a less urban setting are unable to do so because they cannot find a job. The evidence to support this interpretation would be the migration patterns we saw during the pandemic, when people were able to work fully remote and began moving out of major cities. They wound up in rural areas and smaller cities and towns.
This has important implications, because much of the political polarization we are seeing is exactly what you would expect from rural areas that have lost so many of their younger and better educated people and are disproportionately older. Reversing the loss of rural manufacturing and encouraging remote work would both revitalize these areas and moderate the political divide.
A great example of the covid crazies from the professional set who were cheering "lockdowns for thee but not for me" set is the impact on Munising, Michigan. So many people who had money and could afford to do so - clearly not the real working class - overwhelmed the tiny town and Picture Rocks and the nature pathways that the state/county has had to re-do it and now there is a fee to use it. They did end up opening small cafe-like businesses to feed the throngs of people who descended on them. It was a real Boomtown, for a minute. I wonder how many are still open today...
Anecdotally commenting, I grew up three blocks from the border of Detroit. I was born in '66. My first full-time job out of high school was in downtown Detroit for an man of African descent, most of the employees were as well. We got on very well. I never attended university but married a man who earned a B.A., M.A., J.D. Ultimately, and now, we are 24 years into him working in "Higher Ed." administration with direct reporting to the Univ. Pres(s). I have been privy to far more repulsive behavior of all personnel - from tenured professors, adjunct, T.A.'s, administrators, financial development, board of trustees - than I would ever have suspected from the outside.
The outrageous behavior of the academia - which has grown worse with each successive year - is the source of my "rage" as a person watching from the front row. I voted for Trump - a man I barely heard of before 2015 and knew nothing about - twice. I do not worship him. If you were sincere in your efforts to understand, you would write about the issues all people - not just rural (I know it's the theory you are trying to support) people - are concerned about. In light of the fact that your substack has such a small readership, perhaps you would be will to engage here as to avoid being found out that you really just hate people who don't think as you have been trained to think.
Liberal inner city politics put on the rest of the country and you call middle america racist. Middle America wants to be left alone and not have the inner city agenda of the mega. Cities shut down their throat
Patronizing liberal whites, especially elitists in this community, are some of the most inadvertently racist people in America. Though they're too busy virtue signaling to realize it.
Waldman's book is just the latest version of the "deplorable" narrative being promulgated by people who have little to no interaction with rural communities.
As discussed in this old blog, https://lachefnet.wordpress.com/2021/01/13/a-belated-response-to-philpotts-racist-roots/ like other forms of prejudice, this narrative is based on preconceptions and stereotypes of one group of people made by another group that has made no real effort to understand anyone who isn't part of their own tribe or group.
Just appalling hatred towards the people who feed, clothe and house you
I think it could be fairly argued that over the past 45 years, many of those rural areas have actually been net capital exporters to those cities. When they began to quickly degrade the effective capital flow inhibitors between states in the late 1970s, and they all but eliminated them by the early 2000s, they began to experience huge capital flight. Combined with capital "G" Globalization, which I think could be fairly argued, has made most people in most countries in the world worse off than they otherwise would be had it not happened (and ironically led to less international trade since, in my view at least, demand is the final source of trade), those areas have been deliberately drained. They are in a similar, though far less bad, situation to many people in many parts of Africa, where in those parts more of their capital has been used to inflate the value of select prestige North American cities' real estate than has been used to build their water and electrical infrastructure. And even most of those of us who don't live in those areas and are doing fine are worse off since we have far, far less scientific research and innovation due to the great decrease in research labs that has accompanied this.
Paul, please indulge me in this thought experiment:
Just suppose that Trump wins the majority vote in November, and whatever superficial reasons the electorate may have for doing so, the majority of those that vote for him understand that the consequence will be the end of democracy and the tearing up of the Constitution.
What then?
Looks as though Paul doesn’t want to or doesn’t know how to indulge you. You posit that the electorate majority may for “superficial reasons”, vote for Trump knowing the consequence of his election will be the “end of democracy and the tearing up of the Constitution”.
