What will it take for Dems to not be seen as toxic in rural areas?

[OdonTrail]

Because I think they are out of ideas.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

1): Stop having far-left social issues as a litmus test. It worked in Louisiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia.

Nobody is saying the democrats should win rural voters outright. That's impossible. But if you can cut a, say, 80% loss into 75%, it could make a difference statewide.

I'm sure there are more than a few rural voters who are culturally conservative but want a stronger social safety net or big government. Some in Elliot County

If Andy Beshear can win in Kentucky that means it's possible for a Democrat to do at least a bit better in the rurals.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Probably be out of power for a long time and stop being run by rich SJWs.

[DaleCooper]

They need to be visible in rural areas. The Democratic Party, much like Republicans did in urban areas, basically exiled themselves from rural America and continues to treat it like it's occupied France or something. Even Democrat-aligned media talks about rural America like it's an untamed savage land populated by an un-contacted tribe; that's what all those horrible NYT pieces and the diner interviews are. All of that needs to stop before Dems will be seen as anything other than toxic.

If Democrats want to get 20-30% in some of these counties instead of less than 10%, they need to start working on community outreach. Every county in the country needs to have some kind of Democratic Party outreach in it, and each county needs to have its own pet issue that it focuses on, preferably one that sounds relatively apolitical like rural hospitals or some feel-good relatable crap like that.

[Biden his time]

Democratic rural outreach be like:

I'm appealing to all of you stupid idiots to vote Democrat in 2022. That is if you have the basic education enough to read a ballot, anyway. I understand the majority of you racist rednecks can't even read this though. But those who can, please pass my message on to the rest of your inbred family.

We Democrats are morally, culturally and intellectually superior to you in every way. I will qualify myself by noting that I have a Liberal Arts degree from a college, which you obviously have never been to, if you even know what one is. I also have a black friend. I have been told by several professors that everything you hold dear is terrible. Therefore you, personally, are also terrible.

I don't know you, but I know that you're racist. I also know that you hate gay people and still get scared during lightning storms.

The religion which you hold closely, greatly believe in, and which brings you comfort--you are wrong because I'm smarter than you and I'm telling you so. It is one of the many reasons why you are stupid and I'm better than you.

You see, us Democrats want a system which helps everyone in the world. Our system is designed around love and kindness to everyone. If you don't agree, I hate you.

It's not too late to change. If you knew your history, which of course you don't, you'll remember a time in America when Indians were dragged away from their homes and forced to assimilate into white society. Well, we want to change that kind of behaviour (sorry for my spelling, as I'm not from your country) by making sure you go to college and have a small apartment in a big, busy coastal city, where you belong. That will help you rid yourselves of your backward, incorrect culture and way of thinking. We'll do everything we can to make sure you agree with us and say all the right things and not be brainwashed against thinking the same way we do.

All of you stupid, backward, redneck, racist, homophobic, uneducated yokels need to realize we're trying to build a classless society where we all get to live in harmony with each other, where we're all equal. If you only understood that you wouldn't be so much worse of a person than I am.

So please vote Democrat. Help me help you, you worthless mother***

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I think what's key would be to have an economic message that isn't simply offering voters more welfare. Democrats used to have a pitch on trade and union jobs that appealed in some rural areas. That's gone now, and it's difficult to think of what they could come up with to replace it.

[politicallefty]

I think what's key would be to have an economic message that isn't simply offering voters more welfare. Democrats used to have a pitch on trade and union jobs that appealed in some rural areas. That's gone now, and it's difficult to think of what they could come up with to replace it.

I don't think more or less welfare is necessarily the issue. I think there is a detachment between the middle class and both parties. In that sense, the question is quite simple. What are you going to do to help the middle class? The middle class has been falling behind for many years and help has largely been fleeting (though the pandemic direct payments were a rare benefit).

[PSOL]

Nothing, as most Democratic minded voters left for small cities and rural areas make up an insignificant vote share. The real question is why Dems do bad in small town America

[Del Tachi]

Democrats are not seriously interested in appealing to rural voters, since the party increasingly sees anyone who lives there as a "threat to democracy" for being opposed to elite-driven control of our institutions.   

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well, firstly you have to define 'rural'. It's always a relative and somewhat vague term (a small market town of a few thousand might not be considered rural in the context of its immediate surrounds, but would be by most other metrics and so on) but Americans tend to use it in a particularly and unusually broad manner: it has become common to see quite large industrial or postindustrial settlements be referred to as 'rural', for instance. So do you mean places dependent on agriculture, places with dispersed settlement patterns, or just 'everywhere outside major metropolitan regions'? This isn't a matter of semantics either, as the answer to each question would be quite different, as would the importance of the question.

[Ferguson97]

I'm not sure that there is one.

The biggest reason that Democratic support has been declining in rural areas is that most of the liberal-minded people left their hometowns for college and just never came back. The jobs that those people are looking for just simply do not exist in rural areas. Maybe that'll change in the future with the rise of remote work.

[Meclazine for Israel]

[Samof94]

I think what's key would be to have an economic message that isn't simply offering voters more welfare. Democrats used to have a pitch on trade and union jobs that appealed in some rural areas. That's gone now, and it's difficult to think of what they could come up with to replace it.

People in rural areas vote republicans solder for being white. The GOP represents white rural values. Fox knows it’s audience. They’d rather kick out Latinos and improve welfare.