flyover cty real Am

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</div><div>see main rural farm</div><div>
</div><div>sorta belated, disambig</div><div>
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<div>=</div><div>an 2 23</div><div>
</div><div>From <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/j-d-vance-s-twitter-trolling-new-york-city-trump-ncna1273888" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio</a>

to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a frequent claim among far-right GOP

culture warriors is that urban and suburban Democrats disrespect and

ignore rural areas. A recurring theme in the MAGA movement is that rural

areas are “the real America” and that major urban centers are not. Right-wing

media outlets such as Fox News, Fox Business and Newsmax TV, although

dominated by urbanites, regularly and eagerly feed the resentment and

anger of rural Americans. But liberal economist and syndicated New York

Times opinion columnist Paul Krugman, in a <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/can-anything-be-done-to-assuage-rural-rage/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">late January column</a>, argues that the “justifications for rural resentment don’t withstand scrutiny.”“Rural

resentment has become a central fact of American politics — in

particular, a pillar of support for the rise of right-wing extremism,” <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/can-anything-be-done-to-assuage-rural-rage/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">Krugman explains</a>.

“As the Republican Party has moved ever further into MAGAland, it has

lost votes among educated suburban voters. But this has been offset by a

drastic rightward shift in rural areas, which in some places, has gone

so far that the Democrats who remain face intimidation and are afraid to

reveal their party affiliation.”READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/rural-america-gop-life-preserver/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked">Political science experts explain how rural voters’ growing 'resentment' fuels a rural-urban 'apartheid'</a>Krugman goes on to <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/can-anything-be-done-to-assuage-rural-rage/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">lay out some reasons</a>

why the “perception” that rural areas are “ignored by policymakers” and

“don’t get their fair share of resources” is “largely wrong.” “I’m

sure that my saying this will generate a tidal wave of hate mail, and

lecturing rural Americans about policy reality isn’t going to move their

votes,” <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/can-anything-be-done-to-assuage-rural-rage/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">Krugman argues</a>.

“Nonetheless, it’s important to get our facts straight. The truth is

that ever since the New Deal, Rural America has received special

treatment from policymakers. It’s not just farm subsidies, which

ballooned under President Donald Trump to the point where they accounted

for around 40 percent of total farm income. Rural America also benefits

from special programs that support housing, utilities and business in

general.”Krugman points out that although rural areas of the

United States have some legitimate complaints — poverty, job losses —

those areas “disproportionally benefit” from “major federal programs”

because they “have a disproportionate number of seniors receiving Social

Security and Medicare.”“Because rural America is poorer than

urban America,” Krugman observes, “it pays much less per person in

federal taxes. So, in practice, major metropolitan areas hugely

subsidize the countryside. These subsidies don’t just support incomes,

they support economies…. What about rural perceptions of being

disrespected? Well, many people have negative views about people with

different lifestyles; that’s human nature.”READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/french-election-donald-trump-stranglehold" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked">How France’s election mainstreamed an extremist and mirrored Donald Trump’s stranglehold on Rural America</a><a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/can-anything-be-done-to-assuage-rural-rage/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">Krugman notes</a>

a major double standard in U.S. politics: Republicans can get away with

insulting urban areas, but Democrats won’t dare insult rural areas.The <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/can-anything-be-done-to-assuage-rural-rage/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">New York Times columnist writes</a>, “‘I have to go to New York City soon,’ <a href="https://twitter.com/JDVance1/status/1414029247446982658" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">tweeted J.D. Vance</a>

during his senatorial campaign. ‘I have heard it’s disgusting and

violent there.’ Can you imagine, say, Chuck Schumer saying something

similar about Rural Ohio, even as a joke?”READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/texas-agriculture-department-farmer-suicides/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked">Texas Agricultural Department seeking annual $500,000 for mental health line as farmer suicide rates rise</a>Read Paul Krugman’s <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/can-anything-be-done-to-assuage-rural-rage/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">full New York Times column at this link</a> (subscription required). 
</div><div>
</div><div>=
</div><div>=</div><div>an 1 23 maya</div>The

rural-urban voter divide has plagued the United States for nearly three

decades, and only continues to increase. For decades now, rural

districts are typically governed by Republican House members, while

suburban and urban areas tend to be governed by Democrats.
New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/25/opinion/rural-voters-republican-realignment.html/" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">spoke with</a>

many political science experts who have done extensive research on how

rural voters’ growing "resentment" continues to fuel a rural-urban

“apartheid,” and why it will likely persist for years to come. MAGA politician Ron Johnson’s Senate win over Democrat Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin last year, Edsall wrote, is the one of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/25/opinion/rural-voters-republican-realignment.html/" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">best case studies</a> for “rural realignment and the role it plays in elections.” READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/how-republicans-immiserate-their-states/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked">Republicans don’t serve their states. They immiserate them</a>Johnson

