I'm going to keep posting this quote because it is too instructive not to.

“To violate law is to win the admiration of half the populace, who secretly envy anyone who can outwit this ancient enemy; to violate custom is to incur almost universal hostility.

For custom arises out of the people, whereas law is forced upon them from above.”

Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History

Let me introduce myself. I am not a performance artist. I am a vocal, well-known, lifelong liberal activist. I’ve walked the talk and paid the price. I live in rural America. I built a business in rural America. I raised my children in rural America. I’ve been elected in rural America – twice.

I tell you this, perhaps admit this, for a reason. If I cannot manage a polite tone all the way through this response, at least give me credit for trying. Better yet, try to hear what I am saying.

Why are urban liberals reaching out to conservatives? Why are they even thinking about it? Don’t you people understand what you’ve been told? Rural Americans voted for Barrack Obama twice!

Urban liberals alienated rural liberals long before they alienated rural conservatives. Rural liberals saw it coming, we tried to stop you, we worked our asses off trying to get you to listen, to hear us, to help us, to stay united. But you would not listen. You were so sure you could do it without us.

As things turned out, all the urban liberals in the nation could not hold the country together. If Donald effing Trump was not enough to convince you, that you cannot do this alone, then nothing will. But here I am, again, urging urban liberals to reach out to rural liberals and leave rural conservatives to us.

I’m not alone out here. We are hundreds of thousands strong and we hold the line. Or did you not notice the slim margin of Biden’s victory in swing states? Did you think that happened by accident? Fuck no! It happened because black people got out the vote inside the cities while rural liberals got out the vote outside the cities. So stop insulting us. Stop writing us off.

STOP talking to conservatives and start talking to rural and inner city liberals. Please, try to hear me. I am asking you to reach out to rural liberals and help us build a rural-urban coalition too strong to break again.

Our national divides are so many and so big, we are all, living on the edge of Grand Canyons, one mis-step away from falling off a cliff. Generational divides. Political divides. Income divides. Educational divides. Racial divides. Religious divides. Media divides. Family divides. Moral divides. Lifestyle divides. Health divides.

The Rural-Urban divide runs through every divide in our country.

Take prisons – for 50 years, the systematic incarceration of 2.3-million Americans connected residents of the inner-cities to residents in rural America. Today, our lives are deeply intertwined. What happens to people in your inner-cities, also happens to people outside your cities and never touches you at all. I bet, 95% of the liberals reading this have never seen the outside of a prison, let alone the inside. Let’s talk about these prisons, shall we?

Take gentrification – did you know that the gentrification system was perfected, out here, in rural America? I bet, this is the first time 95% of the liberals reading this, have even heard of rural gentrification.

We, rural and urban, liberals have a lot to talk about. We can start with… Resource extraction. Cheap labor. Prisons. Military installations. Waste disposal. Disenfranchisement. Violent oppression. Think about those words. Think hard. Now tell me, what form of government, do all those words apply to? That’s right. We are talking about colonialism. America’s inner cities and rural regions remain under colonial rule.

We need to talk about all these subjects, before we can talk about… Guns. Abortion. Religion.