The term “Middle America” has been used for decades to describe “flyover America, Heartland America”, voters and people, predominately white Americans who have moderate views that swing to Republican, Democratic, or Independent.
Richard Nixon won them. Ronald Reagan won them. George HW Bush won them. Ross Perot got a chunk of the votes to get 19 percent in 1992. Bill Clinton won them. George W. Bush won them. A black man named Barack Obama from Middle America won them.
Donald Trump won them.
A lot of people on Twitter, especially left-wing people dismiss Middle America’s concerns.
Newsflash: You have to compete in Middle America to win. Yes, white voters are declining overall, but they still count and you have to cobble a coalition.
There are a lot of non white people in middle America. There are conservatives, liberals, and everything in between in middle America. I’m not sure “middle America” is any more moderate than any other region. I don’t believe either party has “ignored” middle America or their concerns.
I would challenge this statement. It is accepted wisdom by many that this is the case, but it seems to me this is more likely a strawman argument.
More likely, I would say that many on the left, particularly those in urban settings, would like to feel they have an equal voice to those that are identified as Middle America. Wishing for an equal voice is in no way dismissing others.
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(Yeah, Obama is a black guy. Lots of black guys in the midwest. Americans are aware of this.)
I think it’s not as crispy as End Piece America, which is sometimes a good thing, provided it isn’t soggy and underdone. It’s just a nuisance jostling elbows with both Aisle America and Window Seat America.
There’s always going to be a certain amount of contempt by people in the largest urban areas towards people in the more rural regions. This isn’t just America, it’s an attitude found in many other nations as well.
In one popular scheme (de Blij) of world regional geography, “Middle America” is Mexico, the seven countries in Central America, and the islands of the Caribbean. This scheme is a compromise between physical regions (like “continents”) and human/cultural ones (like “Latin America”).
I think “Middle America” has about as much genuine meaning as “East Coast elites” or “West Coast liberals” or “Redneck Southerners.”
An autoworker in Detroit, a physician at the Mayo Clinic, a Lutheran minister in Wisconsin, and an IT manager in Chicago are all “Middle America,” which proves nothing.
I’m old enough to remember the months after November 2016, when just about the ONLY thing the (coastal) media talked about was “middle America,” and how it affected the election. So I don’t know why you think this is a “Newsflash” three years later.
Middle America is code for rural white America. Rural white America is not politically independent, they have a heavy emotional investment in identity politics and masculinity, both of which the GOP offer them in spades.
Obama didn’t win rural whites, he just lost them by smaller margins (25 points vs losing them by 40 points for Hillary).
The problem is, how do democrats actually appeal to rural whites? If rural whites vote GOP due to identity politics, what can the democrats offer them?
To me the only way to win them over is to rebuild the labor movement. Rural whites are overwhelmingly republican, unless they join a labor union. Then they become democrats.
“When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
Rural whites have been losing their identity and sense of status in the new globalist, multicultural America. I have no idea how democrats can reach out to them and appeal to them.
And a lot of people in Middle America dismiss the rest of the country. There’s an attitude among many of them that people in Middle America are “Real Americans” and are therefore entitled to better treatment than all of the other people who happen to live in a country that they feel should belong to them.
I have no problem dismissing that attitude. I feel every American, regardless of where he or she lives in this country, is entitled to the same treatment.
A voter in North Dakota or Wyoming already gets a vote that counts three times as much as a voter in California or New York. What does the OP suggest they should be getting? Five times as much? Ten times as much? How many votes are they supposed to get before they feel they have what they deserve?
I think you have a disproportionate amount of power due to the way the Senate and the Electoral College are structured and that this must be rectified.
“Middle America” is neither New York / San Francisco hipster tech millionaires nor rural hicks.
When I think of “Middle America”, I think of the vast suburban areas outside the major cities where people live in single family homes, have 2.2 kids, regular 9 to 5 jobs for mid-level salaries, occasionally enjoy a “night out” at Applebee’s. Basically “ordinary” in every way.
I think it goes even farther than that. Certain sectors of “middle America” make the idea of down-home folksy people who are just morally better than the big city folk part of their cultural identity. The cities are decadent, cut-throat, and crime-ridden, while small towns are wholesome and caring.
It always comes back to the jews with these types. I would guess that this stereotype comes after the version about the jews. Hell it must. We are only a couple hundred years old. It’s no contest.
