The White Divide
June 24, 2024 4:40 AM Subscribe
"Over the past 30 years, the American political landscape has been characterized by a growing divide between rural and urban voters, almost as if they’re on two opposing teams [...] But the divide is confined largely to white Americans, Mettler and collaborators have found in an examination of the racial and ethnic facets of the trend." (The original study is behind a paywall, but the LSE had a write up as well.)
Quoted above continues
the researchers said, theorizing that varying degrees of “linked fate” – a term coined by political scientist Michael Dawson, implying the belief that one’s individual fate is tied to that of their racial or ethnic group – can help explain why Black and Latino Americans do not diverge.
So the answer one may have thought obvious while reading the first half of that quote: "why haven't rural Black or Latino voters shifted political affiliation? Because the political affiliation they'd be shifting to wants them incarcerated en masse and can barely even be coerced by social pressure in 2024 to mostly acknowledging some sort of racial parity."
The authors do sorta get there.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 5:38 AM on June 24 [23 favorites]
the researchers said, theorizing that varying degrees of “linked fate” – a term coined by political scientist Michael Dawson, implying the belief that one’s individual fate is tied to that of their racial or ethnic group – can help explain why Black and Latino Americans do not diverge.
So the answer one may have thought obvious while reading the first half of that quote: "why haven't rural Black or Latino voters shifted political affiliation? Because the political affiliation they'd be shifting to wants them incarcerated en masse and can barely even be coerced by social pressure in 2024 to mostly acknowledging some sort of racial parity."
The authors do sorta get there.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 5:38 AM on June 24 [23 favorites]
"Why haven’t rural Black and Latino Americans shifted to the Republican party alongside their white peers?"
When you ask the question that way, it kind of answers itself, doesn't it?
posted by Brachinus at 5:49 AM on June 24 [11 favorites]
When you ask the question that way, it kind of answers itself, doesn't it?
posted by Brachinus at 5:49 AM on June 24 [11 favorites]
On the white urban/rural voter breakdown, I think it becomes a question who can afford to live in the rural parts of the country.
Realistically, every time I go back to visit family in a rural part of a red state I notice the buildings that were shuttered when I left in the 90s are mostly still shuttered (at least once you start to get further off the interstate). Everyone is either retired, commuting 90 miles one way or not in the workforce. Everyone in my cohort that I can account for left for The Big Cities, because that's where the jobs were. Checking wiki the metro area is hovering around 0% total change over the last 40 years with 1 decade of growth and the others of consistent shrinkage.
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/urban-suburban-and-rural-residents-views-on-key-social-and-political-issues/
That's from 2018, but it contains a breakdown of rural voters by age on marriage equality, which I think is a reasonable overall barometer. (No anchor/link, Ctrl-F for "favor same-sex marriage".) Younger voters still show much higher support relative to older voters. And that's not accounting for the skew of younger voters who kinda have to go where the jobs are in order to pay rent. Urban areas don't typically "lose" a lot of youth to rural areas but the inverse is very true.
I think the urban/rural divide is largely (though not entirely) accounted for by a combination of age gap and lag between social issues getting more traction in urban areas first before spreading further out. That polling is from 2018, and marriage equality didn't hit 50% nationally until Obama's first term. So roughly 10 years out and a (smaller) majority of rural youth are in support.
2018 was 6 years ago so maybe the numbers today are more dire. But I would expect to find that in 2024 that 58% had grown to somewhere in the low 60s.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 6:07 AM on June 24 [7 favorites]
Realistically, every time I go back to visit family in a rural part of a red state I notice the buildings that were shuttered when I left in the 90s are mostly still shuttered (at least once you start to get further off the interstate). Everyone is either retired, commuting 90 miles one way or not in the workforce. Everyone in my cohort that I can account for left for The Big Cities, because that's where the jobs were. Checking wiki the metro area is hovering around 0% total change over the last 40 years with 1 decade of growth and the others of consistent shrinkage.
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/urban-suburban-and-rural-residents-views-on-key-social-and-political-issues/
That's from 2018, but it contains a breakdown of rural voters by age on marriage equality, which I think is a reasonable overall barometer. (No anchor/link, Ctrl-F for "favor same-sex marriage".) Younger voters still show much higher support relative to older voters. And that's not accounting for the skew of younger voters who kinda have to go where the jobs are in order to pay rent. Urban areas don't typically "lose" a lot of youth to rural areas but the inverse is very true.
I think the urban/rural divide is largely (though not entirely) accounted for by a combination of age gap and lag between social issues getting more traction in urban areas first before spreading further out. That polling is from 2018, and marriage equality didn't hit 50% nationally until Obama's first term. So roughly 10 years out and a (smaller) majority of rural youth are in support.
