In the popular imagination of many Americans, particularly those on the left side of the political spectrum, the typical MAGA supporter is a rural resident who hates Black and Brown people, loathes liberals, loves gods and guns, believes in myriad conspiracy theories, has little faith in democracy, and is willing to use violence to achieve their goals, as thousands did on Jan. 6.
According to a new book, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy, these aren’t hurtful, elitist stereotypes by Acela Corridor denizens and bubble-dwelling liberals… they’re facts.
The authors, Tom Schaller, a professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Paul Waldman, a former columnist at The Washington Post, persuasively argue that most of the negative stereotypes liberals hold about rural Americans are actually true.
I think the best solution to this issue is to change the calculus of representation. The article mentions that rural areas have out-sized representation, but it only discusses the senate. The house, as well, has out-sized representation for rural areas. For example, California has approximately one Representative for every 749,000 people, while Montana has one Representative for every 560,000 people.
I think that to truly honor the idea of “one person, one vote”, 3 steps need to be taken:
- Abolish the electoral college
- Dissolve the Senate, leaving the House as the only Legislative body
- Dramatically scale up the number of representatives in the House, and tie representative count directly to population.
I’d love to see, for example, 1 representative for every 250,000 people, or something similar. That would push us from the current 435 to about 1,340 representatives, which would definitely require a new chamber for sessions. But it would also mean that demographic groups would be much better represented, and it would be much more difficult for batshit insane people like Marjorie Taylor Green to get or remain elected. If you’re representing fewer people, those people have more incentive to vote.
And it’s not like growing the House is a far-fetched idea. In fact, it is baked into the constitution. Article I, Section 2 says that the number of representatives should be directly tied to the population, with each representative representing no more than 30,000 people, and that adjustments to the size of the House should occur after every 10 year census:
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.
And this is what happened, with the size of the House growing every 10 years up until, in 1929, they decided to keep it constant based on the figures from the 1930 survey. Having a cap on the number of representatives harms democracy. We can see the results in the decaying towns of rural America, and the batshit insane cultists who want to overthrow our government and install a fascistic theocracy.
I’m always amazed that a bunch of redneck, Southern, city haters decided that a rich, Manhattan developer was one of them
They simply deny everything you present to them. Facts do not matter. They are literally living in their own imagination and refuse to accept reality. It is time to reopen the mental institutions and throw them back in, along with the ACLU clowns who let them out to begin with.
Reagan shutdown the mental institutions.
Whatever hatred you have for the ACLU is based on your ignorance.
Don’t be. They’re rubes. Dumber than dogshit. Just pawns in a game.
Pawns, yes. Dumb, stupid as in an inherent trait, no. Just used and discarded by corporate America over the last 70 years or so.
It used to be, in the earlier part of the last century, that you could get as good an education in a small town as in a big city, and a lot of rural folk prided themselves on NOT being dumb hicks. WWI brought them out of the countryside by the scores and raised the expectations for all. These people went off to the wars, went to college on the GI Bill, and even came back to run their farms. This was the norm sixty years ago. This was the life my parents and grandparents lived, on both sides. They were never good at accepting differences in others, but education was HIGHLY valued, and sloth was the greatest failure of character anyone could imagine.
But now, look at corporate America, and especially BigAg, for stripping small towns of everything that made for good living and a pleasant life in rural communities. Walmart came and drove all the small stores out of business. Ace Hardware and others came and drove all the small hardware shops out. McDonalds and Waffle House came and drove all the little diners out of business. Fifty years ago, ALL the individual trades were well represented and thriving in rural areas, because everyone, rich or poor, still needed plumbers and blacksmiths and print shops and seamstresses, and it was difficult to find a town without its own proud newspaper.
All these small enterprises and career options and jobs at every skill level were replaced with what?
Sweet fuck all beyond fear, anger, drugs and debt.
Rural America is a wasteland filled with scared, angry, bitter people because WE, as a country, made it that way.
But they’re no different than the rest of us: give them a shot, decent jobs, decent education, futures to work for and they’re just like everyone else. That, and shut off the goddamn propaganda channels that have taken their righteous and well-earned anger and appropriated even THAT, turning it into emotional nooses for yet another set of rich men to control.
