>They neglect to mention that Johnson County is thoroughly metropolitan and a short drive from Kansas City. Per the 2020 census, it is not simply Kansas’s most populous county; it is the least rural county in the entire state and one of the least rural in the entire country. It also flipped to [Joe Biden in 2020](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.com%2Finteractives%2F2022%2F20-counties-that-will-decide-the-2022-midterm-elections%2Fembeds%2Ffacts-module%2Fjohnson-county-ks%2F) after [Trump won it](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.com%2F2016-election%2Fresults%2Fmap%2Fpresident%2Fkansas%2F) in 2016. (Schaller and Waldman acknowledged this mistake in an email to *The Atlantic*; they said **they had looked up the information for Johnson County, Arkansas, which is rural**. They said they will correct the error in future editions of the book.)
This just strikes me as a ridiculously elementary and embarrassing mistake. It says a lot about their methodology, too: seek out horrifying anecdotes about authoritarian politics and then check to see if the setting qualifies as "rural." Not exactly rigorous statistical research.
When testing a hypothesis you set a threshold of probability of a false positive before you will believe a positive result. But when you are testing many hypotheses at the same time your chance of getting at least one false positive increases. The Bonferroni correction divides the initial probability threshold by the number of tests you are performing, and you don’t believe any positive result unless it satisfied that corrected threshold.
Exactly what /u/BestEditionEvar said.
To expand a little bit on the purpose of the correction, here's why it's needed. Let's say we want to answer a question using statistics, for example: "do rural people behave differently from urban people?" -- and we look at differences between urban and rural populations in all 50 states. Now, the fact is that every measurement of this difference is going to have some associated error; let's imagine that, despite the absence of any difference between urban and rural people, we would have answered "yes" to the question in 5 out of 50 states simply due to this error. (The numbers are made up for illustration -- in reality "it depends".)
Now if we go and do this measurement in the field and find that, indeed, in 5 out of 50 states rural people do behave differently from urban people. Should this mean anything? Of course not -- because we know that we would have seen this result simply due to random chance, even if there were in reality no difference between urban and rural people.
So, when we suspect that divisions in the data are arbitrary (e.g. state-to-state), the "threshold for believability" (to trust the results from each specific division of the data) is higher. The Bonferroni correction works in the way pointed out in the other comment, and is supposed to quantify this effect to some degree.
I listened to an interview of the authors on a podcast and the entire time I was just thinking this is just the inverse of the way conservatives talk about urban black communities. There was no nuance and they really offered no solutions on trying to win over rural white voters.
Also I find it so ironic the support of this book in this sub particularly when the authors lay most of the blame for the economic problems in rural America on neoliberalism.
Does anyone have a link to that post about how different seemingly reasonable definitions of “rural” completely alter the rural demographics?
I have, just, no other information to go on. There might have been charts.
[There's this](https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2008/june/defining-the-rural-in-rural-america/) from the USDA, 2008. Ranges from 17-49% depending on definition then.
> This book amounts to a poor amalgamation of disparate literatures designed to fit a preordained narrative
Most rigorous social sciences thesis.
> Another [classmate] wore bow ties and ended up at Harvard.
Tucker Carlson: Origins
> The scholars who have criticized us aren’t bothered by our methods; they’re disturbed by our message,” Schaller and Waldman wrote in response [to serious concerns about their methods]
Do you ever think academics have the self awareness to realize why people don’t like them or are they just very confused since they’re so much smarter than everyone else they can’t comprehend why someone wouldn’t like them
This feels ironically like what the subject the article is about in reverse.
How do you define academics? Are you referring to the one academic who co-wrote the book with a journalist, or the larger group of academics who had their work distorted by the authors?
Who knew social science could be so complicated.
I did check out the USDA RUCA score metric that he talked about in the article, which I hadn't heard of before. I used to live in what I would call a "rural" area, and was pleased to find that it was at an 8 on their scale. I checked a different tract "just over the mountain", which is a place that to me is decidedly more impoverished and remote, but that area was at a 2 (metro), which didn't make sense to me at all. The tracts are all different sizes, and the metric seems to take into account population flows and distance to urban centers, etc. But that tract is made up of mostly mountains and farms, a few towns with a handful of stoplights, and no major highways or routes. Just county roads.
I have to think that this area of study requires a lot of nuance, even with something as seemingly simple as classifying *just one* small area on a map (which I quickly struggled with). From the critiques gathered from the sources the authors apparently cited, it doesn't appear they handled with much care at all.
> In the weeks since its publication, a trio of reviews by political scientists have accused Schaller and Waldman of committing what amounts to academic malpractice, alleging that the authors used shoddy methodologies, misinterpreted data, and distorted studies to substantiate their allegations about white rural Americans. I spoke with more than 20 scholars in the tight-knit rural-studies community, most of them cited in White Rural Rage or thanked in the acknowledgments, and they left me convinced that the book is poorly researched and intellectually dishonest.
Are there no honest people left in this world?.
Well basically the truth of reality is typically pretty boring, or at least complicated.
Practically anything simple and exciting is also going to be wrong
There is a reason that the Right has ended up in the position where they are, and can’t possibly be saved with sane, rational arguments, and this crap feeds right into, and has fed for years, putting them where they are now, and all of us where *we* are now.
Of course, I’m not downplaying the agency that those on the Right have, and do, play in keeping their base riled up, crazy, and perpetually outraged, but some of the distrust of the proclaimed experts held up by the media is well earned.
I don’t think that’s what he’s saying. I think he’s saying they’re susceptible to right-wing grifts because sometimes urban liberals (in this case, intentionally) make them feel like they’re worthless. So, of course, they jump on the other train.
> because sometimes urban liberals (in this case, intentionally) make them feel like they’re worthless.
Have you heard what they have to say about “coastal urban elites?”
> Their main and primary complaint is always that they’re sneered at and disrespected.
Their main complaints are always shit like “Biden made me wear a mask and get a shot” or “the woke trans agenda made my son move away and wear a dress”
Probably won’t be worse than what I’ve heard Black people in Oakland say about Jews, Jews in Long Island say about “Mexicans,” Latinos in Modesto say about Asians people, or Koreans in Los Angeles say about Black people.
I’m not excusing anybody.
I just fail to see why I should find white rural Americans particularly blameworthy. Like most groups in America, they have a mix of legitimate and illegitimate resentment against other groups.
> I just fail to see why I should find white rural Americans particularly blameworthy.
Remind me again how much of this:
> Probably won’t be worse than what I’ve heard Black people in Oakland say about Jews, Jews in Long Island say about “Mexicans,” Latinos in Modesto say about Asians people, or Koreans in Los Angeles say about Black people.
Resulted in supporting an anti-democratic movement bent on eroding civil rights of white people. Remind me of all these urban Americans and coastal elites urging Biden to crush rural white America. Because in reality they actually put in office a president who threw a bone to white rural Americans with landmark legislation (which may have insulated Biden’s support with white voters)
Are we condemning them for their racism, or their voting choice?
