They keep voting for the politicians who are exacerbating those conditions, instead of those who want to fix them.

I don't care if they want to commit suicide. Just don't expect me to stand near enough to them that I get splashed by the blood.

I'm getting kind of tired, too, of rural American expecting us to run the country like some small town. They like to constantly complain that our "big city ways" can't be used there, when the opposite is just as true, if not more so.

We tend to think of the Senate of Rome as analogous to our own Senate, when really what it was was a glorified city council. They tried to administrate a huge expanse of the Ancient World with a city council.

You’re better than this.

I don't think you understand the concept of illness and addiction.

You don't catch heroin addiction by getting sneezed on by an addict.

A lot of ailments occur as collateral damage from economic stress. But you're only going to get addicted to opioids by using opioids. This was as much an assault by the pharmaceutical companies. People trusted their doctors, many of whom got kick-backs.

You can treat Cholera with medicine. How do you treat greed, or the bigotry towards others that leads to your own demise. I have compassion for addicts, but the reason rural communities are dying isn't due to opioid addiction. That is symptomatic in this case.

As someone earlier up-thread mentioned, much of it can be attributed to their own disdain for city folk and voting against anything that would help the impoverished in the city, or city public school systems, for example.

They'll maybe, now, vote for methadone clinics in rural counties, but they'll still cut them for the inner city.

Their emergency arises from the quest for the perfect trump. Cynical perhaps, but Steve King's gonna win re-election.

Do you work for the CDC or the World Health Organization? Read anything about them?

the Roman Empire and us, yes, their Senate was just like ours. But then the people revolted too.

*Clearly this is meant in jest...Canadians know damn well to avoid the USA these days, after all, who would ever want to visit a shithole country like this let alone invade it???

understanding humanitarian Prime Minister Trudeau who accepted Syrians. I'm sure he would accept Americans (Little America). If it came to that.

I live in rural America.

My niece lives in rural America.

My niece's husband lives in rural America.

My great nephew lives in rural America.

3 of my great friends live in rural America.

We all vote for the Democratic party.

We are all very progressive !!!

We don't deserve any of the shit that is happening.

Poor urban areas don't deserve any of the shit that is happening.

Just sayin'.

America is actually governed by rural
America so you got that going for you.

In my state far RWNJ rural legislators far outnumber moderates and progressives from the city and suburbs. Even in our senate the Dakatos have 40 million fewer people than CA but have twice the seats in the senate.

I'm very liberal even by DU standards and yet I cannot deny this is where the problem lies. It isn't too broad of a brush... in 2016 the Trump signs were everywhere in every corn-field and in 4 out of 5 driveways out here. Two years later when absolutely no-one could deny who Trump was, my district in southwest Illinois still chose a GOP congressman. My wife and I have nearly broken entirely with most family and I don't have face-book but I always encourage her to trash hers where all she does is fight with coworkers and family. I spend time at the grain elevator each week and based on my personal experience none of these people driving 2019 4WD pickups is experiencing "economic anxiety". They are motherfucking racists and misogynists and that shits more important to them than the price of soybeans which their livelihood depends upon.

Sick of urban snobbery. I finally understand why Trump and Republicans are able to play rural people. Instead of the whole nation standing up for all, it seems we are demanded to stand up for the areas where the wealthy live.

It is frustrating to watch the youth abandon good areas which could be invested in.

Not to hard to figure out with the last several decades of factories, farms, etc pulling out and abandoning whole areas.
It's always the economy.

I think they wanted to "stick" it to the liberals.

They wanted revenge and trump during the campaign was **way** more populist than he's turned into.
Don't you remember all the BS he spouted to the rural areas? All lies (obvious ones yes) but lies they wanted to hear.

Have you been to these towns and seen the decay and hopelessness? People in situations like that will turn to anything.... it's the same the world over when people that get desperate and have no security and side with what they see is a chance (false one it may be).

Except to Democrats.

Sorry I just don’t buy the economic anxiety argument. If it was true we’d be winning. And It’s kind of been debunked in the last 3 years anyway.