The desperation in your question is both insulting and laughable. I suggest you buy and read his book as I’m sure you need all of his misguided influence to help fend off all of the “white rural rage” you may encounter during the upcoming Presidential campaign.
If you were so confident that your righteous elitist view that voters (unlike your all knowing self) will not have the sophistication to cast an honest informed intelligent vote, you wouldn’t sound so fearful. The “what then?” In your post is telling.
Please stop with your electoral snobbery. We, the people, not going to let this election play out like the last one. In spite of your infatuation with destroying voter choice because you don’t think we are smart enough to chose who will be “your next President”. MINDFUL people will vote and our Constitution and Democracy will endure.
I voted for Biden but never again and that goes for the once life long affiliation with the dems. Covid lies forced me to step outside the NPR bubble and see how bad it was. Would I vote for Trump? Only if I was forced to. I will vote for RFK Jr. If you believe that he is a conspiracy nut then I also know why you believe Trump would end democracy. Media telling you so - as though our lost media is a source of education. You tell me why nearly unvetted, most male, from over 150 countries, 10 million strong should be flowing into the country. And if you believe that is the republicans fault, or these are all war torn refugees, I would remind that a large cohort are Chinese, then once again I would point to the source of that belief. Biden could have left the policies in place that had it under better control. At the time I listened to NPR and did not see what was really happening at the border. To be lied to after being told that one was so smart as NPR tells its listeners and to hear the phony “discussions” - it took a fake and manipulated pandemic to wake me up.
You blossomed during covid, Linda! and I am so glad for you.
Used to :)
But that was a long time ago.
But it's not about me, my friend . . .
It's that the USofA is undergoing a psychotic breakdown.
It sure is.
We must be psychotic not to have impeached and removed from office a President who does everything he can to fend off desperately needed moves to control our southern border. I suggest that everyone look to what Bret Weinstein has to say about the Darien Gap. We don't need to wonder why we had 110,000 fentanyl deaths last year. We don't need to wonder how it was that the ball of scum who murdered Laken Riley got into the country.
We must be psychotic to tolerate the criminal rot which makes life intolerable for decent people of ordinary means who live in medium sized/large cities. For reference, check out the genuine riot which happened about ten days ago at Six Flags Atlanta. That "incident" is emblematic of the lawlessness which honorable Americans of every race are terrified by.
We must be psychotic to allow pubescent children to make decisions which will result in medical "treatments" which would have made Josef Mengele blanch, and which, if not stopped in time, will leave them forever unable to experience normal sexual pleasure.
We must be psychotic to allow Drag Queen Story Hours, and books in school libraries which instruct grade school children in oral and anal sex.
We must be psychotic to have allowed the formation of the oligarchy which controls most of the country's wealth.
There are quite a few other signs of psychotic breakdown, but those will do for now. The psychotic breakdown you fear is your nightmare fantasy about the core of people who actually built the country, and gave refuge to your ancestors.
May the inane book quickly find the remaindered section it richly deserves.
Rural areas are failing in more than the US. The profits of farming, ranching, and lumbering are getting thinner - and climate change (droughts, heat waves, floods, etc) are making consistent profits far more problematic. Automation has reduced the number of jobs in farming and ranching, and there is another factor that I suspect is ver important. For over a century the brightest and most competent have been leaving the rural areas to pursue life in areas where they could better use their talents. The classic path is serve a term in the military, learn new skills and where opportunities are, and not return to where they came from. But the differential migration of the brightest and most competent make it much harder for the rural areas to adapt to change. You typically need a number of pioneers who will start the adaption and learn how to do it, and the larger population then copies the successful approaches. But the pioneers are largely gone and the apparent profit potential is insufficient to bring them back.