is a Trump-backed lawmaker who staunchly denies the reality of climate

change, has referred to Jan. 6 rioters as “people who love this country,

that truly respect law enforcement,” and proposed cuts to social

programs. <a href="https://www.wpr.org/election-results-wisconsin-senate-ron-johnson-mandela-barnes" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">Still, he has managed to win</a> reelection. Edsall talked to Marquette Law School scholar Craig Gilbert who <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/analysis/2022/12/19/wisconsin-remains-politically-purple-but-the-way-to-win-is-changing/69734911007/" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">found in his analysis</a>

that Johnson’s votes were much lower in the “red and blue suburbs of

Milwaukee” compared to his 2016 race, but the group of voters that

ultimately steered his win came from “white rural Wisconsin.”He won the rural vote by 25 points in 2016, but that increased to 29 points this time around, leading him to victory. University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Katherine Cramer summarized the reasons for this shift in her study “<a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo22879533.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">The Politics of Resentment</a>:

Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker,"

highlighting three points: “A belief that rural areas are ignored by

decision makers, including policymakers; a perception that rural areas

do not get their fair share of resources; and a sense that rural folks

have fundamentally distinct values and lifestyles, which are

misunderstood and disrespected by city folks.”READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/proud-boys-2657735123" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked">GOP voters have bought into an 'apocalyptic, grotesquely distorted' view of 'Blue America': Paul Krugman</a>Edsall <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/25/opinion/rural-voters-republican-realignment.html/" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">likens rural voters’ resentment</a>

towards Democrats to the “upheaval in the white South after Democrats,

led by President Lyndon Johnson, won approval of the Civil Rights Act of

1964.”
But the start of the rural-urban split, according to Boston College political scientist David Hopkins's book “<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/red-fighting-blue/5BED65A27BC1399564B4A5863A1E899C" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" title="" class="rm-stats-tracked">Red Fighting Blue</a>: How Geography and Electoral Rules Polarize American Politics,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/25/opinion/rural-voters-republican-realignment.html/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">began during</a>

a “conflation of cultural and racial controversies starting in the late

1980s and accelerating into the 1990s,” such as two major Supreme Court

abortion rulings and the 1993 debate over gay people in the military.However,

Hopkins says the milestone that really solidified the divide was the

1992 presidential election, as it started “the emerging configuration of

‘red’ and ‘blue’ geographic coalitions that came to define contemporary

partisan competition.”After the election, the percentage of

House Democrats representing suburban districts increased by nearly 20

percent while Democratic seats in rural districts dropped from 24

percent to 5 percent. READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/monopolies-slowly-killing-rural-america" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked">Robert Reich: Agricultural 'monopolies are slowly killing rural America'</a>Hopkins wrote in a 2019 study, “<a href="https://www.cookpolitical.com/sites/default/files/2019-09/Hopkins%20Suburbanization%20APSA%202019.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">The Suburbanization of the Democratic Party, 1992-2018</a>,

that “Democratic suburban growth has been especially concentrated in

the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, reflecting the combined