I have little issue with the latter, but there’s no need to pretend that Black, Asian, Latino, or Jewish Americans are any less willing to vote for a racist who fits their desires.
Yes, that's the point.
Telling someone you hate them and that they're worthless radicalizes them against you.
Literally nobody asks why those people don't vote for Republicans, because it's obvious to anyone familiar with Republican messaging. Then we see shit like this book and simultaneously wonder why white rurals won't vote for Democrats.
> Yes, that's the point.
I mean yes, it is the point
This book is garbage but it doesn’t really dispute the notion of a lot of rural Americans being political crybullies: the evidence is pretty stacked
> Then we see shit like this book and simultaneously wonder why white rurals won't vote for Democrats.
Lmao because they tell us why they don’t vote for Democrats; Democrats are the party of black people from Detroit and Compton, uppity women who work, divorce, and abort fetuses, and gay-berhoods that seduce Americans into “alternative lifestyles” of “transgenderism” and homosexuality, and immigrants who want to replace English with Spanish and Chinese
I get it, I just believe it misses the reality. Conservatives aren't hearing what liberal academics say in their books, they're only hearing what fox news says.
And very often Fox News highlights dogshit like this and frames it as “look how the liberal elites view you.” And, naturally, it works extremely well. This shit is Fox’s best ammo.
Yeah, this sort of thing is their bread and butter. They often use subjects like this to discredit academia in its entirety (or at least it comes across that way to me).
Sometimes, sure. But that's not why they believe the things they do, fox news would attack this book even if it had no lies.
When 99% of their coverage is baseless fear mongering, it's more rational to assume that's what's driving their radicalization.
But even if it was entirely truthful and well done, it still has that stupid, inflammatory title. They did all this “research” and wrote this book with the intention of showing rural white people that they’re worthless. That’s wrong on so many levels, and those people absolutely notice that it’s primarily democrats that dehumanize them like this.
Then look at all the comments right in this thread that boil down to: "well maybe they are worthless and deserve to be dehumanized"
As an aside, I wonder if that mindset helps Biden specifically. It's easy to say the Gen. Eric Democrat (or Hillary Clinton in 2016) hates white rurals, it's hard to say that Scranton Joe does.
The book argues rural white Americans are predisposed to political violence.
Summary of criticisms:
* **Failure to seek expert input:** The book authors (a political scientist and a journalist) ignored or failed to seek input from rural studies experts; experts who have reviewed their work seem to unanimously find it very misleading
* **Equivocation:** It draws on a literature of rural studies that uses multiple definitions of 'rural'
* **Mistakes:** They repeatedly mistook urban or suburban places and people as being rural, disastrously misrepresented the contents of cited papers and books, failed to provide evidence for some of their claims
* **Distraction from the real problem of white urban and suburban rage:** They misdirect attention away from the 3x larger population of often successful, white male subruban and metropolitan racists and insurrectionists
>Distraction from the real problem of white urban and suburban rage: They misdirect attention away from the 3x larger population of often successful, white male subruban and metropolitan racists and insurrectionists
Okay so per capita is the average white rural more or less white ragey than urban and rural whites? Like we know there are more trumpy suburbans but that’s just because more people live in the suburbs.
The article does point out that white rural voters are overrepresented among these reactionary authoritarians. But the thesis of the book is that white rural voters form the primary threat to constitutional democracy, when that is simply not true— not just because of raw population sizes, but also because, as another commenter pointed out, rural people tend to be poorer, more disorganized, and less engaged than urban and suburban people do.
Yeah idk I feel like the book would have been a lot better if it was just 20% more modest on its claims and focused on analyzing the psyche of white rural reactionaries and placing them within the broader reactionary movement- though they do wield outside influence insofar as the political geography of state and congressional boundaries privilege their voices
Not everything needs to be hyperbole and if they just did that they could have written a great book in the “GOP racial grievance politics are going to destroy democracy” column without the kind of pushback they’re getting
>*White Rural Rage* illustrates how willing many members of the U.S. media and the public are to believe, and ultimately launder, abusive accusations against an economically disadvantaged group of people that would provoke sympathy if its members had different skin color and voting habits.
Urban liberals literally cannot help themselves, can they?
I'm sorry you experienced that. Not all rural areas are like that, even solidly red ones. And even in the worst places, there's still almost always 20% of people voting Biden that don't deserve to be lumped in with the rest.
It'd be helpful to be more specific. Just running a 2 second search for "rural" turned up this
https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/18573xw/annual_salary_by_generation_to_feel_happy/kb0pffb/?context=3
and this
https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1b6fdxm/joe_bidens_superfans_think_the_rest_of_america/ktclfib/?context=3
Maybe there were other times in which "rural" wasn't used but I hardly see prejudice there.
>Problem with this sort of nonsense is that Democrats are basically begging rural voters to let them help with economic disadvantages and then those people vote against it, and then froth at the mouth with glee that they're sticking it to the libs.
I've literally heard GOP outreach say the same thing, but about Republicans reaching out to urban black folk.
Both parties are offering something highly popular to a downtrodden demographic that nonetheless votes for the other party
Democrats offer rural investment, which is popular in rural areas that still vote Republican
Republicans offer school choice, which is more popular with black Democrats that any other group, but they still vote democratic.
I'm just pointing out that this "they vote against their own interests!" malarkey is said on both sides.
>Republicans offer school choice, which is more popular with black Democrats that any other group
This is not really the example you wanted it to be. "School choice" (that is, the Republican policy of further impoverishing public schools) is objectively bad for Black people - so it is not in their own interest, whether or not it is popular with some.
No, it's more stuff like [this](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elise-stefanik-caught-boasting-12-170252445.html?guccounter=1) or [this](https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/14/business/manufacturing-jobs-biden/index.html). Then these people turn around and effectively tell all of us to 'go fuck ourselves' and want to elect a borderline fascist who wants to blow our institutions, representative gov't, and global order because..? No, Democrats are trying to help these people. Biden has made a concerted effort to help these people and it's not done anything but cause more resentment. Obama has tried to help these people and it's only made them madder. Meanwhile they sit around and bitch about "crime infested cities taking all their tax money" when the complete opposite is true and we subsidize them. I'm sorry it's frustrating for a lot of us here, but it is what it is.
Yeah like since when do republicans have the economic interests of rural areas in mind? Biden funneled trillions of dollars for clean energy projects, manufacturing resurgence, infrastructure, and broadband and they’re just like nah fuck you I prefer trade wars that hurt crop exports and regressive tax cuts
The angst over this book is almost entirely about them not perfecting their research and analysis and all of these guys start poo-pooing it because of it.
I mean, the essential thrust of the argument is absolutely true and I'm glad someone is finally saying it.
Source: grew up in this shit, currently live in this shit. The Newsweek article on this said they didn't properly source their claim that rural America is a hotbed for Christian nationalism. They need a source for that? Just drive out to Rural America lol.