2018 was 6 years ago so maybe the numbers today are more dire. But I would expect to find that in 2024 that 58% had grown to somewhere in the low 60s.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 6:07 AM on June 24 [7 favorites]
I think there's a distinction to be made between people who actually live in rural areas, and people who live in town in the outer reaches of a metropolitan area that consider themselves rural when they're actually suburban. I've visited places like western Wisconsin or along I-75 in Ohio where the folks there would call themselves rural despite being a short drive from a city that a good portion of their neighbors commute to for work. But they're performatively rural - big truck, use a small tractor to mow the lawn, etc.
posted by thecjm at 6:32 AM on June 24 [60 favorites]
posted by thecjm at 6:32 AM on June 24 [60 favorites]
Excellent point, thecjm. This was an issue in the book White Rural Rage, which was harshly criticized by academics who study the subject because "they relied on studies that used different definitions of rural, a decision that conveniently lets them pick and choose whatever research fits their narrative."
Also, on the question of "Why haven’t rural Black and Latino Americans shifted to the Republican party alongside their white peers?" Maybe because the data go only through 2020. It's complicated and we won't know for sure until November, but many polls show Black and Hispanic voters shifting to Trump.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:40 AM on June 24 [5 favorites]
Also, on the question of "Why haven’t rural Black and Latino Americans shifted to the Republican party alongside their white peers?" Maybe because the data go only through 2020. It's complicated and we won't know for sure until November, but many polls show Black and Hispanic voters shifting to Trump.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:40 AM on June 24 [5 favorites]
The political divide is , of course, republican misinformation, convincing rural voters that taxes only go to the big cities, so vote for lower taxes. My response is always that taxes are the price rural folks pay to keep people living in cities, because boy oh boy were folks in rural eastern washington pissed when "city folk" moved in during covid. You want your ten acres and no neighbors, then vote to make cities livable, or those folks will be looking to move into five acres next to you, and then folks will buy 2 acres next to them and so on.
My anecdotal belief is that minorities don't move to rural areas in which they don't feel welcome. there are plenty of rural areas in washington with larger latino populations, because they are well represented, and also not shunned by Native Americans.
posted by OHenryPacey at 7:14 AM on June 24 [9 favorites]
My anecdotal belief is that minorities don't move to rural areas in which they don't feel welcome. there are plenty of rural areas in washington with larger latino populations, because they are well represented, and also not shunned by Native Americans.
posted by OHenryPacey at 7:14 AM on June 24 [9 favorites]
I think there's a distinction to be made between people who actually live in rural areas, and people who live in town in the outer reaches of a metropolitan area that consider themselves rural when they're actually suburban. I've visited places like western Wisconsin or along I-75 in Ohio where the folks there would call themselves rural despite being a short drive from a city that a good portion of their neighbors commute to for work. But they're performatively rural - big truck, use a small tractor to mow the lawn, etc.
Ohhh, yes. Even if they're not in one of these subdivisions that cling to the outskirts of the city like a barnacle to a ship's hull, they're a very short drive away in what used to be a tank town and is now a detached bedroom community. Typically the only business that thrives is a gas station attached to a convenience store; they'll complain about the city that they commute to and shop in, but they won't support businesses in their town, either.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:37 AM on June 24 [7 favorites]
Ohhh, yes. Even if they're not in one of these subdivisions that cling to the outskirts of the city like a barnacle to a ship's hull, they're a very short drive away in what used to be a tank town and is now a detached bedroom community. Typically the only business that thrives is a gas station attached to a convenience store; they'll complain about the city that they commute to and shop in, but they won't support businesses in their town, either.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:37 AM on June 24 [7 favorites]
(Percentage of indigenous Americans by county, Wikipedia/2020 Census)
posted by box at 7:39 AM on June 24 [3 favorites]
posted by box at 7:39 AM on June 24 [3 favorites]
I'm a big white guy who looks like he could be a Republican, and every time I'm in real (ie, not near the interstate) rural America, I'm kinda nervous. I can't imagine what it would be like for a non-white person, a woman, a clearly queer person, etc.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:58 AM on June 24 [12 favorites]
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:58 AM on June 24 [12 favorites]
I'm a big white guy who looks like he could be a Republican, and every time I'm in real (ie, not near the interstate) rural America, I'm kinda nervous.
My experience is southeast specific, but as a close relative of rural people in both Appalachia and the Deep South, I think you'll be okay. In Appalachia, the folks in the holler mostly keep to themselves (and are increasingly annoyed with amateur documentaries driving slowly past their homes so they can post videos on Instagram about the depravity of Appalachia or whatever) and if they seem suspicious it's maybe because they're trying to figure out if you're law enforcement are there to sniff out the fact that Jeremy has been cultivating several acres of marijuana up the cove for a decade plus or a developer planning to put in a gated resort community on top of the mountain.
Deep south, you can often times make friends simply with a "Lord, it's hot" and then asking about any restaurant that advertises catfish on the menu. Not necessarily in that order.
