I like small towns. I grew up in the Hudson Valley of New York state, just beyond the reach of the commuter trains to Manhattan; spent 15 years in rural Colorado, living in a town with no traffic lights and a population well under 2,000; then moved to a similarly tiny town in southwestern Washington state, where I live today. I could, in theory, settle anywhere with reliable internet service and a reasonable cost of living, and sometimes I wonder why I continue to choose places that by any conventional measure are both inconvenient and unhip.
I’m drawn to the big landscapes that surround them, but most of all, I think, I value my membership in these cranky, intimate communities. I like that my neighbors come from many different walks of life, and that they regularly (and sometimes uncomfortably) puncture my assumptions about their experiences and interests and political leanings — […]
Both major parties have failed to deliver for the rural voters. While Republicans have been more successful at Marketing to them, this dominance is not a given. The paid activists of both parties are delighted to spew divisive rhetoric to enrage the base. Their paychecks depend upon rage rather than solutions.These tactics serves to distract from the moral bankruptcy of both parties more interested in Photo Ops than concrete actions to help the population. If the system does not truly represent the populus then when a crisis arrives no one but the elites will defend it.