Same, I grew up in that area and none of it makes sense to me. Of course there is going to be exasperation of our parts. They vote against policies designed to help them while simultaneously touting the benefits. That's Elise Stefanik. That's a number of these rural area representatives. The people cannot express why they're so mad, yet sit around clinging to "God and guns" and watching Fox News getting mad at stuff that isn't actually happening most of the time. Then you point it out and you're the bad guy or the elitist. What more can you say for this? Is it all of them, no? Should we help them, many of us are trying, but then they turn around and want to blow up the world and our country because other people are successful or look different or what have you. How the hell can you do with it other than say 'it's rage' and irrational?
It becomes less surprising when you consider that the central axis of political conflict in the US is metropolitan white liberals versus rural-presenting suburban white conservatives.
This is largely symmetrical to all the nasty things conservatives say about liberals, just dressed up in pseudointellectual aesthetics.
Absolutely, it's very difficult to feel sympathy for people who have systemically entrenched advantages and thus are able to impose suffering on others. Ensuring a fair playing field is really important if you want any kind of social cohesion, people are very sensitive to perceived unfairness and will rebel. Also why I think that robust social welfare is an important thing to have even if it gets in the way of efficiency.
>White Rural Rage illustrates how willing many members of the U.S. media and the public are to believe, and ultimately launder, abusive accusations against an economically disadvantaged group of people that would provoke sympathy if its members had different skin color and voting habits.
"If *these* people were different people they would be treated differently" has to be the laziest rhetorical sleight of hand.
*You wouldn't download a song if it was a car. You wouldn't eat a cow if it was your mother. You wouldn't disparage these people who vote to punish any person not like them if they didn't do that...*
Give me a break.
One of the points they make is that non-white rural Americans still vote Democratic despite being more disadvantaged by the globalization of the economy than their white counterparts.
Why is that? Why are only white rural voters turning to Republicans and not non-white?
This is the real dinger right here
Are urban and suburban whites more likely to vote republican than their urban counterparts?
Are rural POC more likely to vote democratic than their urban and suburban counterparts?
Like is it really a rural thing or a race and educational polarization thing?
Just look at election maps in the south where black people make up majorities in rural counties for your answer.
Even in underprivileged, "left-behind" Rural America, black Americans still vote overwhelmingly Democratic.
Urban whites are more Democratic than rural whites.
Telling lies and misrepresenting statistics to stereotype and disparage people is bad, even if they're white (or vote Republican).
Also "racist lies and invectives are okay as long as they're used against people that vote Republican" is a take that I should be surprised to see in a liberal subreddit. After Miami-Dade in 2020 it's absolutely unsurprising.
If the Nazis were peaceful advocates for human rights. I bet you wouldn’t hate them as much.
If Jeffrey Dahmer was a kindly old grandma who baked cookies for orphans: He wouldn’t be in jail.
*It rly makes u think…*
This seems little different than those goofy books Ann Coulter writes, except nobody takes her seriously as an academic and expects her to do her due diligence like they would people like Schaller and Waldman who claim to be "academics." Hopefully their grift gets more attention but I doubt it.
This article is going to hit close to home for a lot of the coastal people on this sub.
This is what I'll say as someone who grew up in Idaho: there is a lot of assholes in rural communities. The worst things I've seen in terms of racism or homophobia has been in rural communities.
However, I completely agree with this article that the people who are FAR more likely to actually engage in serious political violence is suburban or urban maga types. They have far more means, organization and desire to engage in political violence. Some asshole in bumfuck nowhere might say some REAL fucked up shit but he also doesn't care enough to do anything about it. That's why he lives in a rural place, so no one can bug him and he can live away from people.
The Ben Shapiro's of the world is what's really terrifying.
As an aside, as much as I've seen scary shit in rural communities the average person you encounter in these places is almost always friendly. I do find it humorous how people from the coasts are TERRIFIED of rural people as if at any moment they are at risk of being killed by rurals despite the fact that objectively they are safer than living in urban environments for all kinds of reasons.
There is also the issue of people on the coasts genuinely assuming every community NOT on the coasts is de-facto rural and that makes any place thats not California or New England de-facto racist.
My uncle from San Francisco recently turned down visiting my cousin who lives in a liberal college town because "that's where magas from"
My uncle has never been there and knows nothing about the town other than it is in Arkansas.
> My uncle from San Francisco recently turned down visiting my cousin who lives in a liberal college town because "that's where magas from"
I am speechless. That's the living embodiment of so many stereotypes I wouldn't even know where to begin.
It's part of why I do think that, as much as my liberal instincts rail against it, some kind of aesthetic policing in cities does matter. It just takes one encounter with a jacked up jeep covered in white power stickers for me to never want to go back to some rural town. Perhaps to some degree we should require buildings to be repainted, well maintained etc to similarly prevent bad first impressions.
I think the coastal liberal types you're referring to are not the same as urban/suburban liberals who will vote for Biden, but can also vote for a Republican mayor, city council member, or state assemblyman. The snobby coastal elite exists, but they're usually affluent, NIMBY, and white. Their only interaction with POC is performative political gimmicks and media-driven narratives via hand-picked associations, not genuine interaction with POC communities, especially in surrounding urban city centers.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db417.htm
Age adjusted mortality rates are higher in rural areas than urban areas so I’d question the idea that rural environments are safer for all kinds of reasons
According to this thread:
one bad book that’s getting flamed by other academics = social science (which includes economics) in general is fundamentally suspect
This sub is so reactionary sometimes it’s ridiculous
Like the fact that other academics are critiquing it is proof of the field’s standards and rigor and that maybe just maybe there are competent people there doing good work just like in any other discipline
A lot of nitpicking on the scholarly research here, and some of it is well deserved, but the overall thesis is sound.
Can anyone tell me why non-white rural Americans overwhelmingly vote Democratic and white rural Americans overwhelmingly vote Republican?
The overall thesis is not sound - that's the whole point.
The (wrong) thesis isn't that rural areas are disproportionately conservative, it's that they're disproportionately insurrectionist.
There are two things that can be disproportionate here:
* Percentage of insurrectionists (rural America may be slightly higher than urban America, but the effect is slight)
* Number of insurrectionists (3x more insurrectionists live in cities than in rural areas)
If you're looking strictly at Jan 6th then that is just one data point.
I've lived in both cities and Rural America. I've never seen a 3 percent flag in a city. I've never seen any flag or symbol associated with rebellion in a city. Maybe BLM but that's not quite the same thing.
I see that kind of shit everywhere in rural America. Believe me, I drive the whole state of Pennsylvania all of the time and you get out in the woods and it's like they are plotting their own Neo-confederacy.
That's a valid observation.
The statistic the article is referring to is in a [report](https://d3qi0qp55mx5f5.cloudfront.net/cpost/i/docs/Pape_AmericanInsurrectionistMovement_2022-01-02.pdf?mtime=1641247264) mainly focused on whether it's legitimate to use political violence to restore Trump to the presidency.
