Have progressives largely abandoned the concerns of rural Americans?

[All Along The Watchtower]

I don't want to pretend to understand or attempt to generalize the specific political attitudes of rural Americans; as stated in this thread by many others, there is no one "rural America". The number of people who live in rural areas, of course, is shrinking rapidly, including in places like the rural South-see how Greater Atlanta is growing at the expense of rural Georgia.

I will observe, though, that rural  people-broadly speaking-tend to be "conservative" in a traditional, the-past-is-continuous-with-the-present sense, certainly more than urban areas. This can mean allegiance with the political Right, as it does in white Southern and Western rural areas, but it can also mean respect for more progressive politics in places like the Upper Midwest or New England-which have long traditions of labor movements and left-wing rural political activism.

Of course, political traditions and movements can and do collapse-see the white South and Appalachia's Democratic Party support, or Populism on the Great Plains. A lot of this is tied to economic and demographic changes. But speaking more broadly again of rural areas, I do think many rural residents have a definite sense of being "left behind" politically and culturally by an ever more urbanized, more dynamic, more "modern" society...

[All Along The Watchtower]

All politics is local-especially in rural areas where people expect to talk face-to-face with their political leaders.  That's one thing the conservatives in the Republican Party have done really well-built a local infrastructure of support in many rural and other areas around the country. Local politicians, local business leaders, local community activists, local media representatives, and local religious leaders-the GOP has an impressive infrastructure in those regards. The Democrats were starting to organize in this way in 2006-2008, but a lot of that momentum is gone now...

[All Along The Watchtower]

Of course, "rural" and "working class" are not synonyms...there are rural elites, yet it is interesting to me that they aren't really talked about here. The large ranchers, landowners, agribusiness and corporate farmers, and those involved in the resource economy (which many rural Americans depend on for employment), as well as small and medium-sized manufacturers-what are the political attitudes of these people, and how do they affect the general population in rural America?