It was the xenophobia and racism that drove them to Trump. Finally someone sayings the things they’ve been thinking all these years.

Rural Americans embraced Trump because if their “economic anxieties.”

consistently democratic, and are constantly denouncing rump's idiot moves/actions, so kudos to them of course, especially doing so in a rural area where your political signs are stolen or damaged, etc.

No one in America deserves rump. He is vastly unqualified and proves it everyday. The clerk at the local gas station would do a far better job than rump. Heck, even a fifth grader would do better...

Take care...

and I can tell you, there are far more people who think that everything would be better if we went back to the 1950s than there are people who want forward motion.

They think that life then was perfect: no minorities, no one was gay, everyone was some variety of Christian, and everything was utterly perfect in its various shades of vanilla with everything they don't want to think about or know about out of sight.

WE don't deserve what is happening, but frankly, it is what a lot of the people who live here are demanding. It is what they vote for.

They think that Trump is some kind of prophet leading them to the promised land...they don't get that he's leading them to someplace else entirely. They don't care as long as those they choose to hate are punished for existing.

I don't live in a rural area now, but I grew up in one. Went back in 2016 for a reunion and there were Trump signs everywhere. I don't even think I saw one Hillary sign, though the friend I stayed with told me she was voting for Hillary.

My friend took me to the local diner for breakfast one day and there they all were sitting around the tables talking about how all those people in the "big cities" that were dictating how they were supposed to be living. Then they were bemoaning how everything was so expensive and they couldn't afford this or that, and on and on. I just eavesdropped and said to myself, "Egads, I am so glad I left this two-bit town when I was 18." It was like they had never left and the world passed them by.

Fact is, a rather large majority of rural America is pinning for a golden age that never was while embracing religious extremism and white supremecy. No one is going to go around listing every single exception to the rule.

No one said you deserve it, but way too many of your fellow rural Americans are gleefully charging head on towards Fascism because they want to hurt certain people.

And a significant portion of our Federal and State governments cater to rural America already to the detriment of more disadvantaged groups and the poor urbanites.

you personally might not be "killing rural America" but the vast majority of your neighbors are and those persons that hopelessly outnumber you are putting in place elected leaders that enact laws again the best interests of their constituents.

That may be true in your area, but not all rural areas are 80:20 R .

I don't appreciate Democrats feeding into the urban-rural divide that Republicans want to perpetuate. In fact, in MN and WI, I would say the worse Republican areas are the Exurban areas.

at the local Dem chapter 12 miles away and I hear the same thing. They are tired of it and are feeling like they are without a political home. It's basically become a therapy to talk about the threats of the GOP and feeling like the black sheep of our chosen political party. Doubly so since we are farmers who voted Dem our whole lives.

Any chance that a couple of them might vote Democratic?

Might help end the slump.






Reporter: Mr. Gandhi, what do you think of Western Civilization?

Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.

many more of us, as well.

What drives me nuts is that many people in my area don't have a pot to piss in but continue to vote Republican election after election. These people have zero understanding of the economy. They think the country should be run like a garage sale. But ultimately I think many of them are white supremacist which drives them to vote against their best interests. It's sad, really.

Just seriously?

The investors then rent the land to a farmer, or hire folk at low wages to work the soil.

I have to admit, I've looked at farmland for sale online looking for a fire sale.

There have been many opportunities for growth that were turned down by the town elders.
“They ain’t gonna put an interstate through our back yard”

They made it difficult for industry that begged to come there

Now, the town is declining. The hospital is gone. Schools are underperforming. There aren’t any jobs.

The old white men killed the town rather than allow progress.

Fresno kill the high speed train for California , stupid old republicans complaint about " land graving shit"

one of the most important projects for our future children they fucking killed

There are parts of the country that are sparsely populated and the people fend for themselves as best as they can. I don't know if Irish city dwellers worry much about them, I doubt it.

BTW, if you might be interested in seeing a fascinating BBC documentary about a rural woman who lives alone off the grid, here it is:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-48202236

and what a tough woman.

maybe this should be our motto for the filthy repigs.

"Be content with what you have," she added.

and keeping their children as isolated and ignorant as possible. It's all they know.