They are the cause of their own downfall and reject any ideas that might help them. They deserve no pity. They’ve earned their place in the intellectual hierarchy. The smart ones all leave for cities with no plans to return.
It’s like they’ve never seen a Pace Picante Sauce commercial before.
Man that unlocked a memory from my youth…
…get a rope
Get fucked. These people are products of poverty and the system that is designed to fail them.
This is just Democrat/Liberal PMC propaganda to help them feel better about their abandonment of the working class people of America for the benefit of their donor class.
Then they have a shocked Pikachu face when the people they left to stagnate and rot, turn out to be the shitty products of their environment aka the neoliberal hellscape of modern day America.
And now that they are shitty people, we can just forget all about how we got here, and put all the blame on them.
the people they left to stagnate and rot,
Part of the problem is that they continue to vote against their own interests, making it impossible for the left to help them, as they continue to vote Republican.
I fully agree with you here that we’re not having a conversation about what produces these people. I have parents that are quite terrible people, but I can see what made them that way. They’ve watched their savings and pensions evaporate and their job opportunities dwindle. They feel strongly that the government doesn’t support their interests and share the feeling that most Americans have that the system isn’t working. They don’t feel represented.
Supporting Trump and other ridiculous conservative positions is their way of lashing out. It’s not a productive response, but I feel that this disenfranchisement is a major driver that creates these people. They are Americans too, and we should be asking what we can do to build unity and improve America for everyone.
Yes, they are still responsible for their actions. However, I think that it’s equally bad to ignore the factors that are producing these people in mass. I prefer to view these people as misinformed children who rather hurt others than fix problems.
Except that they’re not misbehaving children, they’re fully grown adults with agency to make their own decisions. An asshole with shitty parents is still an asshole.
Supporting Trump and other ridiculous conservative positions is their way of lashing out.
Worshipping the personification of the system that fucked them over is the stupidest reaction possible.
True, but at the same time we have to remind ourselves that blindly following Trump hasn’t really hurt them yet. Not in any real, tangible sense, that is. As far as they can tell, the economy felt pretty good while he was in office, lots of the democratic norms he trashed had no impact on their lives, and most of the negative consequences the left has warned about haven’t yet materialized.
Covid “wasn’t his fault”, and all his crimes mostly amount to more political theater to them. Then when Biden took office two wars started, and illegal immigration skyrocketed. Even if none of that were his fault, he’s easy to blame for it.
Even supporters of the Third Reich followed blindly for a while because it put them on a cultural pedestal and stabilized their economy (kinda). Even when they watched trains carry millions of Jews to their deaths, they still shrugged and kept believing things were at least on the right track. It wasn’t until the fascist noose started closing around the necks of non-traditional enemies of the right, and until the hell of war showed up at their doorsteps, that they were shaken out of their slumber.
Trump simply hasn’t backfired on them yet, and until he does, they’ll continue to push the envelope into oblivion. I’m afraid he’ll have to burn the whole thing to the ground before his supporters will realize what a terrible mistake they made. And by then, it will be too late to recover.
Yeah I know they’re facts. I spend far too much time as a semi-passing trans woman in rural America. I think a lot of people overestimate the proportions of these people, I’ve met so many thoughtful, kind, and progressive hicks, hillbillies, and other rural sorts.
But the fact is I’ve never seen passive aggressive Bible verses on mailboxes in cities. I’ve never heard an educated urban coworker rant and rave about how blm protesters are funded by George soros. I’ve never seen city folk wear a mask that says “government control device” on it or carry a Bible with them onto a factory floor or put newsmax on the company share point.
And the armed city folk I know are far more likely to be responsible gun owners and not have a couch gun. Jesus fucking shit so many people talk about their fucking couch gun and they always act like it’s reasonable and normal and every gun owner has one instead of the reality that that’s not a safe place to have a gun. They also don’t realize that you shouldn’t advertise owning the only thing that gets more valuable when stolen, especially not by putting a bumper sticker saying one is in the fucking car.