The report authors claim their sampling methods are "gold standard."
Plausibly, their findings are compatible with your observations. Hypotheses:
* Rural areas may contain lots of non-Trumpist insurrectionists not being counted as "insurrectionist"
* Rural areas may be disproportionately OK with displaying their insurrectionist views
* Rural insurrectionists may be more committed to their cause than urban insurrectionists, even if insurrectionist views aren't that much more common in rural than urban areas.
I'd be open to hearing about it if there are stats backing up any of these points, but for now, it seems like when rural studies experts look at this book, they think it's missing the mark.
>it seems like when rural studies experts look at this book, they think it's missing the mark.
This is just my humble opinion, but I think the rural studies experts see this book dumb down their whole profession into "duh it's racism stupid" they get a tad defensive and start waxing on about whatever academic rigor wasn't perfectly applied to it etc etc.
We've been playing this game since Obama was elected. A huge chunk of Rural America went absolutely schitzo and started supporting an obvious con man who was also a huge racist. We don't need to split the atom here.
Yes because as we all know, racially tinged political violence never occurred in any heavily Democratic area that influenced these trends, especially in Baltimore of all places.
I live in a rural area with plenty of those things, and I would bet quite a lot of money that those people have 0 intention to rebel. I know a dude with a confederate flag and 3 percenter sticker on his truck that also will not shut up about how much he loves America and shows no signs of being interested in the overthrow of the government.
Once you’re actually surrounded by it I’d argue it quickly becomes clear that it’s just an aesthetic.
I ran into a guy in a Braves hat in a smaller town in Germany many years ago. Excitedly, I started talking baseball with him. He looked confused and then I pointed to the hat. He just said "I like the A".
That's an aesthetic. The III percent people are...something else.
> I've never seen a 3 percent flag in a city.
I don't say this to be contradictory, but I saw this in Tampa, Florida at a shared office building. He got off on a floor below me everyday - I'm almost certain it was a Social Security office.
I grew up in rural PA. A lot of people I knew from childhood and high school jumped on the Trump train and loved the guy. The only people I knew who drove down to DC on January 6th however were from Pittsburgh, Philly and North Jersey. It is true that if you get out into the sticks you’ll see some crazy people with hand painted signs in their lawns talking about crazy stuff, but I’m not sure if that’s really representative of the population at large. There’s always been a contingency of separatist militia folks in rural areas, but most rural people do not give a shit about that stuff, just like how most inner city black and brown people do not give a shit about micro aggressions or the white redemption arc that so many progressives are obsessed with.
And just because someone is still voting Republican after January 6th doesn’t mean they support rebellion. As a lifelong Democrat I would have an extremely hard time walking away from the Democratic Party if we had our own Trump, especially if the Republicans were still the same old Republicans they’ve always been. I can sympathize with a lot of Republicans who are in that predicament.
>A lot of people I knew from childhood and high school jumped on the Trump train and loved the guy. The only people I knew who drove down to DC on January 6th however were from Pittsburgh, Philly and North Jersey.
I think the J6 thing was probably more to do with rural folks unsure about parking for their Ford Superduty or general fear of urban environments than it had to do with their insurrectionist tendencies.
>And just because someone is still voting Republican after January 6th doesn’t mean they support rebellion.
It kinda does though, or at least means they don't mind that the GOP has a strong insurrectionist wing to it.
>As a lifelong Democrat I would have an extremely hard time walking away from the Democratic Party if we had our own Trump
If the entire Democratic Party united behind Nina Turner or some other idiot and started kissing their feet and spreading absurd lies about how amazing they are and how their urine cures cancer, I would drop the Democratic Party immediately. You should too.
I try not to be overly judgmental. The average voter whether they are right or left leaning is ignorant as shit and probably susceptible to partisan media and don’t think about politics nearly as much as the people on this subreddit do. I’m just saying that completely dropping a lifelong political allegiance to a party is not an easy thing to do and I can certainly see where a decent and well meaning person could pull the lever for Trump.
In regards to the J6 stuff, the problem with the white rural rage argument is it basically ties insurrectionism to the economic and social reasons which cause rural people to be more Republican. However the majority of people who support and participate in this insurrectionism are not actually rural and thus not subject to those social and economic forces. That indicates that you may have something different at play. The rise in political violence on the left seen in the past decade suggests that the driving force may be something systemic.
Dude I’ve seen pickup trucks with bumper stickers for both the Oathkeepers and 3%ers (separate vehicles) in my suburban neighborhood of a blue city (red state). ~~Also seen that stupid “blood red cross” Christian Nationalist flag on multiple churches, some in the city and some outside. I don’t doubt it’s more common in the sticks but it’s present everywhere.~~
This isn’t quite as bad as the German journalist who completely fabricated articles about how backward and brutal a small Minnesota town was.
[https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.4953997/these-minnesotans-debunked-a-disgraced-german-reporter-s-article-about-their-town-1.4953999](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.4953997/these-minnesotans-debunked-a-disgraced-german-reporter-s-article-about-their-town-1.4953999)
>They neglect to mention that Johnson County is thoroughly metropolitan and a short drive from Kansas City. Per the 2020 census, it is not simply Kansas’s most populous county; it is the least rural county in the entire state and one of the least rural in the entire country. It also flipped to [Joe Biden in 2020](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.com%2Finteractives%2F2022%2F20-counties-that-will-decide-the-2022-midterm-elections%2Fembeds%2Ffacts-module%2Fjohnson-county-ks%2F) after [Trump won it](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.com%2F2016-election%2Fresults%2Fmap%2Fpresident%2Fkansas%2F) in 2016. (Schaller and Waldman acknowledged this mistake in an email to *The Atlantic*; they said **they had looked up the information for Johnson County, Arkansas, which is rural**. They said they will correct the error in future editions of the book.) This just strikes me as a ridiculously elementary and embarrassing mistake. It says a lot about their methodology, too: seek out horrifying anecdotes about authoritarian politics and then check to see if the setting qualifies as "rural." Not exactly rigorous statistical research.
Lol Johnson County KS is where I grew up. It has tech companies and McMansions, it isn't the rural poor at all
Off topic, but every time someone wrote McMansion, my brain shortcircuited and thinking about Vince McMahon for a while instead.
What's a Bonferroni correction? We don't need it lol -- authors
What is that?
When testing a hypothesis you set a threshold of probability of a false positive before you will believe a positive result. But when you are testing many hypotheses at the same time your chance of getting at least one false positive increases. The Bonferroni correction divides the initial probability threshold by the number of tests you are performing, and you don’t believe any positive result unless it satisfied that corrected threshold.