They wrap their Christianity with their right wing values. Christian fascism.

Genesis, chapter 1: "Thou shall hate Democrats. Thou shall vote Republican." Ask no questions, read no other books, no news articles, watch only tRump tv. If it was good enough for my Pappy, it's good enough for me. Give me that old time political religion. This discribes my late mother to the proverbial T.

is that it is a completely short-attention span book. There is no sustained narrative. No complexities. It's broken down into extremely short sections, easy to memorize and regurgitate without actually paying attention to what is being said.

The fact that it is essentially complete fiction comes second for me.

Oh, and because I was raised Catholic, I was never encouraged to read the Bible. When I finally got around to it when I was about 25, all of Genesis read like science fiction.

Solving the puzzle and breaking the Republicans grip on rural America is the best way to cut the anchor holding back progress in this country. Hate and scorn isn't going to help.

Rural folks denigrate big cities and we call them bigots.

People in the big cities denigrate rural folks, and that is just fine.

It's all good to bash Christianity, but don't say a word about Islam.

Then there is the hatred many on the Left express about Country Music, despite the fact there have been a great many country musicians. Some of these haters never even heard of The Dixie Chicks until they smacked down Bush II. Then they thought they were the greatest thing ever and raced to buy their country CDs.

Or like the hatred of NASCAR. Whey is that any different from any other Motorsports? Because rural people like NASCAR it automatically sucks?

People in the big cities can be just as insular and intolerant as rural people. This thread is proof of that.

Tell us how to win them over to our Godless libtard ways of tolerance and diversity.

For most people of working age...

Don’t get me wrong, I like cities, but to have them be the future? We need a choice of futures.

What does rural America have that us urban people need?

Got it on the first try.

That reason alone is sufficient to pay attention to rural America.

produce/products are sold to urban customers. Perhaps it should be the other way around (rural America pays attention to the urban customer) or maybe both should be paying attention to each other, instead of being played off against each other as rump tries to do constantly.

Maybe massive family corporate farms sell, but the family farmers get their stuff bought by middlemen, that could end up anywhere.

Produce feed animals, so if needed, our farm animals can be fed with imported produce.

You know why produce is imported? Because it is cheaper on average.

Where our food is grown does not matter to big AG, they sell the domestic and imported food. The true big Florida tomato producers produce tomatoes in Mexico during winter, or farther south in Central and South America.

The myth of the family farmer feeding America became a myth in the 80s and is more so now.

Why should we expect any rural votes if we do not care about rural voters and simply dismiss them as stupid and unworthy of our attention.

I know the arguments about the strong RW grip and prejudices of rural America but I look at it as a long term issue. We will not turn Nebraska (for example) blue in the next election, nor the one after, nor probably the one after that. But 5-6 elections down the road we may flip them however if we do not make any effort to sway voters there it will never happen.

jobs, remember when Amazon was considering of opening in New York. They should of considered rural America.

I found this article:

https://www.inc.com/guadalupe-gonzalez/did-amazon-pick-wrong-cities-hq2-locations.html


snip of article:

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos may have also missed an opportunity to generate "considerable political good will" by picking a city in the Midwest, given that his company's success "has hollowed out aging downtowns and shopping malls across America," Stewart writes. This point may not be lost on Bezos, as Amazon did announce that it will build an "Operations Center of Excellence" in Nashville which will create 5,000 jobs.

Just isolating these people more. Well this regime is not helping them at all. Drug addictions, taking away the right to abortions etc, the farmers are being squeezed. It is just a vicious cycle.

We'll be getting it by the end of the year. Of course, it's a public/private partnership that my Virginia Delegate tried to stop with legislation.

if it plans to set up a high paid staffing operation. There is nothing in rural America for it, other that the craft people and occasional farm that sell through Amazon.

Everything Amazon does depends on existing infrastructure. Rural America does not have big highways, railheads, plentiful broadband, good schools. Amazon would have to pay to build those things, the company's whole existence is about piggybacking on what exists.

Nashville is a pretty modern city. It would have been news had Bezos put an operation in truly rural America (which he won't for the reasons above).

