Rural America Is Desperate. It Is Also Part of the Democratic Base. Don't Abandon Them.

[peggysue2]

37. This!

Hits it squarely on the nose. You can drag the horse to the trough but you can't make him drink.

People who voted for Trump, voted for the performance, the tough guy talk, the soaring nostalgia for a country that never was and . . . the bigotry. Which was on full display at all those rallies.

The vast majority of the Trump support base were convinced that undeserving people were getting something that they weren't. I read an interview before the holiday with a group of T voters who all insisted that the reason the ACA was too expensive was because lazy, shiftless people (easily translated as POC) were getting a free ride while they (real Americans) were paying through the nose. They never considered that any and all improvements to the healthcare program were systemically undermined by the GOP, the members of whom love screaming:REPEAL without any viable replacement. Why? Because they don't give a shit, because the politics might favor the Democratic party and because the money spigot from all those medical lobbyists would be turned off tight.

Unless there's a fast, effective way to teach critical thinking in rural America, the Democratic Party would be better served concentrating on unifying its own base and countering on-going voter suppression and gerrymandering. I can feel empathy for anyone in desperate straits. But if you continue to vote against your own interests out of willful blindness, bigotry and resentment, there's not much the Dems can do. But grow their own support as an effective counter-balance. And hope others will turn off the right-wing propaganda.

Sorry to sound cold-hearted but the decision to vote for Trump and his Big Lie is going to have disastrous consequences. For everyone.