Understanding Equity Work in the Rural Landscape
There is a clear pattern across the United States in which urban areas vote deep blue and rural areas are seas of red, influencing our cultural and political landscape across the country. Is it possible for Colorado to convince ranching cowboys of the Western Slope that universal healthcare is more important than the right to carry? As we approach the voting season, perhaps you also wonder how to love those wide-open spaces while fervently pushing for a progressive political value system and hope that our generation’s legacy leaves behind a better cultural landscape that addresses our most pressing issues. Our geographical landscape is so beautiful and yet the land and environment we reside in are complicated with a history of stolen land and stolen labor that has perpetuated disparities in class, ethnicity, race, gender, etc. While our cultural divides manifest through culture-war dynamics, the actual driving factor under our capitalist system is the ways that class and culture inform each other and the existing inequities that reside within them. We all lose until we understand the nuance of rural disenfranchisement and find ways to combat inequitable systems together. A more just world is possible if we redress historic injustices and build new equitable systems in every part of our country; this is the pathway to transforming the nostalgia of what was into the possibilities of what could be.
The Rural Class System
(New York Times, 2020)
Who lives in these open spaces and why do they love Republican ideologies? Looking at the map above provided by the New York Times census from the election in 2020, President Joe Biden won more metropolitan counties and therefore won the popular vote by 7 million votes, yet Former President Trump won more counties than Biden (Frey, 2021). Even with the popular vote majority, the presidential race was tight - due to the electoral college which grants a Republican advantage. This phenomenon is due to the urban/rural divide and how existing class systems influence how rural conservatives view our nation. There is an overlooked wealth in our rural places that Patrick Wyman of the Atlantic calls The Gentry Class. These aren’t billionaire businessmen, but they are those that own the land in franchises, warehouses, construction companies, acreage, etc. They profit millions from stolen land and gain significant sway in their local communities. They are what Wyman calls local elites and they take up political positions and gain local prestige (Wyman, 2021).
It’s a short jump to see how those who built their wealth through land dominance felt protected and seen by fellow businessman Trump. As for the rural poor and working class, why is it that they identify more with a real-estate giant than democratic candidates? The heart of our cultural divide is that capitalism has made it increasingly difficult for everyone to live with dignity in our country and in the world, but where we direct our anger differs.
The End of the Industrialized Economy
While Democrats tout the dignity of debt-free education and healthcare systems, the freedom to attend public places without the fear of gun violence, and the redistribution of white supremacist patriarchal power to create an inclusive country that can stand on values of equitable opportunities, these changes don’t fix the heart of the rural anger: that working-class, blue-collar workers have been left behind for decades by the state and federal governments in favor of cheaper global labor (Snyder, 2012).
The renaissance dignity the white working-class longs for is less about systemic, collective change and more about returning to what it once was possible for the rugged individual: economically sustainable blue-collar jobs. An increasingly difficult job market for those without a college degree (about 60% of Americans) and a migration of jobs toward urban centers – have left the working class behind in crumbling, rural communities (Williams, 2016). In the Harvard Business Review article, “What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class” author and researcher Joan C. Williams describes how the white working class (WWC) admires the rich and abhors the upper-middle class professionals who boss them around (Williams, 2016). The consolidation of wealth in urban areas has severely altered the rural economy. The effect of The Great Recession and the Covid-19 pandemic has diminished small-town economies greatly while companies like Walmart and Amazon grew exponentially (Bowlin, 2022). In the Article, “Joke’s on them: How Democrats Gave Up on Rural America” Bowlin quotes a recent study that shows that 97% of job growth between 2001 and 2016 was developed in urban areas in the United States. In the name of fast growth and efficiency, companies have been allowed to rake in global markets while leaving individuals and rural areas desperate to keep small businesses open and maintain small-town vibrancy. With the increasing migration of young people to urban centers, the consolidation of job markets in urban centers, and the increased wealth of the gentry class - the rural middle and lower classes are left with an acute sense of loss and the adversarial us vs. them mentality that Republicans have used to their advantage to turn the feelings of rural grief into anger and fear towards urban diversity.
Social worker and researcher Brene Brown defines the emotion of nostalgia in her book “Atlas of the Heart” as a feeling with “a double-edged sword” that can be used to either connect by helping us find meaning when we are overcome with a sense of homesickness or to disconnect and over-romanticize the past and weaponize change efforts. In the latter scenario, nostalgic messaging is used to “protect power, including white supremacy” and wash over how the idealized past facilitated harm (Brown, 2021).
The Effect of White Politics on the Rural Working Class
The “class-culture gap” is connected to racial resentment and the loss of traditionally male-dominated industries (Williams, 2016). The white working-class values traditional “manly dignity” and Trump promised just that – the freedom to not be politically-correct and the promise to maintain hierarchies for men, “when men were men and women knew their place” (Williams, 2016). These attitudes are showing up in the political arena, most recently in taking back control over women’s bodily autonomy in the reversal of Roe vs. Wade this past summer. A 2016 CNN poll shows that roughly half of white, working-class Trump supporters feel that diversity is threatening to American culture and that diversity “makes some feel they no longer belong” (CNN, 2016). According to a 2020 voter analysis study done by the University of Virginia, “racial resentment was one of the highest predictors of conservative political views” (Bowlin, 2022). The Republican party offers consolation to those who feel they have lost something, a sentiment shared by many rural places as their economies struggle. It is right for the WWC to be bitter about losing prosperity in small-town economies, however, it is not right nor productive to blame their woes toward marginalized identities. It is also important to remember that rural areas are in themselves diverse, with a quarter of rural residents identifying as non-white, influencing the demographics of small-town America and the need for equity in rural places (Bowlin, 2022).
Unfortunately, Democratic solutions to the working class are unappealing with suggestions for raising the minimum wage and increasing paid time off, which don’t sound dignifying when the industry is working difficult hours with difficult customers at fast-food chains and retail (Williams, 2016). Just and equitable policymaking should reestablish the strength of labor unions with investments in community colleges, developing trade industries, and regulating corporations to invest in livable wages and provide sufficient benefits for communities domestically and abroad. White supremacy is ingrained in the land and if we want to dismantle white supremacy in every part of this nation, we should invest in solutions to help the poor and middle classes thrive, both in urban centers and rural areas. Additionally, equity work should not overlook how the underlying grief and over-nostalgia contribute to our cultural divide. Our nation has always functioned with a class cultural divide with white men now scrambling to stay on top of the hierarchical system. While Republicans' messaging has become centered around culture war dynamics and boosting traditional male ego, Democrats have misunderstood and failed to address the concerns of the American rural. The solution can be to stand strong in the conviction against billionaire-centered capitalism and create real change for the poor and middle classes without compromising justice work.
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