In either place, you might be surprised by the diversity of folks you run into (see article).
Pro-tip: if someone asks you if you are so and so's cousin, the correct answer is usually "could be" even if you know you're not, but if they ask "are you one of those______(surname)?" the answer is almost always no, even if you are.
If you run into any of my cousins, I apologize in advance because we all talk too much.
posted by thivaia at 8:28 AM on June 24 [29 favorites]
My experience is southeast specific, but as a close relative of rural people in both Appalachia and the Deep South, I think you'll be okay. In Appalachia, the folks in the holler mostly keep to themselves (and are increasingly annoyed with amateur documentaries driving slowly past their homes so they can post videos on Instagram about the depravity of Appalachia or whatever) and if they seem suspicious it's maybe because they're trying to figure out if you're law enforcement are there to sniff out the fact that Jeremy has been cultivating several acres of marijuana up the cove for a decade plus or a developer planning to put in a gated resort community on top of the mountain.
Deep south, you can often times make friends simply with a "Lord, it's hot" and then asking about any restaurant that advertises catfish on the menu. Not necessarily in that order.
In either place, you might be surprised by the diversity of folks you run into (see article).
Pro-tip: if someone asks you if you are so and so's cousin, the correct answer is usually "could be" even if you know you're not, but if they ask "are you one of those______(surname)?" the answer is almost always no, even if you are.
If you run into any of my cousins, I apologize in advance because we all talk too much.
posted by thivaia at 8:28 AM on June 24 [29 favorites]
It is entirely to be expected that if white people are going to become a (demographic) minority, that they will start to conduct themselves as a (political) minority, including supermajority support for a political party (Republicans, one would assume) and ceasing support for measures that disfavor them to the advantage of other minorities.
posted by MattD at 9:22 AM on June 24 [3 favorites]
posted by MattD at 9:22 AM on June 24 [3 favorites]
thivaia, that's a really crucial distinction - there are many kinds of rural in the US. East of the Mississippi, I can think of Appalachia, Louisiana, Maine, and several other distinct rural white cultures, even some language diversity, and many in close proximity to distinct communities of color. Out west, the flavors are basically Plains and Mountain white folks, I suppose because they were more recently settled and were connected by rail from the start, followed by radio and TV, and the absorption of non-English Europeans into Whiteness.
My folks settled in western Kansas, which had a bunch of English, Germans, Volga Germans, and Russians living in close proximity. My dad's hometown of 1,000 people had TWO German newspapers in 1900. Farm mechanization, the World Wars, and Fox News basically vaporized all that, and now the only food available in the county is burgers. They're afraid of Latino immigrants wiping away their culture, but they handled the job themselves long ago.
posted by McBearclaw at 9:28 AM on June 24 [13 favorites]
My folks settled in western Kansas, which had a bunch of English, Germans, Volga Germans, and Russians living in close proximity. My dad's hometown of 1,000 people had TWO German newspapers in 1900. Farm mechanization, the World Wars, and Fox News basically vaporized all that, and now the only food available in the county is burgers. They're afraid of Latino immigrants wiping away their culture, but they handled the job themselves long ago.
posted by McBearclaw at 9:28 AM on June 24 [13 favorites]
(The part I forgot to say is: we need a reform like ranked choice voting so that politics can match and permit diverse subcultures, rather than homogenizing them into the red- and blue-flavored oozes we currently on offer.)
posted by McBearclaw at 9:38 AM on June 24 [10 favorites]
posted by McBearclaw at 9:38 AM on June 24 [10 favorites]
I'm more familiar with the midwest, and what ends up being left of a once-considerably non-WASP ethnicity is usually the city/town name, a relatively distinct food (kolaches, dutch letters), and if the town is in good-enough shape, a tourist-friendly ethnic festival.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:39 AM on June 24 [6 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:39 AM on June 24 [6 favorites]
Ranked choice and other mathematically obvious voting reform (to catch us up with the math worked out after the French revolution) is one thing that many Democrats oppose almost as much as GOP does. They both know that when more objectively democratic voting methods are used, third parties and independents will become more viable.
Which is to say: voting reform probably the most important thing we can do right now, because it will enable us to work much more effectively on all the other problems. Fairvote is a good organization working for this cause, if anyone is looking for a source of good news or a place to send cash or volunteer.
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:44 AM on June 24 [8 favorites]
Which is to say: voting reform probably the most important thing we can do right now, because it will enable us to work much more effectively on all the other problems. Fairvote is a good organization working for this cause, if anyone is looking for a source of good news or a place to send cash or volunteer.
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:44 AM on June 24 [8 favorites]
when you're accustomed to privilege, equality looks like disfavor
posted by torokunai at 9:57 AM on June 24 [10 favorites]
posted by torokunai at 9:57 AM on June 24 [10 favorites]
Which is to say: voting reform probably the most important thing we can do right now, because it will enable us to work much more effectively on all the other problems.
