letters to the editor, doing speeches to community groups, doorbelling, being at community events and when needed counter protesting the fuckers!

...is a huge part of this. Trips to rural areas have shown that Fox (not really) News has become the only news network available in many places that get basic cable. The reason for this is Murdoch Crazy-as-a-Fox Mogul controls many popular channels as well as DirecTV. Roger Ailes, a propaganda chief, runs the entertainment news arm as we all know. Even though they exist in a bubble--even running their own "news awards" show that acknowledges their popular cast as though they are real journalists, the rural populace trusts them as their only source of information about what is going on in this country and the world. They reinforce and reproduce the spoon-fed idiot ideas (GOP ideology) every time they get together with friends and neighbors in their communities--because they are all receiving the same messaging. No wonder they are insecure about "liberalism" and "progress"--and believe that our president only won because of "dead people voting." They are fearful of a "socialist agenda" meant to "destroy America" because that is what they are being deliberately led to believe.
In order to end the "rightwing problem" we need to diversify information getting to rural America--we need to plug them in to important information not tainted with the rightwing narrative. Our fight is with the media and the reach of the moguls behind it. We need ethical journalism.

Not easy

giving them actual facts? That we don't present ourselves as living in fear? Dean's 50 state approach produced. It produced a President and votes. It got people to the polls. In 2010, the left decided to do a milder version of what the Teabaggers did and sat on their votes. I was counter productive.

In our red area of the state in both of the last Presidential elections, we turned our county blue. The Dems via the President's campaign brought the campaign to the rural areas. Young supporters and workers came here to help the struggling local party and helped move the message. People started listening and there were fewer Fox viewers. I'd run into people at the post office (our only place where people can meet with any regularity since we have few common areas) and I gradually hear them talk about what they had heard Rachel Maddow say or Keith Olbermann or some other person with a larger microphone. We emailed our brains out. Had meetups with cookies and coffee in people's homes. We networked. We looked for common ground and always without rancor. Not everything has to be a pitched battle. It can be done. We alll live here and there is no reason why we cannot put politicos (and they are part of the problem) out of work.

attitude toward the poor is just wrong.

those in the middle class living in gated communities. The ones who see themselves as separate and consider themselves to be carrying the burden of the greater society rather than considering that all contribute.