How arrogant to say the competent and brightest leave the rural areas. I moved to a rural part of New York in 1987 after living in several large cities, growing up outside a medium size town, and living overseas with the military. These neighbors are hardworking, moral, creative, and very competent. Try getting through life without them when your car stops, your septic system goes down, or your plumbing needs help. No computer geek can or would do these things and they require skills and imagination you probably lack,
There are many smart and capable people who live in rural areas - we met lots of them as we reported this book. But brain drain is also a problem all over rural America. It was something people brought up everywhere we went, whether it was the coalfields of West Virginia, the Albemarle region of North Carolina, or the Copper Corridor in Arizona. In all three of those places (and others), people told us about their own children who had left for the city. And we cite a poll showing that 60 percent of rural people advise their children to seek opportunities elsewhere. Pointing that out isn't a criticism of rural people, it's a plea to create a more dynamic future for rural places.
There may be a brain drain, but the drainage most certainly isn’t flowing to the cities.
I just don't buy it. In both 2016 and 2020, Trump was awash in megadonor money. This time, he's flailing financially. Farmers in Iowa aren't going to put him back in office, and neither is the electoral college.
Do you know any electors who would vote for a criminal?
Hi Paul: Congratulations on your book. Your mention of the Gadflyer brought back memories of you publishing a blog piece on our failed drug policy from me back then. It was thrilling to see it online at the time, apologies as I always felt I should have done more. Anyway glad you and Tom have kept up your partnership and I look forward to picking up a copy and I'll try to keep an eye out if you do any public events in DC. Cheers, Bill
Thanks! Former Gadflyer contributors are a hardy bunch, still out there working on their nefarious plans...
Many thanks for the chapter on non-white people. It got old, years ago, pointing out that those "Ohio Diner Safaris" only talked to the White customers, didn't go into the back to talk to the Black people doing all the work.
It's similar to the treatment of Evangelicals (not a small overlap with rural...), in which Peter Wehner at The Atlantic has written article after article about "evangelicals" that gives statistics that only apply to White Evangelicals (The 81% vote-for-Trump stat), rather as if Black Evangelicals did not even exist. (And he used the phrase "White Evangelicals" once in a book title quote, so he knew whom he was skipping over.)
Bringing up Black Evangelicals - or the voting patterns of rural non-White people - highlights that Trump voters have some other concerns in mind than religious views (since Blacks with identical religious doctrine vote oppositely, 20% for Trump) or their local-issue "rural" views, since rural non-Whites (your Pew Data link) are voting about 50% for Trump, vs ~75% for rural Whites.
You'll have to forgive me for drawing the very obvious conclusion.
Hey Paul,
I've noticed that the whining snowflakes complaining have very little that is substantive in terms of their objections and counterarguments. It just seems to be variants on screaming, "you don't know me", or screaming "you're not me/us so you never could know".
Ya know, the sort of emotional reaction that shuts down any useful discussion.
.....And also, completely dodges whether folks in these parts are driving the best bargain for their vote.
At some point even people who feel insulted or offended needed to use their thinking, strategic, Vulcan brain, not just their emotional brain. I know in practice it's very hard. If you've ever been in a discussion or debate with someone who feels insulted, offended, disrespected or disregarded by you, whether a romantic partner, a friend, a rival, it's very, very hard, pretty much impossible, for the original offender, seen as "arrogant" to make to make the other party feel un-insulted, un-offended, re-respected, or re-regarded unilaterally. The other side needs to come around and open up to that possibility by themselves. But emotionally offended people often want unconditional surrender or abject apology of the other side that it is not prepared to give.
Paul—I believe I can explain the places where your data would reasonably point one direction and yet the white rural response makes no sense.
Merle (Retroanalyst)
Mr. Waldman—I am only @ 1/3 of the way into your book. You and Tom mention being “puzzled” on occasion. Having come from and still existing in that culture, I can explain that. It also helps that I have a double major in Sociology and Religion (B.A.’s) from DePauw University—1976. B.S. Agronomy from Iowa State University—1978
Merle McCallister<><
Black Folk Have White Rural Rage Too
https://torrancestephensphd.substack.com/p/today-i-learned-black-folk-have-white