We say very clearly that rural America is hurting. But we refuse to justify attitudes that some scholars try to underplay.
Something remarkable happened among rural whites between the 2016 and 2020 elections: According to the Pew Research CenterāsĀ validated voter study, as the rest of the country moved away from Donald Trump, rural whites lurched toward him by nine points, from 62 percent to 71 percent support. And among the 100 counties where Trump performed best in 2016, almost all of them small and rural, he got a higher percentage of the vote in 91 of them in 2020. Yet Trumpās extraordinary rural white supportāthe most important story in rural politics in decadesāis something many scholars and commentators are reluctant to explore in an honest way.
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What isnāt said enough is that rural whites are being told to blame all the wrong people for their very real problems. As we argue in the book, Hollywood liberals didnāt destroy the family farm, college professors didnāt move manufacturing jobs overseas, immigrants didnāt pour opioids into rural communities, and critical race theory didnāt close hundreds of rural hospitals. When Republican politicians and the conservative media tell rural whites to aim their anger at those targets, itās so they wonāt ask why the people they keep electing havenāt done anything to improve life in their communities.
Not to poo poo your fantasy or whatever, but this sounds like every tech broās ābuild an island countryā when they get their first billion.
Most cities werenāt built where they were purely by chance or coincidence. Infrastructure is hard and complicated to build, and relies on natural resources being somewhat available locally in most cases.
Even if you manage to build it, thereās no guarantee they will come.
In the very last sentence. And especially in the context in which we were discussing. Itās literally the opposite of that. Likely buying up rural land that had already been a town at one time but ceased to be because of industrialization. And revitalizing and rebuilding it in a more socialist / communist model along with other interested people. But still integrating into the larger society and environment around it. Building A Better Community from within. Not some outside Island to play King on.
All these people fantasizing about 15 minute towns and cities here in the United states. Letās fucking go letās do it. Solar panels, windmills, tight high-density communities. The power that be donāt want it. We gotta do it ourselves.
So you rebuilding the railroad? A lot of small towns only existed because of the railroad. Now some of them only exist because of the interstate.
A lot of towns are rotting because thereās no real reason for them to exist anymore, and for some of them there wasnāt a real reason besides a truck stop for them to have existed in the first place.
If itās needed sure. But again thereās other avenues other ways. However youāre focusing on rebuilding them how they used to be. Not rebuilding them better or anew.
These days weād probably be better off building somewhere close to Interstate access. And then worrying more about data access. Than something like building our own private Railroad. Or railroad access in general.