How can Dems win rural voters?

[pbrower2a]

Trump bought votes among farmers and ranchers with subsidies that more than offset the effect of his trade wars. Basically he opened the treasury in an effort to win the election, which is scummy politics. I prefer that politicians offer long-term, structural solutions instead of throwing money at the people who scream loudest.

Democrats can undo Trump's trade war to the benefit of farmers and ranchers while reducing subsidies, which will be good for the treasury and deficits, but it is not sure that Democrats will get the credit.

They can't because everything about the contemporary Democratic Party seethes with disdain and contempt for rural people.  You can't have a liberal media/ruling class that openly ridicules "small town" values and takes aim at rural conservatives (like Bill Maher and Chelsea Handler have been doing for decades) and not expect it to affect Democrats' electoral chances in the Heartland.  The change that happened during the Obama years was two-fold:  the "Jon Stewart" generation of Democratic staffers and activists (college kids of the 1990s/2000s, basically) came into professional politics, and Democratic leadership caved to their worst instincts in painting their Tea Party opposition as "rubeish" yokels.

I didn't prior to 2016, but yeah, supporting a racist, authoritarian sexual predator who essentially committed treason is a thoroughly despicable act. So yeah, I now believe Trump's supporters are trash. I can't help it if a bunch of rural whites and evangelical Christians choose to identify themselves with said group. I mean, it's basically impossible to believe these folks are deeply concerned about "patriotism" and "moral values," yet still adamantly committed to reelecting Donald Trump. Obviously, they don't believe a word of what they've been saying for decades — they're just contemptible liars.

The Trump presidency has been immensely damaging to the notion that we should take Republican criticisms of Democratic administrations seriously. Unfortunately, I don't see any possibility of putting the toothpaste back in the tube.

Another side: good people stay clear of evil-doers when they have a choice. Such is good for survival, prosperity, and avoiding trouble. Consider that the harshest condemnation of the Sicilian and Neapolitan Mafias comes from Italian-Americans who have legitimate means of making a living. Yes, there are Mob groupies, but those people are typically recognized as scum. Before he disgraced himself in his involvement with Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani made a reputation as a rackets-busting prosecutor Go to a German-American cultural association and bring Nazi paraphernalia, give a Nazis salute, or start singing the Horst-Wessel-Lied, and you will be given the boot.

Many of us German-Americans get confused with Jews because of similar surnames... but I would rather be seen as a Jew than a Nazi. If I had to choose between becoming a Nazi or converting to Judaism I would take the way that requires fewer moral or cultural compromises. Oh, if I went Reform I wouldn't have to give up pork, shellfish, and meat-and-cheese sandwiches?   

At this point, Trump supporters are better described as cultists than as direct malefactors. Know well that about five years ago Trump was telling people that those who criticized him were themselves evil people with malign intentions. He has not changed.

Anyone who fails to give him what he wants on his terms is a villain to him. He is a fantastically immature person, still infantile in his self-centered character.

OK, I said a few things about a religious heritage not mine. Really there is only two reasons for religion, one of which is to find great truth associated with something beyond us... or to improve us as persons. Great truth is not the repudiation of ostensibly-lesser truth that is still truth. If one's religion makes one more gullible then it is too flawed to merit faith. If it leads one to do horrible things, then that religion, or at least its interpretation, is unworthy. If your religious views tell you to assassinate an abortionist you have some bad religion. I can tell you about destructive cults that wrap themselves in religious garb and have murdered. Jeffrey Lundgren and Shoko Asahara have been executed in their respective countries for such crime.

Religion can make us judgmental, and we if it takes religion to turn us against crime or bad habits, then so be it. My quasi-religious judgment tells me that Donald Trump is completely untrustworthy as a liar, cheat, and fool. 

I do not knock the rustic and primitive. Both can be powerfully expressive. This said, the complex philosophy vital to full understanding of the world and to getting the most out of life without stepping too hard on even one person, let alone others, takes effort. Ignorance is not innocence.

[pbrower2a]

When the farm, dairy, and slaughterhouse laborers who vastly outnumber the family members of the owners and managers of those enterprises, then the game is up for the Right in the farm areas.  A huge chunk of those people are aliens ineligible to vote. 

