A couple of years ago there was an editorial in the Atlanta Journal Constitution about how Democrats in the state were not paying attention to rural issues.
The article listed out (this is by memory so I may be wrong), closing health care facilities, job development in rural areas, getting workers for rural jobs, education opportunities and telecommunications (rural internet).
Because I had been doing some research I knew that Democrats had actually proposed bills on expanding medicaid, which would help rural health care, expanding access for business developement loans in both urban low income and rural areas, increased funding for low income school districts (which included most rural and urban districts) as well as increasing needs based funding for colleges. There was also a bill encouraging the Federal government to increase rural work visas for agriculture. And funding for the expansion of rural telecom expansion.
Every single one of the issues that there was a complaint about, had had one or more bills at the state level proposed by Dem legislators. Most didn't get real hearings or votes but a couple were passed and then vetoed by the republican governor.
None of that was in the editorial of course. But for those that paid attention, there had been active attention to rural issues by Democrats (in Georgia) because they were trying to expand their statewide appeal. But media largely was ignoring that outreach and rural voters themselves were largely unaware of the bills that were being proposed by Dems to address their needs and were being blocked by GOP legislators or GOP governor.
I’m thinking about Biden’s comments at the border last week. I’d love to see those democrats going into rural areas, describing what their proposal might do, and make clear that Republicans in the legislature refused to consider the bills.
Many of the issues that affect rural communities are not primarily “rural issues.” Loss of rural manufacturing is huge, is generally not offset by rural development loans, and is largely driven by larger economic trends. Financialization, private equity, lax enforcement of antitrust, and the huge shift to overseas manufacturing have resulted in tremendous rural job losses over the past five decades.
The shifts in political viewpoints are what you would expect when you no longer have white collar jobs for younger people. The demographics are older and less educated because most of the younger people don’t have the option to stay. It’s a predictable consequence of the relentless focus on moving economic development to the same few large cities. We too often look at the economic benefits of concentrating economic growth solely on large cities and completely ignore that political polarization is predictable and inevitable for that pattern of growth.
Rural areas tend to have different demographics than urban areas because of different opportunities for younger people. If you magically changed the economic opportunities in NYC to match rural areas, the city as a whole would vote like Staten Island, because the age and educational demographics would be different. It’s predictable, not a mystery.
The simplest fixes for rural polarization would be to encourage telecommuting, which is now widely practical in rural areas due to Starlink, and encourage on-shoring of manufacturing in rural areas where feasible. Stabilize or increase the population, which will happen if jobs are available, and you will naturally tend to moderate the politics.
The other issue, and I cannot overemphasize this, is how important it is to try to avoid condescension and stereotyping. I am from a highly educated family, work in technology, and have a solid six figure income. I am politically moderate and reasonably well informed. I also have lived in a rural area for decades and currently telecommute. I am not the type of person who was targeted in this book, but I was viscerally offended by it.
I felt it fell into stereotypes and bad logic in multiple arguments, such as the discussions of pickup trucks and revealed preferences, and it’s been publicly called out by at least one group of the researchers who they cite, in an editorial that is online over at Reason. As a result, I found myself having a hard time giving fair attention to the arguments when I could see what I believed to be errors in the first few chapters.
People don’t listen to you if they feel like you are bigoted against them, and fairly or unfairly, that was my immediate impression from the book.
One of your best posts. I'm looking forward to reading Schaller and Waldman's book.
I don't know if there's an encyclopedic name in rhetoric for this phenomenon, but if not then there should be: When a study reveals enough to the practitioners to prompt them toward some speculative generalizations--only operating candidly at the hypothetical rather than asserting that they're establishing a theory--easy accusations of stereotyping, condescension, or dismissal can tend to monopolize the responses. If a demographic is being examined, then the exceptions to that demographic can become a vocal minority who sabotage the study's credibility by claiming to represent an undocumented silent majority. There's a taste-driven tendency to the rebuttals, especially when they aren't going toe-to-toe with the original study's stats or analysis. "I don't like what you said about my region, so it's wrong," or, "You don't get to say that. Only we get to say that." Root for the home team is poison to a sound debate, and I think country mice and city mice have been at each other for too long over too little. Economic stratification, for instance, is a problem faced by about 90% of the nation and celebrated by the other 10%, with about 1% of the celebrants literally preparing to live in outer space.
This is great, and I plan to order this book. Curious: Did you ever read Tex Sample's book from 2018, "Working Class Rage, a Field Study?" Sample, a UM professor, has written often about rural Americans and spirituality.