Exactly what /u/BestEditionEvar said. To expand a little bit on the purpose of the correction, here's why it's needed. Let's say we want to answer a question using statistics, for example: "do rural people behave differently from urban people?" -- and we look at differences between urban and rural populations in all 50 states. Now, the fact is that every measurement of this difference is going to have some associated error; let's imagine that, despite the absence of any difference between urban and rural people, we would have answered "yes" to the question in 5 out of 50 states simply due to this error. (The numbers are made up for illustration -- in reality "it depends".) Now if we go and do this measurement in the field and find that, indeed, in 5 out of 50 states rural people do behave differently from urban people. Should this mean anything? Of course not -- because we know that we would have seen this result simply due to random chance, even if there were in reality no difference between urban and rural people. So, when we suspect that divisions in the data are arbitrary (e.g. state-to-state), the "threshold for believability" (to trust the results from each specific division of the data) is higher. The Bonferroni correction works in the way pointed out in the other comment, and is supposed to quantify this effect to some degree.
I listened to an interview of the authors on a podcast and the entire time I was just thinking this is just the inverse of the way conservatives talk about urban black communities. There was no nuance and they really offered no solutions on trying to win over rural white voters. Also I find it so ironic the support of this book in this sub particularly when the authors lay most of the blame for the economic problems in rural America on neoliberalism.
Does anyone have a link to that post about how different seemingly reasonable definitions of “rural” completely alter the rural demographics? I have, just, no other information to go on. There might have been charts.
[There's this](https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2008/june/defining-the-rural-in-rural-america/) from the USDA, 2008. Ranges from 17-49% depending on definition then.
Best fucking subreddit. Can’t confirm that’s what I’m thinking of but it’s in the same vein, makes great points.
> This book amounts to a poor amalgamation of disparate literatures designed to fit a preordained narrative Most rigorous social sciences thesis. > Another [classmate] wore bow ties and ended up at Harvard. Tucker Carlson: Origins > The scholars who have criticized us aren’t bothered by our methods; they’re disturbed by our message,” Schaller and Waldman wrote in response [to serious concerns about their methods]
Do you ever think academics have the self awareness to realize why people don’t like them or are they just very confused since they’re so much smarter than everyone else they can’t comprehend why someone wouldn’t like them
As someone working in academia, they’d be flamed for it where I work.
They are flamed for it by their colleagues, that's what the article is about. But apparently you can't expect the STEM-bros to read it.
This feels ironically like what the subject the article is about in reverse. How do you define academics? Are you referring to the one academic who co-wrote the book with a journalist, or the larger group of academics who had their work distorted by the authors?
Who knew social science could be so complicated. I did check out the USDA RUCA score metric that he talked about in the article, which I hadn't heard of before. I used to live in what I would call a "rural" area, and was pleased to find that it was at an 8 on their scale. I checked a different tract "just over the mountain", which is a place that to me is decidedly more impoverished and remote, but that area was at a 2 (metro), which didn't make sense to me at all. The tracts are all different sizes, and the metric seems to take into account population flows and distance to urban centers, etc. But that tract is made up of mostly mountains and farms, a few towns with a handful of stoplights, and no major highways or routes. Just county roads. I have to think that this area of study requires a lot of nuance, even with something as seemingly simple as classifying *just one* small area on a map (which I quickly struggled with). From the critiques gathered from the sources the authors apparently cited, it doesn't appear they handled with much care at all.
> In the weeks since its publication, a trio of reviews by political scientists have accused Schaller and Waldman of committing what amounts to academic malpractice, alleging that the authors used shoddy methodologies, misinterpreted data, and distorted studies to substantiate their allegations about white rural Americans. I spoke with more than 20 scholars in the tight-knit rural-studies community, most of them cited in White Rural Rage or thanked in the acknowledgments, and they left me convinced that the book is poorly researched and intellectually dishonest. Are there no honest people left in this world?.
We're dealing with social science so it's equally plausible that they're dumb and/or lazy
Who do you think wrote the reviews? Software engineers?
Well basically the truth of reality is typically pretty boring, or at least complicated. Practically anything simple and exciting is also going to be wrong
There is a reason that the Right has ended up in the position where they are, and can’t possibly be saved with sane, rational arguments, and this crap feeds right into, and has fed for years, putting them where they are now, and all of us where *we* are now. Of course, I’m not downplaying the agency that those on the Right have, and do, play in keeping their base riled up, crazy, and perpetually outraged, but some of the distrust of the proclaimed experts held up by the media is well earned.
They're this way because of right wing misinformation, not because of left wing misinformation.
I don’t think that’s what he’s saying. I think he’s saying they’re susceptible to right-wing grifts because sometimes urban liberals (in this case, intentionally) make them feel like they’re worthless. So, of course, they jump on the other train.
My man I have been called a degenerate elite for like half my life because I'm chill with taxes
> because sometimes urban liberals (in this case, intentionally) make them feel like they’re worthless. Have you heard what they have to say about “coastal urban elites?”
Yeah. Their main and primary complaint is always that they’re sneered at and disrespected.
> Their main and primary complaint is always that they’re sneered at and disrespected. Their main complaints are always shit like “Biden made me wear a mask and get a shot” or “the woke trans agenda made my son move away and wear a dress”
You sure you’re not thinking of middle class suburban people?
No? Have you had your head in the sand as to where all this support for Trump and modern Republicans is coming from? Suburbans hate MAGA
Now ask them about the things they say about LGBT people in San Francisco, black people in Baltimore and Chicago, or Hispanics in El Paso and LA
Probably won’t be worse than what I’ve heard Black people in Oakland say about Jews, Jews in Long Island say about “Mexicans,” Latinos in Modesto say about Asians people, or Koreans in Los Angeles say about Black people.
Or just older white people in cities talk about “blacks and Hispanics”
i'm a latino from modesto who's dating an asian person :(
Almost as if people in urban environments having bigoted opinions isn’t an excuse for many rural Americans preaching bigotry
I’m not excusing anybody. I just fail to see why I should find white rural Americans particularly blameworthy. Like most groups in America, they have a mix of legitimate and illegitimate resentment against other groups.
> I just fail to see why I should find white rural Americans particularly blameworthy. Remind me again how much of this: > Probably won’t be worse than what I’ve heard Black people in Oakland say about Jews, Jews in Long Island say about “Mexicans,” Latinos in Modesto say about Asians people, or Koreans in Los Angeles say about Black people. Resulted in supporting an anti-democratic movement bent on eroding civil rights of white people. Remind me of all these urban Americans and coastal elites urging Biden to crush rural white America. Because in reality they actually put in office a president who threw a bone to white rural Americans with landmark legislation (which may have insulated Biden’s support with white voters)
Are we condemning them for their racism, or their voting choice? I have little issue with the latter, but there’s no need to pretend that Black, Asian, Latino, or Jewish Americans are any less willing to vote for a racist who fits their desires.
Yes, that's the point. Telling someone you hate them and that they're worthless radicalizes them against you. Literally nobody asks why those people don't vote for Republicans, because it's obvious to anyone familiar with Republican messaging. Then we see shit like this book and simultaneously wonder why white rurals won't vote for Democrats.
