The rural perspective is missing here. Rural America went from the pride of the nation to trash. Three generations later, rural Americans were fed up with the stereotype shoved down their throats 24/7.
Along came Donald Trump who talked down to the elites and talked about the working man like he was a hero. Trump appealed to rural pride and won hearts and minds.
Trump appeals to people who pride themselves on their rugged individualism, self-sufficiency and their community. Very few people realize how much value rural people place on their community and their role in those communities. Be it a tiny store in a holler, a town, or small city, rural people take pride in “the community” they built. Something bad happens in a rural community, like a hurricane, flood or fire and everyone is out of bed, loading tools and supplies and driving off to help. Every time that happens in my community, I get a case of goosebumps, and warm fuzzies.
Watching WalMarts, Targets, Kmarts, fast food joints and strip malls put their neighbors out of business and leave entire towns boarded up took its toll. Watching global corporations put farmers and ranchers out of business, while polluting the food supply made rural people angry, resentful and frightened. Believe you me, farmers and ranchers do not eat the shit they sell in grocery stores.
You’d have to live in a rural community to truly grasp the ethos at work in Trump’s appeal.
Rural people do not appreciate the government telling them how to train race horses… or clean stalls… or make bourbon barrels... or make bourbon… or groom dogs, cats and horses… or take care of homes, churches, streets, cemeteries and public buildings that have been in continuous use for 200 years – or more… or manage wildlands, crop land, timber land, streams, ponds, lakes and rivers that have served their communities for hundreds of years...
I have no proof, but I bet, a huge percentage of Trump’s suburban, urban, middle- and upper-class base, are expats – aka rural refugees, exiles, emigrants – with deep family roots in the rural ethos. In 2016, I asked dozens of rural people what they saw in Trump. Since I’m a local I got serious answers. To my surprise, people told me the same story – repeatedly. They loved the part of the tv show, The Apprentice, where Trump fired pompous middle manager Ivy League types. They absolutely loved it – every single time. Everyone who told me that story had a real life job where some know-nothing Ivy League jerk got hired, and turned their workplace into hell. Today, these people still see Trump as the ONLY man who can fire these elite know nothings.
When people say rural voters vote against their own interests, I always think, you don’t know what interests us – at all. Just to be clear, I am a well-known and very vocal rural liberal.