The funny part is if one ever did want to attack these rural folks, the logical method would be use literal fire. A drone would prevent having to risk their weapons. Then let their ammo hoards do the work. Use the drone against anyone who flees.
They seem to think people want to break in and rape and pillage but they’re so over invested in fire power there is nothing much to steal and rape is more their thing than the left’s.
They are not ready for a real apocalypse scenario or an invading force because as you’ve noted, we all assume they are heavily armed and their defense begins and ends with their gun fantasies.
Holy shit, the couch gun is normal? Here I thought I was just seeing some weird and rare manifestation of growing up in a rural area as a kid.
It is only in rural areas that I see this shit. Maybe in some of the type of suburbs where people daily drive a pickup truck
Rural America is mostly a wasteland. It’s either where people of means deliberately choose to live away from society, or it’s people who are too ignorant, poor and/or drug-addled to have much choice. Neither group is going to be left-leaning… and that’s why when you look at electoral maps, you see all that red.
Pick a highway, any will do, travel along it and tell me what you see. I already know. One little failed town after another. They might have a dive bar or ancient gas station, but most commercial buildings will be long abandoned. If you need anything, you’ll have to find a decent city with a generic walmart, dollar general, mcdonalds, etc. Long gone are the mom-and-pop grocers, general stores, etc.
The irony is these are solid red Republican districts. Cities have major problems too, but they are full of action; plans, projects, hopes of a better future. There is no future for the average rural American.
They are frustrated and angry, as well they should be. Too bad they can’t see the forest through the trees.
I’ve always just imagined they’re more susceptible to manipulation. Primarily getting news by word of mouth, the TV, or radio.
That’s definitely probably part of it, but I think the biggest issue is homogeneity. Racism is hard when you can chat with black and brown people regularly. You aren’t hating some perceived immigrants but an actual human being that you know. Especially in places like the rural north and Midwest there was no mass movement of black people there. Similarly people will hate on Muslims in rural Kentucky but not in Dearborn Michigan.
And it’s not just racism. Queer people have always existed everywhere. But rural queer people are often much less open about it and often move away including before coming out. So people in bumfuck nowhere either dont have any queer people anymore, or their queer people are closeted or invisible.
Educated people also tend to prefer urban or suburban areas. Yeah maybe you’ve got a few lawyers or people who went to a local Christian college, and if you have a factory it has some engineers for sure. And you definitely have people who went to agricultural college. But you don’t have professors or scientists or people with humanities degrees. And notice those degrees I mentioned are overwhelmingly white and male programs. You can get them and not make black or brown or queer or even female acquaintances in school.
Headlines like this are problematic. I think we can all agree that Trump has done a lot of damage to democracy in the US, but are rural Trump supporters really more dangerous than urban Trump supporters? That claim is suspect, and the article provides no evidence to support it (it provides evidence that most Trump supporters are rural, which is a totally different claim.)
And saying that white rural Trump supporters are worse than non-white rural Trump supporters is an even more serious claim. It’s racially discriminatory, and seems totally baseless in this article.
The article has no evidence of these claims, and seems to indicate that the book doesn’t even make the claims of the headline.
(I’m not objecting to the claims that Trump supporters are mostly rural and mostly white. That is common knowledge.)
65% of rural America voted for Trump in 2020 nearly half 47% believe the election was stolen that’s half of all rurals not half of rural Republicans. Support for political violence is high with 1 in 3 Republicans nationwide and higher yet in rural America. It is easier for violence to take root where their is monocultural acceptance of the false premises used to justify it.
Our style of government is the largest threat to democracy.
We need to eliminate the electoral college, primaries, the Senate, President restricted to 1 term, perhaps 6 years, term limits for the House, All elections publicly funded, No reason elections cant be conducted via encrypted open source app, where voting can be done remotely and checks in place to ensure the vote has been tallied. No party affiliation on any campaign documents, signs, advertisements, no straight ticket voting.
Voting booths exist for a reason. They are to ensure the privacy of the person voting.
Otherwise all sorts of overbearing people can force others to vote per their direction.
