What do Dems need to do to win the rural vote

[BumRushDaShow]

102. Well let me unpack this

I thought Dems went to the Iowa State Fair??

They go but the media focuses on the clown shows from the GOP circus and it can't be relegated to just that one.

I live in San Antonio and 4H is a thing, even here. My son won an award for his drip irrigation one year.

That's great! I know I have debated doing drip tubes on my outdoor potted plants but trying to get the water source there consistently has been a challenge. I have a pile of those "plant-gators" irrigation "donuts" that I bought but have procrastinated throwing them on my bigger pots in any case.

I was born and raised and still live in Philly and it's a "thing" here too, but goes through phases of whether it gets featured or not. We have an agricultural high school here - "W.B. Saul High School"

They have a farm property not far from where I live with horses and livestock, poultry, and produce.

I think most counties in the US have ag extensions.

USDA used to have an extension office in every County in the U.S. (I believe started as a result of the dust bowl under FDR) but over the years, they have consolidated them - particularly if you have a few very rural counties with only few thousand residents in the entire County, so the Agent would be responsible for a couple such Counties.

I believe Abraham Lincoln established land-grant universities and those programs filter locally.

I am an alumni of UMASS, which was such a university. Going up Rt. 9 towards Amherst was nothing but farms, moo moos, and baa baas. And then up popped the "weeds" of the University library and dorm towers of the SW Residential area.

In urban areas those programs include nutrition programs and master gardener programs. (Master gardeners tend to be very republican).

Not necessarily. Philly isn't just all stereotypical citified "nutrition programs". There is the full range of ag including things like apiaries/bee-keeping and backyard farming. The Master Gardeners here are the opposite of "very Republican" in this dark blue city. Plus this city, with its gardening heritage including the oldest indoor Flower Show in the country - the Philadelphia Flower Show run by the PA Horticultural Society, makes horticulture in general all the stronger, as they are deeply involved here in this city.

However, we can still work with these agencies/agents in urban areas because they do carry a message to their rural counter-parts.

We need to do more "leisure" activities with them. There is a tendency to go in swinging a political hammer and immediately start bringing up "politics" and "policies" -- much of which the average person doesn't focus on 24/7. Doing that immediately puts up the wall and they shut down. And if they bring it up, then wave it away.

I had 2 co-workers who could have been considered Limpballs-listening RW loons but we shared a love of other subjects so we just tip-toed around politics and focused on what we had in common.

If people see that you enjoy some of the same activities that they do, then the politics thing can come MUCH MUCH later.