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

[farmbo]

131. It isn't a failure of Democratic policy, but of media and messaging.

I spend many of my days traversing rural counties for my work. The one common denominator in each of the areas where Trump dominated is the toxicity of the airwaves and commercial media messaging in those areas.

Limbaugh, Hannity, Weiner and Levine dominate those rural AM (and increasingly FM) radio signals, and it's common for many businesses to play those stations throughout the business day. For those local auto dealers, tire shops, and restaurants with TVs, they're invariably tuned to FOX news.

And as if this wasn't a sufficient drumbeat, don't overlook the right wing religious stations. Their tax-exempt status entitles them to echo the right wing talking points (with a healthy dose of fear and damnation thrown in) at 30% lower operating overhead costs.

This is the background music that saturates rural America.

And make no mistake, it is classic, conspiracy- driven propaganda, designed to stoke a sense of faux victim hood in their (heroic!) listeners while breeding resentment against the vile "others".

It's an impressive- and effective--media infrastructure. But it's replicable. Republicans and their allies in the media (CearChannel, Sinclair, News Corps, etc) have to subsidize these signals and twist the arms of local GOP businessmen to buy ads on Limbaugh and their other increasingly unpopular shows, but they do what they have to do to keep them on the air, particularly during election cycles.

And this is where the Coastal bias of the DNC messaging gurus comes into play. They have declined to replicate it, or to even sanction a serious effort to push back against it. Because (doncha know) all future elections will be determined by eager Millennial voters who get their information from the internet then come out to vote in droves for progressive candidates.

No need to develop a strategy to reach older white Dudes in F150 pickups with AM radios.