Consider an abusive partner, or a extremist pastor, or a factory manager. In all cases they have power over others, and voting may be one of the few places where individuals can express their choices.
Voting booths are an outdated relic. We live in the most technologically advanced age ever and we should still rely on methods from the 1800s? What would be more convenient than pulling out your phone, wherever you are, being able to pull up details and platform of every candidate, make selections, then cast your ballot? Force people to vote on policies, not parties.
i like the idea of voting by encrypted app as an option, but lots of disenfranchised/disempowered folks can’t rely on that. by which i mean there are homeless folks without phones, and people with abusive families who lack privacy/safety to really utilize it the way we night intend.
According to a recent study 94% of the unhoused have a cell phone.
These days houses cost what cell phones used to cost and vice versa
The electorial college is a threat to democracy.
But neither political party wants to hand that control over to voters.
We need a critical mass of progressive politicians in office before we can fix the system, which is why they’re everyone else’s biggest political enemy
The funny thing is the electoral college was designed to counter exactly this event. In the case an absolute tyrant is going to get voted in, the electoral college is supposed to be the last chance to challenge it. But with the way the GOP is going, ain’t no one gonna challenge anything.
As they say, the devil will come bearing a cross wrapped in the American flag.
The GOP has shown, and proven, they will use any and all means necessary, including violence, to gain power. This isn’t theoretical anymore.
I’m so tired of my family members and other people that identify as “centralist” saying that both sides are bad.
No…only one side has used violence to overthrow an election. And that side’s political leadership said it was “normal political discourse”.
If both sides are the same, then you should be upset that “both sides” are violent.
Well, both sides are bad. Your argument is Trump is far worse. Which as an American you should feel that way. Because Trump would be fucking horrible for America. But if you were Palestinian, you’d definitely prefer Trump as he might pull support from Israel.
Thus, the problem today isn’t that there is a good guy, it’s choosing which genocide you support. Do you support the genocide of Palestinians or Ukrainians. Either way, you get to vote for genocide. Clearly the US is a shining example of democracy.
*Edit: Those who are wondering why Trump would support Palestine, it’s simple, he’s a Russian puppet. It serves him to switch sides to get more money from Russia. Obviously, Trump wouldn’t do something that doesn’t benefit him, but when you’re half a billion dollars in the hole, uncle Putin is going to come to save the day. If Trump wins of course.
Half the GOP wants to turn Gaza to glass. You can’t seriously think Trump would be better for Palestinians.
Since when did anyone day that? Stop shutting down any criticism of Biden. We have the right to be angry
if you were Palestinian, you’d definitely prefer Trump
From OP
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/us/politics/israel-republican-candidates-debate.html
GOP on Gaza. Glass may be a slight exaggeration, but they are 100% behind Israel.
There are valid criticisms of Biden. But trying to claim the GOP would be better for Palestine is horrendously naive at best.
I would like to know what DC Elseworlds dimension you’re talking about when you say Trump and the GOP would be an improvement or preferable to the Palestinians. There’s literally no evidence of that and decades of evidence, statements, and policies to the contrary.
Biden is trying to play politics, sidestep dealing with a genocide, and avoid trying to change the US stance with Israel. It’s a shit position he needs to change. He’s also receiving a ton of push back from within his own party and base.
Trump fully supports the genocide, the entire party he represents supports it, and would be glad to have Palestine wiped from the map. How anyone can say that Trump could be perceived as an improvement in any way is beyond me.
Firstly who cares who a Palestinian thinks about an American presidential election? Next Why on earth would you imagine that Trump would withdraw “support” from Israel. Our support is mostly selling them arms. He supports Israel. He supports their actions.
That was the story, but the real reason was the existing tyrants didn’t want to be overthrown either.
You have to have a realistic view of what we started out with to understand why 99% of the people in politics don’t want to change it.
At the end of the day, America has never really been a democracy. And the people who can change that just don’t want to.
It’s just easiest to hold onto that power when we think change is just an election away. It’s a lot of elections away, we can’t just win one and go home. It’s a war not a battle.
