#whiteruralrage — Public Fediverse posts

"The fact that rural areas have plenty of infidelity and teen parenthood (which occurs at significantly higher rates among rural Americans than city dwellers) doesn't necessarily make people reject traditional family values; it can make them cling to those values all the more fervently, as they consider them under constant, visible threat.”

~ Ibid.

#Trump #rural #white #WhiteRuralRage #democracy #morality #FamilyValues #TraditionalFamily
/45

“Even the common, and perfectly accurate, criticism that Trump doesn't practice what he preaches likely resonates in rural areas, where you often find a strong moral code that is regularly violated by many of the people who live there."

~ Ibid., pp. 149-150

#Trump #rural #white #WhiteRuralRage #democracy #morality #FamilyValues #TraditionalFamily
/44

My father's parents farmed in northwest Louisiana into his boyhood, and my mother's family lived in a small town in south central Arkansas. I know from rural and small-town white Southern culture – so don't even think about preaching to me, young hot-shot scholars who live in much more privileged and insulated places, about how you understand rural white voters and I don't. Or Schaller and Waldman don't.

Because I'm not listening.

#WhiteRuralRage #WhiteRuralVoters #Trump #Republicans #MAGA
/8

And I know that what Schaller and Waldman are reporting about rural white voters is right on target.

I grew up in the very rural, deep-red state of Arkansas, a state dominated to the hilt by white evangelical culture – and I grew up in that white evangelical culture as a Southern Baptist. I still live in Arkansas.

My four grandparents all grew up on farms in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas.

#WhiteRuralRage #WhiteRuralVoters #Trump #Republicans #MAGA
/7

I'm not impressed with folks willing to hop into bed with the hard right, whether they're academic or corporate media types. Opportunism never has held much attraction for me. Show me whom you're willing to hop into bed with, and you show me just who you are.

One reason I stop my ears when these folks talk is that I know Schaller and Waldman have a good fix on rural white voters, because my own roots lie in that very demographic.

#WhiteRuralRage #WhiteRuralVoters #Trump #Republicans #MAGA
/6

"Their response has made clear that there are unspoken rules about criticizing certain Americans—rules that get to the heart of the very case we have tried to make about the deep geographic divisions in our politics at this fragile moment in our nation’s history."

I say, let the hot-shot young scholars willing to play complicit games with the hard right play those games and see how far this gets them in the long run.

#WhiteRuralRage #WhiteRuralVoters #Trump #Republicans #MAGA
/5

As Paul Waldman writes, the ferocity with which these young scholars are insisting that people like Waldman and Schaller should keep their hands off the white rural voter question only proves a central point of the book: that white rural voters have been accorded an iconic, untouchable status in our culture accorded to no other groups.

Waldman writes,

#WhiteRuralRage #WhiteRuralVoters #Trump #Republicans #MAGA
/4

This is especially a surprise because these same scholars are willing to criticize all sorts of OTHER groups – but want to maintain the fiction that right-wing rural white voters are somehow off-limits and should be above criticism. It's also a surprise because Schaller and Waldman are crystal clear about their sympathy for rural white voters and the plight neoliberal economics has left them in.

#WhiteRuralRage #WhiteRuralVoters #Trump #Republicans #MAGA
/3

As Paul Waldman writes in the article I just linked, he and Schaller also knew their book would inflame the hard right – but it's been a surprise to see some "centrist" hot-shot young scholars side with the hard right and attack the book savagely, with claims it's unfair and unsympathetic to rural whites and the plight that facilitates their voting against their self-interest – over and over, deepening their immiseration.

#WhiteRuralRage #WhiteRuralVoters #Trump #Republicans #MAGA
/2

When Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman published White Rural Rage, I knew that we were in for a storm after I posted some excerpts from it on social media, and outraged folks embedded in the hard right trolled the hell out of the excerpts.

That kind of trolling, often organized and done as pack hunting, tells me a book or article has made a point that really deserves a hearing.

#WhiteRuralRage #WhiteRuralVoters #Trump #Republicans #MAGA
/1

https://newrepublic.com/article/180570/trump-rural-white-resentment-honest-assessment

"Rural white voters have long enjoyed outsize power in American politics. They have inflated voting power in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House and the Electoral College. …

The unfortunate fact is that polls suggest many rural white people’s commitment to the American political system is eroding."

~ Thomas Schaller

#WhiteRuralVoters #WhiteRuralRage #ElectoralCollege #Senate #MinorityRule
/1

https://theconversation.com/why-rural-white-americans-resentment-is-a-threat-to-democracy-224346