Rural white voters have, in many cases, far more political power than suburban or urban voters, and they’re using that outsized power to push our nation toward disaster. While they’re only 20 percent of the country, for example, because of gerrymandering they control fully 42 percent of seats in the House of Representatives.
The authors of new book, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy point out that rural whites are measurably more bigoted and xenophobic than suburban or urban voters, 13 points more likely to hate on queer people, 15 points more likely to support Trump’s Muslim ban.
They’re also far more likely to agree that setting democracy aside for a strongman like Trump or another Putin wannabee will “fix the mess and drain the swamp.” And fully 74% of the members of Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 election represented rural districts.
The majority of rural white voters disagree with the statement (or have no opinion) that “diversity makes America stronger.” And while only 22 percent of city dwellers […]
In looking at the data, there is much more to unpack with it than the article allows. The bulk of the respondents are between 55 and 74 years old, with only about 9% being black and Hispanic. The overwhelming number of them are married, and the vast bulk have from some college up to Master’s degrees. This sample is not an uneducated lot. A large number earn 150,000.00 or more per year, with many earning between 100,000 to 150,000 per year. So these are not poor individuals but I am certain they are struggling. A large portion are retired, and not working. For some reason the sample weighted with the largest geographic area being “South Atlantic” with a very low number (143) being from the Northeast. This appears to me to be the largest flaw in the data – the geographic skewing. That said, my interpretation is that the results indicate the failure of our ability to negotiate our differences. Another data point indicating a symptom of the dysfunction of our political system, pushing power to the extremes and effectively disenfranchising the middle.