[pbrower2a]

They can't. They are a rich suburban white party who looks down on rural voters and working class voters. Thanks Obama!

No, democrats are happy to get rural voters. College-educated people in rural areas, unless the family of giant corporate farmers and executives thereof are as D as any other people. Think of schoolteachers and medical professionals. The blue-collar workers on corporate farms and in dairies, feed lots, and slaughterhouses are heavily non-voters such as non-citizens and Old Order Amish.

When the kids of the farm, dairy, feed-lot, and slaughterhouse workers start voting, then it is over for the Republican dominance in rural areas. Many of those workers are in business operations as regimented as assembly lines of the early twentieth century, and when they vote they will vote much for the political agenda most similar to the Democrats of the 1930's. The Republican party is still hostile to labor unions and has gained votes of working-class people as unions weaken. Just look at West Virginia.   

[pbrower2a]

They can't. They are a rich suburban white party who looks down on rural voters and working class voters. Thanks Obama!

No, democrats are happy to get rural voters. College-educated people in rural areas, unless the family of giant corporate farmers and executives thereof are as D as any other people. Think of schoolteachers and medical professionals. The blue-collar workers on corporate farms and in dairies, feed lots, and slaughterhouses are heavily non-voters such as non-citizens and Old Order Amish.

When the kids of the farm, dairy, feed-lot, and slaughterhouse workers start voting, then it is over for the Republican dominance in rural areas. Many of those workers are in business operations as regimented as assembly lines of the early twentieth century, and when they vote they will vote much for the political agenda most similar to the Democrats of the 1930's. The Republican party is still hostile to labor unions and has gained votes of working-class people as unions weaken. Just look at West Virginia.   

Most rural Americans do not work on farms or have anything to do with agriculture at all.

Yes, they do.

Farming creates its own economy. To be sure, teaching K-12 in a rural area may not so much depend upon the rural economy as does some other activities, but these are the people that I would associate with the farm economy:

1. small-town bankers who make lots of farm-related loans. There's a big difference between banking in suburban

Lagrange, Illinois



and in Lagrange, Indiana (hyper-rural, and it looks as if it is still in the 1870's because that is when it quit growing.

 

2. veterinarians who treat farm animals as well as the usual canine and feline pets.

3. dealers in farm equipment. Even the favored vehicles are different (more trucks with high clearance and fewer commuter cars).

4. retail and restaurant people whose schedules fit those of farmers. When the farm income goes down, so do the tips and commissions.

5. farm-related businesses, often food-processing places (dairies, slaughterhouses, feed lots)

6. suppliers of farm inputs, such as dealers in fertilizer, fuels (agriculture devours energy), and feeds,

7. brokers of agriculture products
 

[pbrower2a]

They can't. They are a rich suburban white party who looks down on rural voters and working class voters. Thanks Obama!

No, democrats are happy to get rural voters. College-educated people in rural areas, unless the family of giant corporate farmers and executives thereof are as D as any other people. Think of schoolteachers and medical professionals. The blue-collar workers on corporate farms and in dairies, feed lots, and slaughterhouses are heavily non-voters such as non-citizens and Old Order Amish.

When the kids of the farm, dairy, feed-lot, and slaughterhouse workers start voting, then it is over for the Republican dominance in rural areas. Many of those workers are in business operations as regimented as assembly lines of the early twentieth century, and when they vote they will vote much for the political agenda most similar to the Democrats of the 1930's. The Republican party is still hostile to labor unions and has gained votes of working-class people as unions weaken. Just look at West Virginia.   

Most rural Americans do not work on farms or have anything to do with agriculture at all.

Yes, but people working in rural dairies and slaughterhouses are in the agricultural economy. Dairy and slaughterhouse workers are heavily concentrated in assembly-line style work, and management operates much as it did in  factories less connected to farmers' production.

Farming is the basis of the local economy, and such people as equipment dealers and repair people, schoolteachers, police and firefighters, attorneys, medical professionals, restaurant wait staff, retail clerks, insurance agents, and tax collectors know this well.