No Stupid Questions

It’s a good article. It explains rural America. It doesn’t explain the well off assholes living in Huntington Beach CA. It doesn’t explain the well off assholes living in suburban Inland SoCal. It doesn’t explain rich privileged shitheads like Musk and Thiel.

Honestly, hadn't read this one and it's got some seriously solid points in it.

I remember reading this and thinking it had some points. Then I remembered that despite having some of the same issues, we have vastly different responses. When I’m lied to and beaten, I don’t look to the person that did it for help.

For instance, the church being the only social space. They could have a community center or a library. Sure funds are hard to come by but what kind of political party would even consider that? The answer is probably further left than democrats but fifty years of red scare won’t let anyone accept that.

The "writing them off" part comes from their willingness to not ostracize evil people when they get something they want. We can all be bullheaded or blinded by bias from time to time but accountability and decency shouldn’t be political.

Great read. There’s 70+ million people out there choosing to vote for Trump, why? Even if the answer is complicated you can’t dismiss them all outright.

I see a decent amount of comments painting all republics with one brush. I think it’s low effort and unproductive.

I feel like this is just gift wrapping being a dumb racist hick in prettier paper. They are scared of cities because their full of black people, gays, and Mexicans. They like assholes who show the same level of hate as they do - who will keep the black people, gays, and Mexicans away. And they like someone who justifies hiding behind religion so they can tell themselves that God made them this dumb and rascist. So they can delude themselves into thinking they are really the good guy.

Good read thanks

Good read. Thanks!

That was an amazing read.

I mean it's definitely an interesting read. I'm just not sure what to actually do with this information. The fundamental problem feels like a generally small bubble, and at times a specific disinterest in venturing outside of it. If anyone's whole worldview is shaped entirely by their tiny rural hometown, it's easy to understand why others with radically different backgrounds feel scary.

But at the end of the day, it doesn't feel like a good enough reason to drag the rest of the country through rigid christofacist moral dogmas and support the industries that prop up those small towns at the expense of the planet as a whole. But as long as those people aren't interested in venturing outside their communities and meeting other different people, im not sure how to convince them of this.

Maybe if the cost of living becomes too untenable in major cities and work from home continues in certain industries rural areas will see more growth and this will improve somewhat? Idk

The problem with that argument is that 80% of people live in cities. There are not enough rural people for them to be a majority of the Republican party.

Jason Pargin is a goddamn hero.

Low density places are always going to kind of suck on a lot of metrics. You just don't have the people to support a lot of stuff. I'm sorry that small towns are dying but like there's not really a reason they'd thrive.

Cities have been important since like the dawn of history. At least farms grow food. Suburban sprawl is the worst.

Cost of living needs to go down and wages up, but no one should be vying for low density.

Fun piece. I don’t know about best explanation ever.

It starts out talking about how movies idealize simple honest people from the heartlands (Star Wars, The Hunger Games, Braveheart) but then says:

the whole goddamn world revolves around them. Every TV show is about LA or New York, maybe with some Chicago or Baltimore thrown in. When they did make a show about us, we were jokes

So which is it? Does pop culture feed rural America’s sense that it is “Real America” or does it make them hillbillies?

As if explaining politics through TV and movies isn’t reductive enough, it can’t seem to keep its own story straight for ten paragraphs in row.

That was from before we knew better. We've seen since then that it is indeed racism and hatred that powers the Republican base. That's why the GOP doesn't need to have any real policy laid out anymore. They just have to promise to hurt the "right" people this time around. Any sane Republicans that existed then are voting Democrat now.

I've read this article when it was posted before and my impression is it does EXACTLY the thing to non-rural voters as it warns the reader about doing to rural voters. I can quote the bits if you are going to force me to read it again, but I don't see how anyone can fail to see that.

It also doesn't change the fact that the party who might actually make their lives better is NOT the one they are voting for.

Also - racism (and bigotry generally)

That was an amazing read. My hometown was really similar, though maybe not as desolate. Lucky there was a college town close by so we could shop at some place that wasn’t Walmart. This really does sum it up, though, the appeal of Trump out of these smaller rural communities. I like the message at the end, too. Thanks for sharing. 🙏

I would love to but the amount of ads on that article make it absolute cancer on my phone.

An add every other paragraph. It’s fucking gross. And yes. I am using addblockers.

That's an interesting point of view.

This explains a demographic analysis without explaining anything meaningful or unique. The article could be about any post-Regan Republican campaign (such demographic analysis is used by all modern campaigns, on bith sides), so it wasn't a satisfying article. Combined with all the pop culture references, it comes off as quite immature and an unextraordinary explanation. Mediocre.