Why do Democrats do so poorly with rural voters?

[PDJane]

267. Farming is the original collective.

I remember the threshing gangs; I cooked for them. When it was time to harvest wheat and corn, the folks with combines would provide the machinery in return for labour from other farm folks on their own farms. I remember helping to bake pies, peel potatoes and knead bread for those meals, and those men can eat.

If you want to build a barn or finish a quilt or clear a field of rocks........all of that is accomplished communally, and always has been. People in cities do value collectivism, but they are less likely to be really social, depending on the number of people they run into every day. I live in a cooperative, and if I don't want to see anyone, they won't be there....and they don't gossip the way that small towns and rural areas do. I would guarantee that there might be about four people in this building who know what my career is, and the rest don't ask. Mind you, my mother has scalded her hand (86 year olds don't deal well with second and third degree burns, I have to tell you. She is recovering fairly well, thanks.) and there have been meals and magazines and puzzles and other things to do that arrive in bags on the door handle! I can't remember that happening on the farm; three kids and a great uncle nursed my mother through a bout of what they used to call 'blood poisoning' from an infected hand, and I don't remember seeing a soul. I do, however, remember the church calling my mother to ask for pies or pastries for a bake sale the week after we lost our home to arson, when my mother was still washing everything we owned. No, we weren't contributing, and no, she wasn't best pleased.

In fact, to be honest, I was grateful to move to the city in order to get the privacy that wasn't available in a rural area. All is not always how it seems!