by exploited » Fri May 26, 2017 2:58 pm
Possessing empathy and having the ability to imagine other ways of thinking is all you need to understand rural people. Consider:
1. Rural schools are getting closed in massive numbers, and students are being shipped into cities with newly built schools, all as perfectly good rural schools are closed in order to save some minor amount of taxpayer dollars.
2. Jobs are gone, both traditional and new. Once vibrant and peaceful downtowns are boarded up, and their kids are fleeing to the city.
3. Any remaining political power they have depends upon rural areas voting in a block. Unless a sufficient number of rural areas switch to Democrats, it makes no sense for them to start voting other than GOP, and even if enough did, the Democrats will always value cities more than rural areas, for obvious reasons.
4. Vast areas are governed by the feds, who are largely unresponsive to local needs.
5. Meth. Lots and lots of meth.
Basically, these people have been abandoned, and their communities left to rot, because all levels of government are pushing people into cities. Their concerns are ignored and every available dollar goes to infrastructure in cities, not rural areas. Of course they grow hateful. Of course they think the cities are full of elitists - because they are. The disdain shown to people from the country is massive in the US. Even if they have liberal political beliefs, why would they vote for candidates who don't care about them, and look down on them? At least Republicans will put on a show of giving a shit.