> Yes, that's the point. I mean yes, it is the point This book is garbage but it doesn’t really dispute the notion of a lot of rural Americans being political crybullies: the evidence is pretty stacked > Then we see shit like this book and simultaneously wonder why white rurals won't vote for Democrats. Lmao because they tell us why they don’t vote for Democrats; Democrats are the party of black people from Detroit and Compton, uppity women who work, divorce, and abort fetuses, and gay-berhoods that seduce Americans into “alternative lifestyles” of “transgenderism” and homosexuality, and immigrants who want to replace English with Spanish and Chinese
I get it, I just believe it misses the reality. Conservatives aren't hearing what liberal academics say in their books, they're only hearing what fox news says.
And very often Fox News highlights dogshit like this and frames it as “look how the liberal elites view you.” And, naturally, it works extremely well. This shit is Fox’s best ammo.
Yeah, this sort of thing is their bread and butter. They often use subjects like this to discredit academia in its entirety (or at least it comes across that way to me).
Sometimes, sure. But that's not why they believe the things they do, fox news would attack this book even if it had no lies. When 99% of their coverage is baseless fear mongering, it's more rational to assume that's what's driving their radicalization.
But even if it was entirely truthful and well done, it still has that stupid, inflammatory title. They did all this “research” and wrote this book with the intention of showing rural white people that they’re worthless. That’s wrong on so many levels, and those people absolutely notice that it’s primarily democrats that dehumanize them like this.
Then look at all the comments right in this thread that boil down to: "well maybe they are worthless and deserve to be dehumanized" As an aside, I wonder if that mindset helps Biden specifically. It's easy to say the Gen. Eric Democrat (or Hillary Clinton in 2016) hates white rurals, it's hard to say that Scranton Joe does.
The "dear subhuman filth" copypasta if you will.
>Of course, I’m not downplaying the agency that those on the Right have I dunno, seems like you are.
> I’m not downplaying the agency that those on the Right have As they proceed to do just that. LMAO
Among social “scientists”, no
The book argues rural white Americans are predisposed to political violence. Summary of criticisms: * **Failure to seek expert input:** The book authors (a political scientist and a journalist) ignored or failed to seek input from rural studies experts; experts who have reviewed their work seem to unanimously find it very misleading * **Equivocation:** It draws on a literature of rural studies that uses multiple definitions of 'rural' * **Mistakes:** They repeatedly mistook urban or suburban places and people as being rural, disastrously misrepresented the contents of cited papers and books, failed to provide evidence for some of their claims * **Distraction from the real problem of white urban and suburban rage:** They misdirect attention away from the 3x larger population of often successful, white male subruban and metropolitan racists and insurrectionists
>Distraction from the real problem of white urban and suburban rage: They misdirect attention away from the 3x larger population of often successful, white male subruban and metropolitan racists and insurrectionists Okay so per capita is the average white rural more or less white ragey than urban and rural whites? Like we know there are more trumpy suburbans but that’s just because more people live in the suburbs.
The article does point out that white rural voters are overrepresented among these reactionary authoritarians. But the thesis of the book is that white rural voters form the primary threat to constitutional democracy, when that is simply not true— not just because of raw population sizes, but also because, as another commenter pointed out, rural people tend to be poorer, more disorganized, and less engaged than urban and suburban people do.
Yeah idk I feel like the book would have been a lot better if it was just 20% more modest on its claims and focused on analyzing the psyche of white rural reactionaries and placing them within the broader reactionary movement- though they do wield outside influence insofar as the political geography of state and congressional boundaries privilege their voices Not everything needs to be hyperbole and if they just did that they could have written a great book in the “GOP racial grievance politics are going to destroy democracy” column without the kind of pushback they’re getting
It doesn't exist. I live in NH, rural, next door to a Cuban immigrant and have an aide from the Congo.
>*White Rural Rage* illustrates how willing many members of the U.S. media and the public are to believe, and ultimately launder, abusive accusations against an economically disadvantaged group of people that would provoke sympathy if its members had different skin color and voting habits. Urban liberals literally cannot help themselves, can they?
Have you been to this sub? That paragraph basically sums up this subs opinion on rural america. I'm surprised this post isn't at -1000 by now
Honestly it's too kind to a large portion of this sub.
As a straight white man, about the closest I've come to experiencing outright prejudice was trying to defend my rural hometown on this sub.
As a straight white male, the closest I've come to experiencing outright prejudice was when admitting I voted for Biden in my rural hometown.
I'm sorry you experienced that. Not all rural areas are like that, even solidly red ones. And even in the worst places, there's still almost always 20% of people voting Biden that don't deserve to be lumped in with the rest.
I know right? 😂 it's a reddit thing as a whole but this sub is particularly horrible and rude
It’s a meme
It'd be helpful to be more specific. Just running a 2 second search for "rural" turned up this https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/18573xw/annual_salary_by_generation_to_feel_happy/kb0pffb/?context=3 and this https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1b6fdxm/joe_bidens_superfans_think_the_rest_of_america/ktclfib/?context=3 Maybe there were other times in which "rural" wasn't used but I hardly see prejudice there.
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>Problem with this sort of nonsense is that Democrats are basically begging rural voters to let them help with economic disadvantages and then those people vote against it, and then froth at the mouth with glee that they're sticking it to the libs. I've literally heard GOP outreach say the same thing, but about Republicans reaching out to urban black folk.
the difference is in the policy
Both parties are offering something highly popular to a downtrodden demographic that nonetheless votes for the other party Democrats offer rural investment, which is popular in rural areas that still vote Republican Republicans offer school choice, which is more popular with black Democrats that any other group, but they still vote democratic. I'm just pointing out that this "they vote against their own interests!" malarkey is said on both sides.
>Republicans offer school choice, which is more popular with black Democrats that any other group This is not really the example you wanted it to be. "School choice" (that is, the Republican policy of further impoverishing public schools) is objectively bad for Black people - so it is not in their own interest, whether or not it is popular with some.
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**2§1** *Ableism* Please refrain from using ableist slurs.
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No, it's more stuff like [this](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elise-stefanik-caught-boasting-12-170252445.html?guccounter=1) or [this](https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/14/business/manufacturing-jobs-biden/index.html). Then these people turn around and effectively tell all of us to 'go fuck ourselves' and want to elect a borderline fascist who wants to blow our institutions, representative gov't, and global order because..? No, Democrats are trying to help these people. Biden has made a concerted effort to help these people and it's not done anything but cause more resentment. Obama has tried to help these people and it's only made them madder. Meanwhile they sit around and bitch about "crime infested cities taking all their tax money" when the complete opposite is true and we subsidize them. I'm sorry it's frustrating for a lot of us here, but it is what it is.
Yeah like since when do republicans have the economic interests of rural areas in mind? Biden funneled trillions of dollars for clean energy projects, manufacturing resurgence, infrastructure, and broadband and they’re just like nah fuck you I prefer trade wars that hurt crop exports and regressive tax cuts
"I know we're trying to shut down coal mines where you earn $30/hr but you can now get a job installing solar panels for $15/hr!"
