One of the explanations for Trump’s victory is that “Rural America” has been ignored and forgotten by our government, and so a majority of voters in rural areas picked the only outsider/change candidate that was available. In this telling it just so happens that the outsider they voted for is a racist, misogynist, xenophobe. Whatever voters’ reasons, that premise is false. First, it’s somewhat lazy to generalize about such people as a whole, as I’m now doing, because not everyone in any area votes the same way. Second, rural areas are over-represented in our congress and in their voting power for the president. They consistently receive more in federal spending than they pay in taxes. This wasn’t a protest vote to get the attention of our ruling class. Rather, it was a vote to preserve the privileges the (mostly white, male, and native born) ruling class gives them and to warn us off of challenging that status-quo.
Our rural areas are depopulating, but this is an inevitable consequence of economic and technological growth that is occurring the world over. And who is supposedly being pandered to at the expense of Rural America? Urban America? Our cities, excluding the largest few, have suffered from depopulation and job loss as well. Both urban and rural areas would be worse off if people weren't able to move away to find opportunities elsewhere, and better off if we were more accepting of immigrants. The residents of urban areas also feel that no one from outside cares how bad things get, but they lack an equal voice in our system.
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