Took me a long time to understand voting behaviors of Appalachians, but I think I get it now. While it's true that a number of them vote Republican to suppress minorities, gays, and feminists, it's a very small percentage. Most of them vote Republican because they feel Democrats are only working for the interests of cities, and want to raise taxes in order to fund cities, while rural Appalachia gets nothing. They see roads go into disrepair, limited to no access to public services, and little job opportunities, while cosmopolitan Democrats get everything.
To answer the question, I voted for the second answer, because Republicans are now not getting anything done about infrastructure or jobs, and are trying to take away health care.
A highly sensible answer – except for a single very basic fact. I imagine that most Appalachians feel that there
cannot be a separation between support for non-whites and for homosexuals on the one hand, and support for cities on the other. I do not deny the tight linkage between the two, because homosexuals and blacks – not to mention urban college students – are much more dependent upon welfare than poor rural whites. At least that is what I was reading (from a source that was not peer reviewed I must confess) re poverty in Virginia and Tennessee this evening.
What rural white America – of whom Appalachia is
the absolute epitome – wants above all else is a
total end to public aid to all black Americans, urban immigrants and urban students whom they feel as threatening their livelihood. This threat is both direct via taxation and indirect via regulation of the coal, oil and timber industries.
[For the “redneck on food stamps”, “PoliticalShelter”, eliminating public aid to blacks would likely be an even more absolute demand.]
A Democratic Party dominated by environmentally conscious and morally liberal college students will
never be acceptable to Appalachia outside a few college towns (like Boone or Athens). Adding to that pressure from young urban nonwhite populations who grew up with the socially libertine radical politics of rap, industrial and heavy metal – and who no doubt favor a welfare state similar to or larger than European nations’ but which would be intolerable to a group whose cosmology is based upon superiority over nonwhite peoples – leaves no doubt that 21st century Appalachia will show an extreme degree of Republican loyalty.
Poll
