# Democrats try to understand rural voters **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 18, 2019, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338 "2019-03-18T22:43:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338/41 "2019-03-19T23:29:23Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Can we have cite for the claim that “tax increase for the middle class” are “the Republican position”? As I recall, the last big tax bill was passed late in 2017 by the Republicans, with no votes from the Democrats, [and it gave the middle class a substantial rate cut](https://smartasset.com/taxes/trump-tax-brackets). > Let me ask you this: do you actually know what regulations are currently in place that affect farmers? Or truck drivers? Or small business owners? Or people working in countless other industries? Have you studied every regulation and worked to understand arguments both for and against it? > > The answer is no, because there are hundreds of thousands of federal regulations, plus more at the state level, and nobody could possible know all of them, much less study the arguments for and against all of them. So if you wave your hand and declare that all regulations Republicans view as useless are things that benefit the working and middle class, what do you have to back that up other than blind faith? > > Let’s put it this way. There are some working class people who know that they have lost their job, or their small business has closed, or they have had to cut back hours or make expensive changes, because of government regulation. Is telling them that the regulation is question is really good for them likely to be a convincing argument? I’m not familiar with every government regulation. A google search for job destroying government regulations, however, turns up many articles from those arguing that regulations are job neutral to those that point to things like minimum wage laws as regulations that destroy jobs. Here is one, however, that is more in the spirit of the type of regulation that Republicans say is bad but which benefits the public at large even if it does limit the way some people can operate their business. > **[Trump Administration Asks to Roll Back Rules Against Water Pollution](https://www.the-scientist.com/trump-administration-rolls-back-protections-against-water-pollution-65206)** > > Environmental groups are concerned and plan litigation. Trump has proposed the EPA reinterpret how they enforce the Clean Water Act, allowing people to pollute water that will eventually flow into public water systems. Do you really think this is the kind of thing Democrats should be supporting in order to win back the rural vote? As far as all the small businesses that have closed, I think that has a lot more to do with companies like Wal-Mart and Amazon that have outcompeted the mom and pop small businesses than with government regulations. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338/42 "2019-03-19T23:44:08Z")
> [@Covfefe](#): > > That would be a horrific message to send, at least in the context of an election. Do you think that they think that tough love approach is what residents of the poverty stricken inner cities of Detroit, Flint, Gary, etc. heard from their representatives after their once abundant reservoir of manufacturing jobs started evaporating in the 1980s? I’m sure it was a horrific message to the horse-and-buggy industry when automobiles got up and running. A once-abundant reservoir dried up then, too. The country moved on. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2019, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338/43 "2019-03-20T00:10:18Z")
> [@Covfefe](#): > > That would be a horrific message to send, at least in the context of an election. Do you think that they think that tough love approach is what residents of the poverty stricken inner cities of Detroit, Flint, Gary, etc. heard from their representatives after their once abundant reservoir of manufacturing jobs started evaporating in the 1980s? I think its more about white privledge than anything. When black people were losing their jobs it was ‘pull up your bootstraps’. But now that rural whites are losing their jobs (in manufacturing, mining, transportation, etc) its a national emergency that requires compassion. Same with drug epidemics. When blacks in the inner city suffer the answer is curtail the bill of rights and send in militarized police officers. When rural whites have a drug epidemic the solution is narcan, diversion courts and politicians trying to solve the problem, rather than just contain it to the bad neighborhoods so it doesn’t affect the larger society. It just verifies that we are a multi class society and some people’s problems are more important than other people’s. More jobs were lost in the service sector than have been lost in mining, but nobody cares because service sector jobs are held by women and non-whites, while mining jobs are stereotypically jobs held by rural white men. ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2019, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338/44 "2019-03-20T03:58:22Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > So you’re saying, “Farmers: LEARN TO CODE”. That should be a winning election formula. > > If you really think that what Rural Americans want is more big government education programs and subsidies to help them move and become good city dwellers, or that they can be bought off with tax cuts while you regulate them off their farms and out of their fields, you aren’t getting it. Regulate them off their farms? They’re losing their farms because of the moron they voted for cratering crop prices because “Jina” is bad. It’s more like “Farmers: YOU CAN’T PROVIDE AFFORDABLE FOOD WITHOUT MASSIVE GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION”. If you’re going to vote based on other people getting stuff they may not deserve, get the fuck off the government teat and find a real job. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338/45 "2019-03-27T19:46:59Z")