I would love to see more businesses chose rural America, but that is unlikely to happen. More that likely the population of rural America will die off or relocate to cities. Farms will become vacant or part of Big AG.

Rural Americans are living in a dying ecosystem that cannot be resurrected at this point. Voting against their own interests in order to have their officials give them code language and gin them up on hate of 'the other' to place blame on is equally damning.

I cannot be bothered to save people from themselves any longer...it is not a good use of my limited time on this Earth...if they do not want to put people in charge that would help them, then reap the whirlwind and take the advice of their GOP pseudo-saviors, get sick and die fast.

answer? the GOP

WHAT are you willing to give up to be able to penetrate their Jesus bubble? Might be a good idea to start with abortion, given most wont consider voting for Dems solely for that reason no matter what kid of jobs or healthcare benefits that might come from it. What else can be surrendered to get an “in” with those who eagerly vote against their self interests every chance they get?

If that’s what we want, we need to start talking about strategies beyond jobs and education. It needs to be a Jesus centric strategy.

Republican areas in the rural west (besides Utah and parts of Idaho) are often fairly irreligious. I’m talking places like Wyoming and Montana. There may be a way to reach them politically.

Rural areas here are very Jesus centric. We still have tent revivals. And it’s more or less the same in Missouri, Kansas, Texas and Arkansas. That’s a decent cache of electoral college votes right there. So again, we’re gonna need to bring the Jesus. Issues won’t do it.

Don't see that many in Florida anymore.

And then I listened to the whole of the video. It's all there, at least, almost all. I'll just add this.

It's a whole different mind-set than when you grew up with and knew the same people all your life. When you've lived on the same land for generations, yeah, you are conservative--you want and expect things to change slowly, organically. You have a place in the natural order and that is where your family has always been, physically and mentally.

But America of 2019 is very little like America of, say, 1960. Family farms became less and less profitable as the scale of factory farms forced prices down and the kids could get better jobs in town. But the town factories closed and move out, too....taking those jobs further away. Farming has always been hard work, and dangerous---and injuries too often led to the end of the farm with no one to help. But where do you go when your whole life is on that one plot of ground? In that one small town, the place you've always lived? You worked so hard--who's to blame? Must be someone else; we're the same as we always were, so it's got to be....And here's where a good demagogue makes hay.

Last edited Thu Aug 15, 2019, 08:05 PM - Edit history (1)

What's killing rural America is Republicans and the people that vote for them. Those people skew towards being isolationists, xenophobes, ignorant of facts and bigots of every stripe. Each of who vote for people who pursue those interests and have no problem with destroying the area they represent to achieve those goals. As a by product any chance these areas have of growing are given up.

Once again, I reiterate, that ALL of the people killing rural America are Republicans. There are sane people out there and I feel for all of them. They are forward thinking folks suck out in these parts with crazy people. I'm about as urban as you can get and I'm seriously sorry that those troglodyte ass Republican fuckers outnumber you.

There are many reasons why things are going wrong for rural America, but it can't get better until either Republican voters get their collective heads out of their asses or enough people move in to change the voting balance.


Oh, as an aside, you know who is willing to move to these areas for the most part........


Republican voters are a scourge to everything.

Thank YOU!

Corporate America quit caring about America after the Raygun era, with M&A eliminating thousands of small factories. Used to be in small farm town around one-quarter of worker traveled a reasonable distance to good paying jobs in a plant. And, those plants had social connections with the towns where they were based and paid good taxes to the locals. M&A and globalization took most of them away.

Then, right-wing media (cable TV and talk radio) saturated those areas with corporate and right-wing dogma and brainwashed all the good country folks into supporting Republican policy and politicians.

Republicans want to turn everything in America into one big Walmart/Home Depot and any asset you use is rented.....

Where are all the jobs going to come from when big Ag owns all the farms, most manufacturing is overseas, all hospitals will be mega-hospitals only in big cities and all small retail is driven out of business?

KY.......