presence of both relatively liberal whites (across education levels) and

substantial minority populations, but suburbs elsewhere remain

decidedly, even increasingly, Republican in their collective partisan

alignment.”One of the reasons Republicans continue to pull in

rural voters, Jordan Gest of George Mason University gathered in recent

research, is that “Republicans are now beginning to attract

socioeconomically ascendant and white-adjacent members of ethnic

minorities who find their nostalgic, populist, nationalist politics

appealing (or think Democrats are growing too extreme).”Harvard

postdoctoral research fellow Kristin Lunz Trujillo and University of

Minnesota Ph.D candidate Zack Crowley, in their research found, “the key

factor driving rural voters to the Republican Party: anger at perceived

unfair distribution of resources by government, a sense of being

ignored by decision makers or the belief that rural communities have a

distinct set of values that are denigrated by urban dwellers.”The

scholars also found that, “culture differences play a far stronger role

in determining the vote than discontent over the distribution of

economic resources.” And stances on what they call symbolic issues

“positively predict Trump support and ideology while the more material

subdimension negatively predicts these outcomes, if at all."
===
qanon and trumpista pseudo-populism on steroids /runaway mode? cascade doom hype fear anger soc medder volk is pseudo-populism?<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/maga-nazi">https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/maga-nazi</a>hnn
<a href="https://www.americanpurpose.com/author/william-a-galston/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">William A. Galston</a>'s recent essay <a href="https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/the-bitter-heartland/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">"The Bitter Heartland"</a> begins, "We are living in an age of resentment . . . [that] shapes today's politics." The more I read of it (and more about it later), the more the great resentments of Hitler's followers came to mind. They resented rich Jews, the victorious Allies who in 1919 had imposed the "unfair" postwar Versailles Treaty [TPP clinton trade deal mex cda] upon them, civilian German politicians who had signed the treaty, communists, who had taken over in Russia and were a rising force in Germany, and the "decadent" godless ways of Berlin, as hinted at in the play and film Cabaret.The Versailles Treaty forced Germany to give up land to their west and east and also their overseas empire. It also imposed strict limits on its armed forces and weapons. But perhaps most bothersome of all to the average German was the imposition of war reparations, which many Germans believed contributed to their great financial agonies. This was especially true during the great inflation of 1923 – by then a loaf of bread could cost billions of Reichsmarks – and the Great Depression. Historian Peter Fritzsche <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-First-Hundred-Days-Embraced/dp/154169743X" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">notes</a> that "between 1929 and 1932, one in three Germans lost their livelihoods. At the same time, young people had no prospect of entering the labor force . . . German farmers suffered terribly as commodity prices slumped."Fritzsche also relates some of Hitler's early tactics like boycotts that "relied on entrenched resentments against allegedly wealthy, rapacious, or tricky Jews," and he writes that "the Nazi leader appealed to popular fears and resentments and transformed them into final judgments and the promise of direct remedial action." Moreover, Hitler used a we-versus-they approach, "pitting patriotic Germans against subversive Communists, Aryans against Jews, the healthy against the sick, the Third Reich against the rest of the world."Almost a century after Hitler came to power in 1933, some of Donald Trump's followers remind us of Hitler's crowds. On at least one occasion, after Hitler ranted about the <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/the-november-criminals-1221093" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">"November criminals"</a> (German politicians who negotiated the war-ending armistice of 1918), the audience cried out, "Hang them up! Bust their ass!" In both the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/10/trump-time-capsule-140-lock-her-up/503684/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">2016</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/10/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-justice-department/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">2020</a> campaigns, Trump crowds (in response to their hero's words about Hillary Clinton) shouted "lock her up."Already during the 2016 campaigning, writer George Saunders <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/11/george-saunders-goes-to-trump-rallies" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">observed</a> some of the resentments of Trump supporters. Many believed "they'd been let down by their government . . . and [were] sensitive to "any infringement whatsoever on their freedom." Many suffered from what Saunders labeled "usurpation anxiety syndrome," which he defined as "the feeling that one is, or is about to be, scooped, overrun, or taken advantage of by some Other with questionable intentions."In <a href="https://www.americanpurpose.com/author/william-a-galston/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Galston</a>'s 2021 essay <a href="https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/the-bitter-heartland/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">"The Bitter Heartland"</a> he cites a 2016 poll that indicated that 65 percent of whites without college degrees "believed that America's culture and way of life had changed for the worse since the 1950s." But more than that poll, his essay dissects the continuing Trumpites' resentments much more thoroughly.Like some before him, he indicates or hints at where the Trump resentful are mostly found: in small towns and rural areas, and among older people, non-college graduates, groups once dependent on manufacturing and mining jobs, and "social conservatives and white Christians." The resentful are more provincial and traditional and many of them "lack access to high-speed broadband.""They have a sense of displacement in a country they once dominated. Immigrants, minorities, non-Christians, even atheists have taken center stage, forcing them to the margins of American life." They believe that the big-city elites, the professionals, and the government—before Trump came along—all failed to help them achieve their share of the American Dream. They resent professionals and liberals telling them how to live, calling them racists, or limiting their freedoms—e.g. to buy multiple guns or go about maskless during our present pandemic. "President Trump was at his best, they say, when he ignored the experts and went his own way."Like Saunders earlier, Galston thinks that many of the resentful feel they are "being treated unjustly, unfairly, or disrespectfully." The appearance of Trump and discovery of like-minded people—via the Internet and the person-to-person contacts of smaller towns—help overcome feelings of powerlessness. Feeling more powerful, some "people merely want a remedy for the injustice they have experienced. But others—typically those who experience disrespect—want more than redress; they want revenge."Galston closes his essay with some suggestions for dealing with Trumpite resentments, but they are less compelling than his analysis of them. Partly this is because, while some are legitimate, others—like the reluctance of many white Christians to grant equal rights to all ethnic and religious minorities—are not. As we learned from examining the supporters of Hitler, understanding the difficulties of people and even sympathizing with their plight (e.g., being jobless) does not mean condoning resentments that lead to hateful behavior like victimizing Jews.The preceding comparison between two phenomena of group resentment, separated by almost a century, in two different countries and political cultures, omits many contrasts and nuances. In addition, we know how Hitler and German Nazism ended. The ending of the Trumpite culture of resentment is still unknown. Will it gradually decline? Will the Biden administration successfully address many of the Trumpite grievances? Will Republicans continue to stoke them? Will Trump run again in 2024? None of us know for sure. But thanks to the writings of Galston and others--he mentions <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BWMDZS8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Katherine Cramer</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Strangers-Their-Own-Land-Mourning/dp/1620972255" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Arlie Hochschild</a>--we better understand the resentments, and that's a start.Walter G. Moss is a professor emeritus of history at Eastern Michigan University, a Contributing Editor of HNN, and author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/History-Russia-Russian-European-Eurasian/dp/1843310341" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">A History of Russia. 2 Vols.</a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/History-Russia-Russian-European-Eurasian/dp/1843310341" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"> </a>For a list of his recent books and online publications <a href="http://people.emich.edu/wmoss/pub.htm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">click here</a>.</div>