While not all rural voters are farmers, Elizabeth Warren is doing something real for farmers: [Elizabeth Warren Calls for a National Right-to-Repair Law for Tractors](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d3mb5k/elizabeth-warren-calls-for-a-national-right-to-repair-law) Apparently manufacturers like John Deere have maintained a legal monopoly over repair facilities for their farm equipment, making repairs expensive, and hard to obtain in a timely manner. And this is on top of [her plan to attack consolidation in agriculture-related industries](https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2019/03/27/2020-election-iowa-caucuses-elizabeth-warren-agribusiness-family-farmers-rural-issues/3277185002/): > [@](#): > > “The number of purchasers of soybeans or hogs has shrunk dramatically,” [Warren] said. “The number of seed providers has shrunk dramatically, and the diversity of the seeds (offered) has shrunk. Concentration in those industries has put a real squeeze on small- and medium-sized farms in Iowa.” So, what is the GOP offering to small farmers that competes with that, either in practical effect, or in insight into the problems that farmers face? ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338/46 "2019-03-27T19:54:01Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > There is a lot of racism and fear that drives the rural vote. They don’t see many minorities, so they fear them as the unknown “other”. They want the clock turned back to a time where the “other” could legally be barred from working in their shops, living in their neighborhoods, or dating their daughters. They represent the death throes of a time that has overstayed its welcome. Every year that passes, the nation becomes less rural and less white. Sooner or later, the white rural vote will become irrelevant. Wow. Can you not understand how incredibly bigoted, condescending, and generally offensive that paragraph is? Thinking like that is why Trump is POTUS. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338/47 "2019-03-27T20:11:03Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Wow. Can you not understand how incredibly bigoted, condescending, and generally offensive that paragraph is? Thinking like that is why Trump is POTUS. The data does show, according to Nate Silver, that the best statistical indicator of Trump support was frequency of google searches for [racist terms](https://twitter.com/natesilver538/status/703975062500732932?lang=en). And why would anyone be surprised by this? The things that made Trump stand out in the 2016 race were his years and years of unrepentantly spreading a bullshit racist conspiracy theory (i.e. birtherism) and hateful language about immigrants and Muslims. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338/48 "2019-03-27T20:26:12Z")
A gift to the Russkie troll farms. Explains why I saw so much racist crap and Bernie Bro madness in my Facebook. How hard would it be, after all, to subvert Facebook’s algorithms to feed racist shit to racists without alerting the rest of us? ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338/49 "2019-03-27T20:38:04Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > The data does show, according to Nate Silver, that the best statistical indicator of Trump support was frequency of google searches for [racist terms](https://twitter.com/natesilver538/status/703975062500732932?lang=en). > > And why would anyone be surprised by this? The things that made Trump stand out in the 2016 race were his years and years of unrepentantly spreading a bullshit racist conspiracy theory (i.e. birtherism) and hateful language about immigrants and Muslims. Attempting to justify bigotry is also bigotry. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338/50 "2019-03-27T21:16:58Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Attempting to justify bigotry is also bigotry. Obviously. Not sure what you’re disputing. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338/51 "2019-03-27T21:35:01Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Obviously. Not sure what you’re disputing. Not disputing a goddamn thing. Stating that you apparently endorse that other poster’s anti-rural bigotry. ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338/52 "2019-03-27T21:41:49Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Attempting to justify bigotry is also bigotry. Disliking racists isn’t bigotry. Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338/53 "2019-03-27T21:42:04Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Not disputing a goddamn thing. Stating that you apparently endorse that other poster’s anti-rural bigotry. I was talking about the statistics of support for Trump, and its correlation with statistical indicators of racism. And how this shouldn’t be surprising, considering the many years of racist statements by Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Covfefe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ee7513/32.png) [@Covfefe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covfefe)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338/54 "2019-03-27T21:51:31Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I was talking about the statistics of support for Trump, and its correlation with statistical indicators of racism. And how this shouldn’t be surprising, considering the many years of racist statements by Trump. In response to a post responding to a post characterizing white rural voters. It wasn’t characterizing Trump supporters. It wasn’t characterizing racists. The fragment quoted was characterizing white rural voters. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338/55 "2019-03-27T21:59:58Z")
> [@Covfefe](#): > > In response to a post responding to a post characterizing white rural voters. It wasn’t characterizing Trump supporters. It wasn’t characterizing racists. The fragment quoted was characterizing white rural voters. Then there was some broad-brushing that I think should generally be avoided. If he was just criticizing that broad-brushing, then I misread it. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338/56 "2019-03-28T15:00:02Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Wow. Can you not understand how incredibly bigoted, condescending, and generally offensive that paragraph is? Thinking like that is why Trump is POTUS. Agreed **iiandyiiii** that it might be a broad brushstroke overstated, and a bit overly simplified, but not bigoted. Would you claim that racism (even if implicit), fear/resentment of “the other”, and fear of decreasing relevance and power relative to various “others” play no factor in rural whites support of Trumpism? NO I do not think that most rural voters explicitly want “want the clock turned back to a time where the ‘other’ could legally be barred from working in their shops, living in their neighborhoods, or dating their daughters” but without a resonating more positive vision to attach to blaming “the other” _has_ been a successful sales pitch. And you are completely right in your assertion that messaging that is heard as dismissing them as soon to be completely “irrelevant” (even when not stated as clearly as **BobLibDem** did) drives Trumpism strongly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-try-to-understand-rural-voters/831338.md?page=2)