People don't realize how much damage to Reagan era merger boon did to rural America. Companies used to have plants in small towns, usually producing components or sub-assemblies for larger equipment or machines. The "seeking maximum value" foolishness that Reagan and his cronies bought in caused the smallest plants to get closed, those were the rural and small city ones, it was cheaper to offshore what they produced.

Even in my state of Florida, hospitals are consolidating into big hospital corporations and taking labs and nursing homes with them. All three large hospitals in my city are now part of giant hospital groups. There are still family farms, but their scale is shrinking and kids don't take over from parents, instead chosing to sell the land to developers.

It's not about politics
It's not about religion

It's about the evolution of our economy.

In the small town I grew up in, there were once

- 3 grocery stores
- several auto dealers
- several gas stations that also did service and repairs
- 2 radio/TV shops
- 2-3 small factories
- 2 bars
- a men's clothing story,
- at least one women's clothing store (maybe a couple)
- shoe shop
- two '5 & 10's
- hardware store
- pharmacy
- a watch/clock shop
- 1 (or 2) family dentist practices
- 1 (or 20 family doctor practices

I'm leaving things out, but you get the idea. It is nearly all gone. There are more efficient and less costly ways of doing all of these things, as long as your drive about 10 miles to a bigger town, or about 15 miles to a small city. I don't see any practical way this could have been prevented.

Healthcare? Education? Infrastructure? Public health? Regulations on regional pollution? Preparation for climate change? Gun safety laws? Healthy food choices? NO NO NO NO NO.

More military-style firearms? Brutal attitude toward gays, African Americans, Hispanics and women? Exclusionary Christianity? Waffle House and Dunkin‘ Donuts in massive quantities? Constant, smoldering anger over “brown people” who might receive some imagined government benefit? YES YES YES YES YES.

...el trumpo and his trade war is making things a hell of lot worse...

...I live in the Midwest...by me, 1/4-1/3 of farmer fields have been left fallow...this does not bode well for food prices or farmer income...

...I'm no expert, but el trumpo just needlessly compounded rural problems with his re-election China shtick...

...republicans...

...

Trumpism is the embodiment of their fierce ignorance - which mostly hurts PoC/immigrants far more than it does them - why they still support Trump.

Metro areas (across the country, not just on the 'coasts') are the base of the Dem party, due to those voters (most of whom are working class, not 'liberal elites') willingness to embrace diversity and cosmopolitanism.

Forget rural Wisconsin - properly turn out Milwaukee, Madison and surrounding suburbs and we win every time.

Look at Texas - a deep red state that is trending blue due not just to a diversifying electorate, but due to the growth of urban/suburban/college towns etc.

Far easier for Dems to craft a message that mobilizes our diverse, metro base rather than pandering to rural voters who will only vote Dem if we go back to being Dixiecrats, ie, abandoning civil rights, women's rights, abortion rights, gun control, etc. Fuck 'em.

with the large-scale mechanisation of agriculture; it made things easier for farmers in the short term, but it also made a lot of farm workers redundant, and eventually massive industrial farming enterprises like Monsanto/ADM/et al had economies of scale that independent farmers couldn't compete with; the GI Bill made college more accessible for rural kids who grew up on farms, and once they went to college, most of them left for the growing suburbs. In 1940 33% of the US population lived on a farm; today that number is under 2%. With the decline of rural economies and ongoing brain-drain from the best and brightest getting the hell out, it's no wonder that rural America is in the state it's in.

I think it’s been at least & years. Don’t know how much I’ll get out and mingle beyond family. Two sisters in Ohio. One is a Democrat, the other was a Trumpster at last election. We’ll see if she’s changed her mind. She’s a evangelical and I’ve heard they are even getting sick of Trump. I’m sure she’d at least be for gun control. I usually run into someone I grew up with when there. So many never leave. And, for good measure, my sister lives about 10 miles from Lordstown, her husband retired from there. I don’t think it had been at anything like full production for many years. When it got in the news I honestly thought it had shut down already. Maybe I’ll hear something about that, since Donny two scoops had promised locals he’d keep it open.

1st time since Asshole Rapist was elected. Nothing's changed.

My sister's still a hippy. My cousins are still Trumpist idiots.