Yes. Relevant to point out, as well, that in states that heavily gerrymandered. Majority minority rural counties (which tend to vote blue-er ) are harder to see because they get deliberately districted in with larger urban districts, so they're a) not really getting representation relevant to them and b) get forgotten because you don't see where people actually are unless you're a nerd that looks at the shitty gerrymandered maps.
thivaia, that's a really crucial distinction - there are many kinds of rural in the US. East of the Mississippi, I can think of Appalachia, Louisiana, Maine, and several other distinct rural white cultures, even some language diversity, and many in close proximity to distinct communities of color
Anecdotal, I cannot tell you how many friends of mine from elsewhere in the country have come south and been absolutely boggled that majority minority rural communities exist at all.
posted by thivaia at 9:57 AM on June 24 [5 favorites]
There's also many good candidates of algorithms to end gerrymandering, all of which are provably better than what we currently do. I'm partial to this simple method (and also the website RangeVoting.org in general). This is exactly the kind of thing that will help rural non-white people get their fair representation.
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:01 AM on June 24 [2 favorites]
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:01 AM on June 24 [2 favorites]
They moved me into Barry Loudermilk's district, but it used to be Marjorie Taylor Greene. The answer to any questions about the area that begin with why is bigotry, be it based on race, creed, color, gender expression, or sexual orientation.
posted by ob1quixote at 10:08 AM on June 24 [4 favorites]
posted by ob1quixote at 10:08 AM on June 24 [4 favorites]
Since Reagan, the Republican Party has gradually transformed itself from being the party of Lincoln into the party of open and proud racists. They don't have anything to offer people of color. I can see why some people want to identify with the moneyed elite because I have family members who do exactly that, and they are often surprised at how racist their "friends" are. But those are a small minority.
posted by mumimor at 10:32 AM on June 24 [3 favorites]
posted by mumimor at 10:32 AM on June 24 [3 favorites]
But they're performatively rural - big truck, use a small tractor to mow the lawn, etc.
I thought the term for this was exurban, to differentiate from the usually more (self described at least) liberal suburbanites.
posted by Slackermagee at 10:32 AM on June 24 [3 favorites]
I thought the term for this was exurban, to differentiate from the usually more (self described at least) liberal suburbanites.
posted by Slackermagee at 10:32 AM on June 24 [3 favorites]
Anecdotal, I cannot tell you how many friends of mine from elsewhere in the country have come south and been absolutely boggled that majority minority rural communities exist at all.
The rural community I grew up in was right on the border of majority minority hispanic (I grew up close to the Mexico border), and unfortunately Republican, at least when I grew up. So minorities being for Republican policies that deny them rights and advantages has a long history.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:47 AM on June 24 [5 favorites]
The rural community I grew up in was right on the border of majority minority hispanic (I grew up close to the Mexico border), and unfortunately Republican, at least when I grew up. So minorities being for Republican policies that deny them rights and advantages has a long history.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:47 AM on June 24 [5 favorites]
ceasing support for measures that disfavor them to the advantage of other minorities
That's a fancy way of dismissing white supremacy. Just about any measure that gives help to black and latino communities also gives help to white communities, and yet, white people have been shown repeatedly that they'd rather suffer themselves than let others have something helpful.
posted by kokaku at 10:47 AM on June 24 [19 favorites]
That's a fancy way of dismissing white supremacy. Just about any measure that gives help to black and latino communities also gives help to white communities, and yet, white people have been shown repeatedly that they'd rather suffer themselves than let others have something helpful.
posted by kokaku at 10:47 AM on June 24 [19 favorites]
You want your ten acres and no neighbors, then vote to make cities livable, or those folks will be looking to move into five acres next to you, and then folks will buy 2 acres next to them and so on.
This is like trying to convince car owners that paying for bike lanes benefits them- by getting more people safely on bikes, there are fewer cars on the road. But when you've been taught that giving things to other people means you're being shafted in some undefinable way, you're never going to get on board with something that requires thinking of the bigger picture.
and yet, white people have been shown repeatedly that they'd rather suffer themselves than let others have something helpful.
Yes.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:06 PM on June 24 [12 favorites]
This is like trying to convince car owners that paying for bike lanes benefits them- by getting more people safely on bikes, there are fewer cars on the road. But when you've been taught that giving things to other people means you're being shafted in some undefinable way, you're never going to get on board with something that requires thinking of the bigger picture.
and yet, white people have been shown repeatedly that they'd rather suffer themselves than let others have something helpful.
Yes.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:06 PM on June 24 [12 favorites]
There are various polls and focus groups (hotly contested) this year about whether the Dems are losing a big chunk of Black and brown voters, especially among youth. Misinformation and the overwhelming flood of garbage online definitely play a part. But also there's quite a bit of calling bullshit on the "economy is doing great" message. For the average person, the economy will be doing great when milk and eggs cost what they cost two years ago. Rural people, I'm pretty sure, have less income and so food makes up a bigger chunk of income.
