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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAn Insider's View: The Dark Rigidity of Fundamentalist Rural America
An Insider's View: The Dark Rigidity of Fundamentalist Rural AmericaIn deep-red white America, the white Christian God is king.
By Forsetti's Justice / AlterNet March 13, 2017
As the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump is being sorted out, a common theme keeps cropping up from all sides: "Democrats failed to understand white, working-class, fly-over America.
Trump supporters are saying this. Progressive pundits are saying this. Talking heads across all forms of the media are saying this. Even some Democratic leaders are saying this. It doesnt matter how many people say it, it is complete BS.
Rural Christian white Americans have let anti-intellectual, anti-science, bigoted racists like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, the Stepford wives of Fox, and every evangelical preacher on television into their systems because these people tell them what they want to hear and because they sell themselves as being like them. The truth is none of these people give a rats ass about rural Christian white Americans except how they can exploit them for attention and money. None of them have anything in common with the people who have let them into their belief systems with the exception that they are white and they speak the language of white superiority.
Gays being allowed to marry are a threat. Blacks protesting the killing of their unarmed friends and family are a threat. Hispanics doing the cheap labor on their farms are somehow viewed a threat. The black president is a threat. Two billion Muslims are a threat. The Chinese are a threat. Women wanting to be autonomous are a threat. The college educated are a threat. Godless scientists are a threat. Everyone who isnt just like them has been sold to them as a threat and theyve bought it hook, line and grifting sinker.
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/rural-america-understanding-isnt-problem
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)brooklynite
(94,736 posts)Bottom line is that President Obama got a share of votes in rural Counties in the battleground States...and in 2016 those numbers plummeted. It wasn't because of religion, and it certainly wasn't because of race. It was because Clinton was seen as a Washington insider who wasn't going to deal with their economic problems any better than other Washington insiders (of either Party) had done in previous years.
Moostache
(9,897 posts)Period.
She was treated abysmally throughout her entire life by the patriarchal social system and the campaign and it's outcome were entirely consistent with this reality.
Jeebus-loving misogynistic racists, cloaked in undue deference to their sincerely held beliefs came out in bigger numbers to vote AGAINST "that woman" than for any other reason.
Period.
The so-called conservative Christian is a drag on the nation and a boil on the ass of humanity. The sooner that thing is lanced and drained, the sooner real healing is possible, but not one minute sooner because the.pus it's containers is part and parcel to the infection.
Period.
Bettie
(16,126 posts)A. A woman
and
B. "That Woman".
Twenty-five plus years of a constant stream of negative reporting and continual investigations gives people the idea that she's untrustworthy and that can not be easily overcome with mere facts. That she's never been found guilty of anything doesn't matter, the opinions have already been set.
dalton99a
(81,590 posts)TNLib
(1,819 posts)People in the rural south aren't inherently evil but they are ignorant and insulated. I worked in a rural town as a software developer in North Georgia. My co-workers were all white males. They were nice but extremely insulated. One man told me he never saw a black person until he was 16.
It's weird as hell how different people are in these small communities and even if they live 30 minutes from a larger diverse city, they refuse to travel to it because they're afraid.