How Can Dems Win Back Rural America? Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren Agree on the Answer

[Politicub]

16. I'm from rural America and I say

let it languish and place more focus on abolishing the electoral college.

I know that isn’t a popular sentiment. But where I’m from, it’s a heavily government-subsidized cauldron of simmering right-wing shit.

I’m here now to visit my parents.

Oh sure, it’s beautiful. The mountains are covered with lovely green trees. The creek bubbling in front of their house looks like a postcard.

But peel back the layers. In town today I saw a sign in front of a store with something about god making male and female along with a nonsensical Bible verse. I wish people weren’t so chicken and just say what they really feel... that they are bigots and are so showy, that they feel need to make a sign about it. There is this kind of thing all over.

There is so much that government subsidizes here. In the local paper there was an article about how some government agency was ready to take applications for some ag subsidy. Almost everyone is on some kind of government assistance.

I support government assistance. I think it’s the right and moral thing to do since not everyone is privileged. Most kids get free lunch at school, and they ought not go hungry. But most of the people vote for the most conservative representatives. Candidates out and out say that they’re against this program and that, and they want to cut food stamps and other aid for the neediest, but it doesn’t matter.

There has been a brain drain happening for at least 30 years. The kids who go to college by and large do not come back to put down roots. That is my story, too.

The top employer is an Indian casino. The hospital is all but closed. It is more of a place for seriously ill patients to get triaged before they are airlifted to a regional mega-hospital. There used to be two hospitals in the county. Now there’s just this pseudo hospital and people complain about how awful it is. It goes without saying that the state didn’t accept the Medicaid expansion.

I don’t see how we’re going to win over people with a message. Even the most finely crafted, logical and simple message will be rejected. People wrap themselves with hate like a warm blanket.

This is in the southeast. Perhaps farm country is different, but I doubt it. We need a food supply so flyover country should not be ignored.

But we should not be beholden to them for our government policies. I know we must get enough electoral votes by winning swing states and getting democrats elected down ballot, too. I’m not against continuing to subsidize their lifestyle. But I don’t want to live by their backward ways.

I can’t wait until I get back to the city. People have to learn to live in a diverse population, and viscerally feel how important infrastructure and shared services are. It’s a travesty and a flaw in our system that we are governed by geography rather than what most people want.