Having come from (white) rural Southern roots, I can also say that while the charges of racism et al are deserved - especially historically - the chatter I see from those people in my life are much more about the increasing complexity of everything and the accelerating changes around them. I've lived both simple and urban/suburban lives, and I think people have:
* The right to simplicity
* The right to constancy and predictability
* The right to a culture
I wish they'd see that capitalism is the biggest threat to the first two, at least. The third is harder - if your culture includes the Ten Commandments, or traditions around gender roles, or some other "backward" way of being, it's easy to feel under attack. I think the very online sect has made this worse by taking natural inclusive instincts and really going over the top with what a 60 year old women in rural NC is supposed to be ok with. I don't want to provide examples of things I've heard from people (and politely pushed back on), but it's less about racism and religious zeal than it is about anger and bewilderment at the latest nonsense we city slickers have dreamed up.
(Ok, one example: I was at a dinner with 10 people of various ages, skewing older, a couple of years ago when some side chat among younger members caused someone to ask about the pronouns stuff. I helped explain to the best of my ability, and no one was openly hostile or anything - they really just didn't know what to make of it. Obviously not Fox viewers. They were just like "geez ... what'll they think of next", like they couldn't even understand what I was saying)
posted by caviar2d2 at 12:33 PM on June 24 [5 favorites]
Having come from (white) rural Southern roots, I can also say that while the charges of racism et al are deserved - especially historically - the chatter I see from those people in my life are much more about the increasing complexity of everything and the accelerating changes around them. I've lived both simple and urban/suburban lives, and I think people have:
* The right to simplicity
* The right to constancy and predictability
* The right to a culture
I wish they'd see that capitalism is the biggest threat to the first two, at least. The third is harder - if your culture includes the Ten Commandments, or traditions around gender roles, or some other "backward" way of being, it's easy to feel under attack. I think the very online sect has made this worse by taking natural inclusive instincts and really going over the top with what a 60 year old women in rural NC is supposed to be ok with. I don't want to provide examples of things I've heard from people (and politely pushed back on), but it's less about racism and religious zeal than it is about anger and bewilderment at the latest nonsense we city slickers have dreamed up.
(Ok, one example: I was at a dinner with 10 people of various ages, skewing older, a couple of years ago when some side chat among younger members caused someone to ask about the pronouns stuff. I helped explain to the best of my ability, and no one was openly hostile or anything - they really just didn't know what to make of it. Obviously not Fox viewers. They were just like "geez ... what'll they think of next", like they couldn't even understand what I was saying)
posted by caviar2d2 at 12:33 PM on June 24 [5 favorites]
Both political parties were vehicles for the pursuit of the interests of white patriacal christian capital, and one party has diversified its popular support among labor and minorities and non-conformists as a coping strategy for its loss of pride of place among the powerful.
White ruralism is a cosplay identity, a vanishingly small amount of rural people or wealth comes from farming, minings, timber, etc. They live isolate suburban livestyles in low desnity rural settings, utterly dependent on urban money and products, including their "country" music, clothes, beer and vehicles, and they do so resentfully. They arent homesteaders or hunter gatherers, they are colonizers that got left behind or they fled cities and suburbs because of desegregation.
They speak openly about wishing the cities to be destroyed, minorities genocided women enslaved and non-christians to be
purged. they are the scorpion on the frogs back and they are waiting to sting.
Edit sources: east texas, sw washington, fingerlakes ny, and all my cousins
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 1:32 PM on June 24 [7 favorites]
White ruralism is a cosplay identity, a vanishingly small amount of rural people or wealth comes from farming, minings, timber, etc. They live isolate suburban livestyles in low desnity rural settings, utterly dependent on urban money and products, including their "country" music, clothes, beer and vehicles, and they do so resentfully. They arent homesteaders or hunter gatherers, they are colonizers that got left behind or they fled cities and suburbs because of desegregation.
They speak openly about wishing the cities to be destroyed, minorities genocided women enslaved and non-christians to be
purged. they are the scorpion on the frogs back and they are waiting to sting.
Edit sources: east texas, sw washington, fingerlakes ny, and all my cousins
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 1:32 PM on June 24 [7 favorites]
caviar2d2, I don't get the "simple vs. urban" dichotomy. For me, the whole point of living in a city is that it's simpler - I could live without using a car, for example. I live close enough to a hospital that I could run to the ER with my kid in my arms. The medevac helicopters I see flying into said hospital aren't carrying city slickers. My aunts are in their 70s and have to drive 40 minutes to buy groceries. That's complex and fragile as hell.
Similarly, there's nothing complicated about pronouns - it's a simple combination of the classic rural values of "Do unto others" and "Mind your own business".