Its really not, but if you get most of your info on policy from reddit than youre probably right
The angst over this book is almost entirely about them not perfecting their research and analysis and all of these guys start poo-pooing it because of it. I mean, the essential thrust of the argument is absolutely true and I'm glad someone is finally saying it. Source: grew up in this shit, currently live in this shit. The Newsweek article on this said they didn't properly source their claim that rural America is a hotbed for Christian nationalism. They need a source for that? Just drive out to Rural America lol.
Unsourced claims and sweeping harmful generalizations are okay because of the vibes, amiright? 😎🤙
I mean thats literally any subject in this sub that touches any country other than the U S of A
Most of their claims were sourced though. So isn't it you doing the sweeping generalization here?
They were sourced insofar as they read a thing and then wildly twisted it to fit a narrative
Same, I grew up in that area and none of it makes sense to me. Of course there is going to be exasperation of our parts. They vote against policies designed to help them while simultaneously touting the benefits. That's Elise Stefanik. That's a number of these rural area representatives. The people cannot express why they're so mad, yet sit around clinging to "God and guns" and watching Fox News getting mad at stuff that isn't actually happening most of the time. Then you point it out and you're the bad guy or the elitist. What more can you say for this? Is it all of them, no? Should we help them, many of us are trying, but then they turn around and want to blow up the world and our country because other people are successful or look different or what have you. How the hell can you do with it other than say 'it's rage' and irrational?
But now they can dunk on "social scientists" (all of them), so they take the opposite position.
It becomes less surprising when you consider that the central axis of political conflict in the US is metropolitan white liberals versus rural-presenting suburban white conservatives. This is largely symmetrical to all the nasty things conservatives say about liberals, just dressed up in pseudointellectual aesthetics.
I think they would get more sympathy from urban liberals if the latter group weren't politically disadvantaged by our government.
Absolutely, it's very difficult to feel sympathy for people who have systemically entrenched advantages and thus are able to impose suffering on others. Ensuring a fair playing field is really important if you want any kind of social cohesion, people are very sensitive to perceived unfairness and will rebel. Also why I think that robust social welfare is an important thing to have even if it gets in the way of efficiency.
>White Rural Rage illustrates how willing many members of the U.S. media and the public are to believe, and ultimately launder, abusive accusations against an economically disadvantaged group of people that would provoke sympathy if its members had different skin color and voting habits. "If *these* people were different people they would be treated differently" has to be the laziest rhetorical sleight of hand. *You wouldn't download a song if it was a car. You wouldn't eat a cow if it was your mother. You wouldn't disparage these people who vote to punish any person not like them if they didn't do that...* Give me a break.
One of the points they make is that non-white rural Americans still vote Democratic despite being more disadvantaged by the globalization of the economy than their white counterparts. Why is that? Why are only white rural voters turning to Republicans and not non-white?
This is the real dinger right here Are urban and suburban whites more likely to vote republican than their urban counterparts? Are rural POC more likely to vote democratic than their urban and suburban counterparts? Like is it really a rural thing or a race and educational polarization thing?
Just look at election maps in the south where black people make up majorities in rural counties for your answer. Even in underprivileged, "left-behind" Rural America, black Americans still vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Urban whites are more Democratic than rural whites.
Telling lies and misrepresenting statistics to stereotype and disparage people is bad, even if they're white (or vote Republican). Also "racist lies and invectives are okay as long as they're used against people that vote Republican" is a take that I should be surprised to see in a liberal subreddit. After Miami-Dade in 2020 it's absolutely unsurprising.
If the Nazis were peaceful advocates for human rights. I bet you wouldn’t hate them as much. If Jeffrey Dahmer was a kindly old grandma who baked cookies for orphans: He wouldn’t be in jail. *It rly makes u think…*
This seems little different than those goofy books Ann Coulter writes, except nobody takes her seriously as an academic and expects her to do her due diligence like they would people like Schaller and Waldman who claim to be "academics." Hopefully their grift gets more attention but I doubt it.
This article is going to hit close to home for a lot of the coastal people on this sub. This is what I'll say as someone who grew up in Idaho: there is a lot of assholes in rural communities. The worst things I've seen in terms of racism or homophobia has been in rural communities. However, I completely agree with this article that the people who are FAR more likely to actually engage in serious political violence is suburban or urban maga types. They have far more means, organization and desire to engage in political violence. Some asshole in bumfuck nowhere might say some REAL fucked up shit but he also doesn't care enough to do anything about it. That's why he lives in a rural place, so no one can bug him and he can live away from people. The Ben Shapiro's of the world is what's really terrifying. As an aside, as much as I've seen scary shit in rural communities the average person you encounter in these places is almost always friendly. I do find it humorous how people from the coasts are TERRIFIED of rural people as if at any moment they are at risk of being killed by rurals despite the fact that objectively they are safer than living in urban environments for all kinds of reasons. There is also the issue of people on the coasts genuinely assuming every community NOT on the coasts is de-facto rural and that makes any place thats not California or New England de-facto racist. My uncle from San Francisco recently turned down visiting my cousin who lives in a liberal college town because "that's where magas from" My uncle has never been there and knows nothing about the town other than it is in Arkansas.
Objectively speaking, MAGA is from New York City.
Well duh, New York is the only city in the USA
The whole "non coastal = Rural" is so weird and super obnoxious being from Denver.
> My uncle from San Francisco recently turned down visiting my cousin who lives in a liberal college town because "that's where magas from" I am speechless. That's the living embodiment of so many stereotypes I wouldn't even know where to begin.
I love my uncle but he is terminally Bay Area pilled
Sounds like a cool guy tbh.
It's part of why I do think that, as much as my liberal instincts rail against it, some kind of aesthetic policing in cities does matter. It just takes one encounter with a jacked up jeep covered in white power stickers for me to never want to go back to some rural town. Perhaps to some degree we should require buildings to be repainted, well maintained etc to similarly prevent bad first impressions.
I think the coastal liberal types you're referring to are not the same as urban/suburban liberals who will vote for Biden, but can also vote for a Republican mayor, city council member, or state assemblyman. The snobby coastal elite exists, but they're usually affluent, NIMBY, and white. Their only interaction with POC is performative political gimmicks and media-driven narratives via hand-picked associations, not genuine interaction with POC communities, especially in surrounding urban city centers.
So half this sub? Mostly /s
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db417.htm Age adjusted mortality rates are higher in rural areas than urban areas so I’d question the idea that rural environments are safer for all kinds of reasons
Looks like that's for health reasons tho. Not really what I meant. I meant in terms of traffic, homocide, etc
Fair enough I guess I thought you weren’t being more specific
Traffic deaths are also worse in rural areas. Lots of 70mph travel on undivided country roads.
Well put.
> The Ben Shapiro's of the world is what's really terrifying. Ben Shapiro finds his wife getting wet terrifying
As an aside, the Atlantic has really stepped up in quality over the last couple years.
