"The real reason the rural US is so red"

[Collimator]

I have to be honest; this never occurred to me.

Real reason rural America is politically conservative.

[SamKnause]

1. I find this to be true in the rural farm communities I have lived in.

It is true in the community I live in right now.

[cachukis]

2. There are also lots of churches looking at people

moving in. They are looking to fill pews.

[Aristus]

6. Yeah. If you move anywhere in the South, outside of the big cities (and even there, sometimes, maybe), the first thing

your new neighbors will ask you is where you go to church. And if you don't go to church, social sanctions will result.

Back when I was still just a dumbass Southern boy, we were getting ready for church one Sunday morning, when the neighbor kid from across the street came over and asked us to play. I chided him, very self-righteously, for not going to church. I felt awful about it in the years that followed. I'm an atheist now. I looked up our old neighbor kid on Facebook a few years ago, and he had become a conservative Mormon. It kills me a little.

[progressoid]

13. When my parents moved to the small town they are currently in (and will die in)...

One of the questions the superintendent asked to all applicants to teach at the public school was, "what church are you going to go to?"



This went on for years until the 70s.

[Raven123]

3. Would need to see a lot more data before I would believe this assertion

[Permanut]

4. Ya load sixteen tons, and whatya get?

[indusurb]

5. This is true, but only to a certain extent

A lot more of it has to do with religion, racism, brainwashing and frankly the fact that the Democractic party stopped giving a damn about rural voters a long time ago.

[Cosmocat]

9. Correct

nm

[modrepub]

10. Yea But

Most rural counties probably take more government tax money than they put in. I’d be happy to cut them lose to live on their own devices if I didn't have to send them my tax money to keep their infrastructure going and have them lecture me about how democratic areas are full of moochers.

[Johnny2X2X]

7. Envy

Rural America is envious of city America. They hold some falsehoods and some of it is just culture.

They have the impression that their taxes go to fund the cities, when the opposite is true. They have no clue the money that leaves the cities to support their roads, farms, schools, and lives.

But a lot of it is just the idea that people in the cities are more successful, smarter, and more worldly than they are. You spend any time in a rural community and the locals will spend a good portion of their conversations with you explaining common sense to you. They're obsessed with "common sense" and are convinced that small town local yokels are the only human beings anywhere that can grasp basic common sense. They'll explain to you common sense on groceries, common sense on schoolin, common sense on shoppin, and home ownin etc. etc. Stuff they say only small town folk really know. Then you look around at the train wrecks their lives are and you wonder where all their common sense is.

And they'll even treat people who got out of those small towns differently. Because they're envious of them, that they went away and were able to hack it and build a life in a place they don't think they'd be able to hack it. They feel left behind.

[Cosmocat]

11. THIS is the heart of it

What this person is saying it true, but it being true does not make it the reason people vote R in rural areas.

The core of it is what you explain.

They just are insecure, bored and isolated and succumb to pettiness and small mindedness.

They shit talk and mind the business of each other when they not around each other, and their primary rally point is the evil liberal boogyman.

[Johnny2X2X]

14. Small town gossip

It's literally insane how much time small town people spend gossiping about one another. Everyone knows everyone's business.

[Kaleva]

22. Large majority of Trump supporters in Mi live in urban areas

About 70% of the vote that Trump got in Mi in the 2020 election came from counties designated as urban by the Census Bureau. That percentage goes up to 75% when mostly urban counties are included.

[progressoid]

8. I've seen this before. She's not quite right.

It's a reason, but I would put church and media above this.

[wnylib]

12. There are other factors, too.

Small towns and rural areas do not have much diversity compared to larger cities. Diversity and size increase input on ideas from various perspectives. Smaller, more homogenous communities develop their own local views and customs. They can often be narrow in views and lack a larger picture of life beyond their own neighbors and personal issues.

In cities, there is usually public transportation. There are malls, Plazas, supermarkets. There are municipal departments for snow clearance, parks, public swimming pools and maintenance, etc (or a YMCA pool), car repair shops, etc.

In rural areas, people have to be more self reliant. They attach a plow to a truck and clear their own snow. They have cars and learn to do minor repairs themselves. They have to keep up the car maintenance because the cars or trucks are essential where there are
no buses or cabs. They have to plan their time and activities around trips to towns for shopping. They are more consciously aware of individual independence. They are also usually good about helping a neighbor in distress because, without nearby services, people need help from each other sometimes. That means, of course, that they know everybody's personal problems and business and they gossip to others.

I grew up in a city and lived later in larger cities. My father grew up on a farm and most of his relatives lived in rural communities. I have lived and felt the differences between rural versus urban life.

[Buzz cook]

15. The end of the fairness doctrine and

the eights ability to exploit abortion and moral panics.

[ananda]

16. The entire Texas side of my family is magat.

We have long rural roots going back to the 1790's
when my paternal ancestor came to America from
England (possibly origninally from Scotland) and
became an indentured servant.

After awhile both sides ended up in Tennessee
where they were essentially poor but still owned
a couple of slaaves.

Then the moved to Texas to take advantage of
the Spanish land grants. I know of at least one
of them who fought for the Confederacy in the
Civil War, survived it, but died soon after from
lung problems.

In Texas they were historically poor and very very
racist.

The GI BIll following WWII allowed by dad and his
brother to go to college and do well in business. But
although they were no loner technically rural, they
were still rural at heart.

What drove them remained racism mainly, and also
sexism and homophobia. THis has spread down to
all my cousins and their families.

I and my siblings and their kids are all Democrats,
due to the influence of my Irish Catholic mother who
was descended from the Irish Dore family, who were
all Democrats and active in politics for the good of
all people, regardless.

[senseandsensibility]

17. It won't load for me

Can anyone briefly tell me what the reason is?

[Niagara]

18. Here ya go, senseandsensibility

[senseandsensibility]

21. Thanks!

Now that I know what she said, it seems like it could be true. But wouldn't most people vote blue just to get back at these conservative jerks? I know I would. It would be a chance to get revenge through the vote, which should be anonymous. Thanks again.

[Niagara]

23. My pleasure

I believe this could be true.


This is what I believe. I believe a more larger issue is that most people are more susceptible to right wing talking points. RW talking points helps keep them dumbed down, keeps them angry and keeps them voting against their own interest.


Always my pleasure!

[lindysalsagal]

19. Why have I never heard this before? It's Yellowstone TV series.

[ProfessorGAC]

20. Interesting

There's a sea of red to our west, and what she says describes that area pretty well.
One big medical family: one night real estate family; one big banking family; a couple factory farms.
Those people have a LOT of influence, so a blue collar town votes preponderantly R.
Go east to the much bigger county, and you get blue. To the north, purple. Go far enough west, a county that narrowly went for Trump, but has a D rep, a D state rep, a D state senator, and voted 57/43 for Duckworth.
But, those counties are majority urban.
I guess I buy much of what she's selling.