The problem isn't the Very Online Sect, it's that we're all online now - and our inability to appropriately weight the opinions of faraway people is making us all nuts.
posted by McBearclaw at 1:59 PM on June 24 [2 favorites]
Similarly, there's nothing complicated about pronouns - it's a simple combination of the classic rural values of "Do unto others" and "Mind your own business".
The problem isn't the Very Online Sect, it's that we're all online now - and our inability to appropriately weight the opinions of faraway people is making us all nuts.
posted by McBearclaw at 1:59 PM on June 24 [2 favorites]
the white divide indexes how whites are looking at dealing with the race/class/relgous/battle of the sexes conflict. The whites that vote democrat are generally ok with declaring a ceasefire, but divided on whether a peace treaty can alter the status quo, and the white voting replublican are trying to defeat and oppress their "enemies".
A theif each day robs a man of $100, finally after weeks a cop arrests him, a judge convicts him and sentences him to pay a $50 fine. The theif screams " how dare you steal my hard earned money" and then the theif donates to republicans and plots an insurrection to overthrow the court. wash, rinse, repeat.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 2:06 PM on June 24
A theif each day robs a man of $100, finally after weeks a cop arrests him, a judge convicts him and sentences him to pay a $50 fine. The theif screams " how dare you steal my hard earned money" and then the theif donates to republicans and plots an insurrection to overthrow the court. wash, rinse, repeat.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 2:06 PM on June 24
I didn't mean to imply urban vs. simple - MF is a hard place to strategically lob your thoughts before the threads so dark, so I crammed a couple of ideas in there. Living in the city is definitely simpler in a lot of ways. What I think of when I think of simple for my grandparents and parents is:
- go to the same church for 50+ years and the people you knew from there and school show up at the funeral
- it's fairly easy to set community norms and have the bulk of people focused on keeping them (can be good or bad)
- pick a job and do basically the same thing for decades at a time, without constantly having to retrain or have different companies to deal with
- there's at least some food being grown locally and people sell it directly, not through agribusiness
- neighborhoods are fairly safe most of the time, even if you aren't rich
- you don't have to understand a bunch of different cultures; there's a single dominant culture (or two through the years of segregation, etc.)
Again, some of that is probably age-related or due to other factors. Bigotry is totally out there, but there's also snobbery about what non-elites/non-college people enjoy and how they live, especially if what they enjoy is Miller Lite, fishing, and non-hip music and tv. I would also like to point out that there have always been poor and downtrodden whites, and it's capitalism and capitalism's use of religion that made them enemies of poor Black people. I mean my wife's grandparents were sharecroppers and my grandmother didn't have shoes a lot of the time growing up. And even she changed a lot during her life, but it was frustratingly gradual.
posted by caviar2d2 at 2:46 PM on June 24 [2 favorites]
- go to the same church for 50+ years and the people you knew from there and school show up at the funeral
- it's fairly easy to set community norms and have the bulk of people focused on keeping them (can be good or bad)
- pick a job and do basically the same thing for decades at a time, without constantly having to retrain or have different companies to deal with
- there's at least some food being grown locally and people sell it directly, not through agribusiness
- neighborhoods are fairly safe most of the time, even if you aren't rich
- you don't have to understand a bunch of different cultures; there's a single dominant culture (or two through the years of segregation, etc.)
Again, some of that is probably age-related or due to other factors. Bigotry is totally out there, but there's also snobbery about what non-elites/non-college people enjoy and how they live, especially if what they enjoy is Miller Lite, fishing, and non-hip music and tv. I would also like to point out that there have always been poor and downtrodden whites, and it's capitalism and capitalism's use of religion that made them enemies of poor Black people. I mean my wife's grandparents were sharecroppers and my grandmother didn't have shoes a lot of the time growing up. And even she changed a lot during her life, but it was frustratingly gradual.
posted by caviar2d2 at 2:46 PM on June 24 [2 favorites]
Interesting timing on this Cletus safari from the WAPO.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/06/23/rural-america-shrinking-population-pennsylvania/
Fairly noticeable here is the complete lack of perspective or quotes from ANYONE who left this town, its just a barrage of 'why I this happening to us, isn't it horrible" from the remaining residents of this rural town (and of course the overwhelming sympathy and advocacy from the middle aged white male 'journalist'). It's just quote after quote after quote from older and elderly Fox/Trumpist bemoaning their fate.
Hey' journalist', why not ask if they residents would welcome any immigrants that would completely revitalize their town, see what the residents who complain about their lot in life would say, it might be lightening to your readers...
posted by WatTylerJr at 3:47 PM on June 24 [6 favorites]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/06/23/rural-america-shrinking-population-pennsylvania/
Fairly noticeable here is the complete lack of perspective or quotes from ANYONE who left this town, its just a barrage of 'why I this happening to us, isn't it horrible" from the remaining residents of this rural town (and of course the overwhelming sympathy and advocacy from the middle aged white male 'journalist'). It's just quote after quote after quote from older and elderly Fox/Trumpist bemoaning their fate.