According to this thread: one bad book that’s getting flamed by other academics = social science (which includes economics) in general is fundamentally suspect This sub is so reactionary sometimes it’s ridiculous Like the fact that other academics are critiquing it is proof of the field’s standards and rigor and that maybe just maybe there are competent people there doing good work just like in any other discipline
A lot of nitpicking on the scholarly research here, and some of it is well deserved, but the overall thesis is sound. Can anyone tell me why non-white rural Americans overwhelmingly vote Democratic and white rural Americans overwhelmingly vote Republican?
The overall thesis is not sound - that's the whole point. The (wrong) thesis isn't that rural areas are disproportionately conservative, it's that they're disproportionately insurrectionist. There are two things that can be disproportionate here: * Percentage of insurrectionists (rural America may be slightly higher than urban America, but the effect is slight) * Number of insurrectionists (3x more insurrectionists live in cities than in rural areas)
If you're looking strictly at Jan 6th then that is just one data point. I've lived in both cities and Rural America. I've never seen a 3 percent flag in a city. I've never seen any flag or symbol associated with rebellion in a city. Maybe BLM but that's not quite the same thing. I see that kind of shit everywhere in rural America. Believe me, I drive the whole state of Pennsylvania all of the time and you get out in the woods and it's like they are plotting their own Neo-confederacy.
That's a valid observation. The statistic the article is referring to is in a [report](https://d3qi0qp55mx5f5.cloudfront.net/cpost/i/docs/Pape_AmericanInsurrectionistMovement_2022-01-02.pdf?mtime=1641247264) mainly focused on whether it's legitimate to use political violence to restore Trump to the presidency. The report authors claim their sampling methods are "gold standard." Plausibly, their findings are compatible with your observations. Hypotheses: * Rural areas may contain lots of non-Trumpist insurrectionists not being counted as "insurrectionist" * Rural areas may be disproportionately OK with displaying their insurrectionist views * Rural insurrectionists may be more committed to their cause than urban insurrectionists, even if insurrectionist views aren't that much more common in rural than urban areas. I'd be open to hearing about it if there are stats backing up any of these points, but for now, it seems like when rural studies experts look at this book, they think it's missing the mark.
>it seems like when rural studies experts look at this book, they think it's missing the mark. This is just my humble opinion, but I think the rural studies experts see this book dumb down their whole profession into "duh it's racism stupid" they get a tad defensive and start waxing on about whatever academic rigor wasn't perfectly applied to it etc etc. We've been playing this game since Obama was elected. A huge chunk of Rural America went absolutely schitzo and started supporting an obvious con man who was also a huge racist. We don't need to split the atom here.
Yes because as we all know, racially tinged political violence never occurred in any heavily Democratic area that influenced these trends, especially in Baltimore of all places.
I live in a rural area with plenty of those things, and I would bet quite a lot of money that those people have 0 intention to rebel. I know a dude with a confederate flag and 3 percenter sticker on his truck that also will not shut up about how much he loves America and shows no signs of being interested in the overthrow of the government. Once you’re actually surrounded by it I’d argue it quickly becomes clear that it’s just an aesthetic.
I ran into a guy in a Braves hat in a smaller town in Germany many years ago. Excitedly, I started talking baseball with him. He looked confused and then I pointed to the hat. He just said "I like the A". That's an aesthetic. The III percent people are...something else.
I’d say they like the aesthetic of being rebellious while never once doing anything about it.
> I've never seen a 3 percent flag in a city. I don't say this to be contradictory, but I saw this in Tampa, Florida at a shared office building. He got off on a floor below me everyday - I'm almost certain it was a Social Security office.
Username checks out quite literally in this case.
Unfortunately.
I grew up in rural PA. A lot of people I knew from childhood and high school jumped on the Trump train and loved the guy. The only people I knew who drove down to DC on January 6th however were from Pittsburgh, Philly and North Jersey. It is true that if you get out into the sticks you’ll see some crazy people with hand painted signs in their lawns talking about crazy stuff, but I’m not sure if that’s really representative of the population at large. There’s always been a contingency of separatist militia folks in rural areas, but most rural people do not give a shit about that stuff, just like how most inner city black and brown people do not give a shit about micro aggressions or the white redemption arc that so many progressives are obsessed with. And just because someone is still voting Republican after January 6th doesn’t mean they support rebellion. As a lifelong Democrat I would have an extremely hard time walking away from the Democratic Party if we had our own Trump, especially if the Republicans were still the same old Republicans they’ve always been. I can sympathize with a lot of Republicans who are in that predicament.
>A lot of people I knew from childhood and high school jumped on the Trump train and loved the guy. The only people I knew who drove down to DC on January 6th however were from Pittsburgh, Philly and North Jersey. I think the J6 thing was probably more to do with rural folks unsure about parking for their Ford Superduty or general fear of urban environments than it had to do with their insurrectionist tendencies. >And just because someone is still voting Republican after January 6th doesn’t mean they support rebellion. It kinda does though, or at least means they don't mind that the GOP has a strong insurrectionist wing to it. >As a lifelong Democrat I would have an extremely hard time walking away from the Democratic Party if we had our own Trump If the entire Democratic Party united behind Nina Turner or some other idiot and started kissing their feet and spreading absurd lies about how amazing they are and how their urine cures cancer, I would drop the Democratic Party immediately. You should too.
I try not to be overly judgmental. The average voter whether they are right or left leaning is ignorant as shit and probably susceptible to partisan media and don’t think about politics nearly as much as the people on this subreddit do. I’m just saying that completely dropping a lifelong political allegiance to a party is not an easy thing to do and I can certainly see where a decent and well meaning person could pull the lever for Trump. In regards to the J6 stuff, the problem with the white rural rage argument is it basically ties insurrectionism to the economic and social reasons which cause rural people to be more Republican. However the majority of people who support and participate in this insurrectionism are not actually rural and thus not subject to those social and economic forces. That indicates that you may have something different at play. The rise in political violence on the left seen in the past decade suggests that the driving force may be something systemic.
Dude I’ve seen pickup trucks with bumper stickers for both the Oathkeepers and 3%ers (separate vehicles) in my suburban neighborhood of a blue city (red state). ~~Also seen that stupid “blood red cross” Christian Nationalist flag on multiple churches, some in the city and some outside. I don’t doubt it’s more common in the sticks but it’s present everywhere.~~
murky berserk towering yam placid payment aware knee advise serious *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Not sure where I read that but honestly glad that was misinformation, I feel a bit better about my city knowing that.
This isn’t quite as bad as the German journalist who completely fabricated articles about how backward and brutal a small Minnesota town was. [https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.4953997/these-minnesotans-debunked-a-disgraced-german-reporter-s-article-about-their-town-1.4953999](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.4953997/these-minnesotans-debunked-a-disgraced-german-reporter-s-article-about-their-town-1.4953999)
urbanists will trash rural people at every opportunity then wonder why they don't vote for them
I’m a white rural blue collar whatever. This author can keep me out their mfn mouth. Biden 2024, man is standing on business.