A couple of years ago there was an editorial in the Atlanta Journal Constitution about how Democrats in the state were not paying attention to rural issues.
The article listed out (this is by memory so I may be wrong), closing health care facilities, job development in rural areas, getting workers for rural jobs, education opportunities and telecommunications (rural internet).
Because I had been doing some research I knew that Democrats had actually proposed bills on expanding medicaid, which would help rural health care, expanding access for business developement loans in both urban low income and rural areas, increased funding for low income school districts (which included most rural and urban districts) as well as increasing needs based funding for colleges. There was also a bill encouraging the Federal government to increase rural work visas for agriculture. And funding for the expansion of rural telecom expansion.
Every single one of the issues that there was a complaint about, had had one or more bills at the state level proposed by Dem legislators. Most didn't get real hearings or votes but a couple were passed and then vetoed by the republican governor.
None of that was in the editorial of course. But for those that paid attention, there had been active attention to rural issues by Democrats (in Georgia) because they were trying to expand their statewide appeal. But media largely was ignoring that outreach and rural voters themselves were largely unaware of the bills that were being proposed by Dems to address their needs and were being blocked by GOP legislators or GOP governor.
I’m thinking about Biden’s comments at the border last week. I’d love to see those democrats going into rural areas, describing what their proposal might do, and make clear that Republicans in the legislature refused to consider the bills.
Many of the issues that affect rural communities are not primarily “rural issues.” Loss of rural manufacturing is huge, is generally not offset by rural development loans, and is largely driven by larger economic trends. Financialization, private equity, lax enforcement of antitrust, and the huge shift to overseas manufacturing have resulted in tremendous rural job losses over the past five decades.
The shifts in political viewpoints are what you would expect when you no longer have white collar jobs for younger people. The demographics are older and less educated because most of the younger people don’t have the option to stay. It’s a predictable consequence of the relentless focus on moving economic development to the same few large cities. We too often look at the economic benefits of concentrating economic growth solely on large cities and completely ignore that political polarization is predictable and inevitable for that pattern of growth.
Rural areas tend to have different demographics than urban areas because of different opportunities for younger people. If you magically changed the economic opportunities in NYC to match rural areas, the city as a whole would vote like Staten Island, because the age and educational demographics would be different. It’s predictable, not a mystery.
The simplest fixes for rural polarization would be to encourage telecommuting, which is now widely practical in rural areas due to Starlink, and encourage on-shoring of manufacturing in rural areas where feasible. Stabilize or increase the population, which will happen if jobs are available, and you will naturally tend to moderate the politics.
The other issue, and I cannot overemphasize this, is how important it is to try to avoid condescension and stereotyping. I am from a highly educated family, work in technology, and have a solid six figure income. I am politically moderate and reasonably well informed. I also have lived in a rural area for decades and currently telecommute. I am not the type of person who was targeted in this book, but I was viscerally offended by it.
I felt it fell into stereotypes and bad logic in multiple arguments, such as the discussions of pickup trucks and revealed preferences, and it’s been publicly called out by at least one group of the researchers who they cite, in an editorial that is online over at Reason. As a result, I found myself having a hard time giving fair attention to the arguments when I could see what I believed to be errors in the first few chapters.
People don’t listen to you if they feel like you are bigoted against them, and fairly or unfairly, that was my immediate impression from the book.
One of your best posts. I'm looking forward to reading Schaller and Waldman's book.
I don't know if there's an encyclopedic name in rhetoric for this phenomenon, but if not then there should be: When a study reveals enough to the practitioners to prompt them toward some speculative generalizations--only operating candidly at the hypothetical rather than asserting that they're establishing a theory--easy accusations of stereotyping, condescension, or dismissal can tend to monopolize the responses. If a demographic is being examined, then the exceptions to that demographic can become a vocal minority who sabotage the study's credibility by claiming to represent an undocumented silent majority. There's a taste-driven tendency to the rebuttals, especially when they aren't going toe-to-toe with the original study's stats or analysis. "I don't like what you said about my region, so it's wrong," or, "You don't get to say that. Only we get to say that." Root for the home team is poison to a sound debate, and I think country mice and city mice have been at each other for too long over too little. Economic stratification, for instance, is a problem faced by about 90% of the nation and celebrated by the other 10%, with about 1% of the celebrants literally preparing to live in outer space.
This is great, and I plan to order this book. Curious: Did you ever read Tex Sample's book from 2018, "Working Class Rage, a Field Study?" Sample, a UM professor, has written often about rural Americans and spirituality.
No, I haven’t. He spoke to the Nazarene sociologists’ conference one year and was quite compelling.