Hey' journalist', why not ask if they residents would welcome any immigrants that would completely revitalize their town, see what the residents who complain about their lot in life would say, it might be lightening to your readers...
posted by WatTylerJr at 3:47 PM on June 24 [6 favorites]
caviar2d2, totally makes sense - thanks for the clarification! (And wow do I relate to the "thoughts before the thread goes dark" feeling; I've had to dump many a comment after realizing the post had wrapped up days before)
Capitalism, indeed - though I can't help but think that on the Plains, there was a chance for the farmers to band together. Now they'll be individually left holding their individual bags when their shared aquifer runs out.
posted by McBearclaw at 3:58 PM on June 24 [1 favorite]
Capitalism, indeed - though I can't help but think that on the Plains, there was a chance for the farmers to band together. Now they'll be individually left holding their individual bags when their shared aquifer runs out.
posted by McBearclaw at 3:58 PM on June 24 [1 favorite]
For me, the whole point of living in a city is that it's simpler - I could live without using a car, for example.
This used to be true in rural areas too, until after like 1950 when they decided they wanted to be suburbs with no nearby city attached. I guess it kind of hard for me to imagine how this shift happened everywhere, but one of the major causes was The Depression destroying local business - I'm sure there were others.
posted by The_Vegetables at 5:57 PM on June 24
This used to be true in rural areas too, until after like 1950 when they decided they wanted to be suburbs with no nearby city attached. I guess it kind of hard for me to imagine how this shift happened everywhere, but one of the major causes was The Depression destroying local business - I'm sure there were others.
posted by The_Vegetables at 5:57 PM on June 24
Both political parties were vehicles for the pursuit of the interests of white patriacal christian capital, and one party has diversified its popular support among labor and minorities and non-conformists as a coping strategy for its loss of pride of place among the powerful.
This feels like it ascribes far too much of a unified intention to the gradual shifts that occurred over the course of the last century within 1 of our 2 vast and fairly inchoate political coalitions that we call "parties".
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 6:13 PM on June 24 [2 favorites]
This feels like it ascribes far too much of a unified intention to the gradual shifts that occurred over the course of the last century within 1 of our 2 vast and fairly inchoate political coalitions that we call "parties".
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 6:13 PM on June 24 [2 favorites]
But they're performatively rural - big truck, use a small tractor to mow the lawn, etc.
I like that phrase "performatively rural". I've used the phrese "cowboy cosplay" before here.
The definition of "urban" may be shifting as well, partly because right-wing gang affiliations seem to need purity and loyalty. When I glance into the sludge of online wrangling in my area, I see right-wingers complaining with their "urban" dogwhistle phrases, not just about Minneapolis, but about places as small as Saint Cloud and Mankato.
How far out do you have to go to see the "exurban" phenomenon? You can drive around Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, and see expensive starter castles in lakeside vacation country, some with Trumpy decor. That's a good three-hours-plus drive from the Cities if weather is okay. I doubt that it's Farmer Bob in those oversized homes, there's got to be a dependency on larger communities to support that lifestyle--remote work or megacommuting, inheritance, early retirement maybe. It ain't American Gothic, or "the common clay of the new west". If the money was made in agriculture, it was made at a desk job at someplace like Cargill.
(Disclaimer: Farmer Bob may also be a dangerous asshole--but he's not calling the shots.)
posted by gimonca at 4:45 AM on June 25 [2 favorites]
I like that phrase "performatively rural". I've used the phrese "cowboy cosplay" before here.
The definition of "urban" may be shifting as well, partly because right-wing gang affiliations seem to need purity and loyalty. When I glance into the sludge of online wrangling in my area, I see right-wingers complaining with their "urban" dogwhistle phrases, not just about Minneapolis, but about places as small as Saint Cloud and Mankato.
How far out do you have to go to see the "exurban" phenomenon? You can drive around Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, and see expensive starter castles in lakeside vacation country, some with Trumpy decor. That's a good three-hours-plus drive from the Cities if weather is okay. I doubt that it's Farmer Bob in those oversized homes, there's got to be a dependency on larger communities to support that lifestyle--remote work or megacommuting, inheritance, early retirement maybe. It ain't American Gothic, or "the common clay of the new west". If the money was made in agriculture, it was made at a desk job at someplace like Cargill.
(Disclaimer: Farmer Bob may also be a dangerous asshole--but he's not calling the shots.)
posted by gimonca at 4:45 AM on June 25 [2 favorites]
there was a chance for the farmers to band together
in Canada, the cooperative movements that started from sheer necessity achieved great things: out east, rural collectives contributed to the founding of the credit union banking model and out west you can point to political movements (United Farmers of Alberta), and grain collectives to mitigate risk and transportation costs. just to name a few.
you could say this was all gobbled up by the market or capital or whatever, but mostly people went along with it. Mostly I think enough people had it just good enough for just long enough that we forgot some of the things that got us here, and we either rediscover those things (broadly: collectivism) oh why finish the fucking sentence
posted by elkevelvet at 7:22 AM on June 25 [5 favorites]
in Canada, the cooperative movements that started from sheer necessity achieved great things: out east, rural collectives contributed to the founding of the credit union banking model and out west you can point to political movements (United Farmers of Alberta), and grain collectives to mitigate risk and transportation costs. just to name a few.
you could say this was all gobbled up by the market or capital or whatever, but mostly people went along with it. Mostly I think enough people had it just good enough for just long enough that we forgot some of the things that got us here, and we either rediscover those things (broadly: collectivism) oh why finish the fucking sentence
posted by elkevelvet at 7:22 AM on June 25 [5 favorites]
I'm ticked off that the article at the center of this discussion is completely paywalled. However, there is a relevant, non-paywalled article by two of the co-authors to the study in the FPP: Sequential Polarization: The Development of the Urban-Rural Political Divide, 1976-2020.
I'll try to give a tl;dr.
According to the authors, the partisan gap between urban vs. rural communities did not really begin to open up until the late 1990s. The timing of the widening gap can be explained by changes in the political economy that have made rural communities more economically marginal.
1. NAFTA and the liberalization of trade with China has caused a decline in rurally based industries in the United States.
2. Resource depletion and technological increases in productivity decimated rural jobs in agriculture and extractive industries.
3. In rural communities, you used to have small banks with names like Farmers' Loan & Trust who used their local knowledge to extend generous credit to farms and business in their communities. Due to financial deregulation in the 1990s, many of these banks ceased to be competitive or viable & got swallowed up by larger banks.
4. All of these changes caused rural populations to age and shrink in size, which created a ratchet effect that made it harder to react to #1 through #3.
The second factor that widened the partisan gap into a chasm was the election of a Black president in 2008. As the parties became less differentiated on the specific economic issues that mattered to rural communities, racial and cultural issues became more salient.
So there's definitely a lot of evidence backing up the position that "LOL, it's the neoliberalism, stupid!", but there's also evidence that race and culture matters more after 2008. For one thing, educational attainment and views on social issues became more important in sorting rural vs. urban voters into separate Republican vs. Democratic boxes. As rural populations started getting older on average and entire rural communities started losing entire younger age cohorts, the average educational attainment and liberalism on social issues in the community went down, which widened the partisan gap even more. In addition, as generic social liberalism declined in rural communities, racial resentment in those communities also increased.
Evangelical churches played a role, but not necessarily in the way that you would think. The number of evangelical churches didn't increase much in rural areas, but because the population in rural areas declined, the effects of evangelical churches on attitudes was more concentrated among the people who remained behind.
posted by jonp72 at 7:53 AM on June 25 [6 favorites]
I'll try to give a tl;dr.
According to the authors, the partisan gap between urban vs. rural communities did not really begin to open up until the late 1990s. The timing of the widening gap can be explained by changes in the political economy that have made rural communities more economically marginal.
1. NAFTA and the liberalization of trade with China has caused a decline in rurally based industries in the United States.
2. Resource depletion and technological increases in productivity decimated rural jobs in agriculture and extractive industries.
3. In rural communities, you used to have small banks with names like Farmers' Loan & Trust who used their local knowledge to extend generous credit to farms and business in their communities. Due to financial deregulation in the 1990s, many of these banks ceased to be competitive or viable & got swallowed up by larger banks.
4. All of these changes caused rural populations to age and shrink in size, which created a ratchet effect that made it harder to react to #1 through #3.
The second factor that widened the partisan gap into a chasm was the election of a Black president in 2008. As the parties became less differentiated on the specific economic issues that mattered to rural communities, racial and cultural issues became more salient.
So there's definitely a lot of evidence backing up the position that "LOL, it's the neoliberalism, stupid!", but there's also evidence that race and culture matters more after 2008. For one thing, educational attainment and views on social issues became more important in sorting rural vs. urban voters into separate Republican vs. Democratic boxes. As rural populations started getting older on average and entire rural communities started losing entire younger age cohorts, the average educational attainment and liberalism on social issues in the community went down, which widened the partisan gap even more. In addition, as generic social liberalism declined in rural communities, racial resentment in those communities also increased.
Evangelical churches played a role, but not necessarily in the way that you would think. The number of evangelical churches didn't increase much in rural areas, but because the population in rural areas declined, the effects of evangelical churches on attitudes was more concentrated among the people who remained behind.
posted by jonp72 at 7:53 AM on June 25 [6 favorites]
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posted by HearHere at 4:59 AM on June 24 [3 favorites]