In the Land of Self-Defeat

[Zorro]

Inside Washington, there’s a sense that this scandal really is different. Even the White House’s memorandum of the phone conversation President Trump had with the Ukrainian president in July makes it clear that Mr. Trump asked a foreign country to help him undermine a political rival. But while national polls show support for impeaching him is growing, it’s still divided sharply along partisan lines. Democrats strongly favor it, while Republicans tend to oppose it.

I’ve been following this story from my little corner of the world in rural Van Buren County, Ark. Tim Widener, 50, who lives outside my hometown, Clinton, summed up the town’s attitude well: “It’s really a sad waste of taxpayers’ money,” he told me.

Mr. Widener could have been talking about anything. His comment reflected a worldview that is becoming ever more deeply ingrained in the white people who remain in rural America — Washington politicians are spending money that they shouldn’t be. In 2016, shortly after Mr. Trump’s victory, Katherine J. Cramer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, summed up the attitudes she observed after years of studying rural Americans: “The way these folks described the world to me, their basic concern was that people like them, in places like theirs, were overlooked and disrespected,” she wrote in Vox, explaining that her subjects considered “racial minorities on welfare” as well as “lazy urban professionals” working desk jobs to be undeserving of state and federal dollars. People like my neighbors hate that the government is spending money on those who don’t look like them and don’t live like them — but what I’ve learned since I came home is that they remain opposed even when they themselves stand to benefit.

I returned to Van Buren County at the end of 2017 after 20 years living on the East Coast, most recently in the Washington area, because I’m writing a book about Clinton, Van Buren’s county seat. My partner and I knew it would be a challenge: The county is very remote, very religious and full of Trump voters, and we suspected we’d stand out because of our political beliefs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/opinion/sunday/trump-arkansas.html

This is a depressing read. Rampant and resolute ignorance abounds in rural America.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Yep, I live about 140 miles from Clinton. It's sad since I

grew up in rural Ohio, on a farm and attended High School in a tiny village (half the population of Clinton).

[dalton99a]

2. But they're ok with giving trillions to billionaires

A considerable part of rural America is shrinking, and, for some, this means it’s time to go into retreat. Rather than pitching in to maintain what they have, people are willing to go it alone, to devote all their resources to their own homes and their own families.

It makes me wonder if appeals from Democratic candidates still hoping to win Trump voters over by offering them more federal services will work. Many of the Democratic front-runners have released plans that call for more federal tax investment in rural infrastructure. Mr. Widener told me he had watched some of the Democratic debates, and his reaction was that everything the candidates proposed was “going to cost me money.”

Economic appeals are not going to sway any Trump voters, who view anyone who is trying to increase government spending, especially to help other people, with disdain, even if it ultimately helps them, too. And Trump voters are carrying the day here in Van Buren County. They see Mr. Trump’s slashing of the national safety net and withdrawal from the international stage as necessities — these things reflect their own impulse writ large.

They believe every tax dollar spent now is wasteful and foolish and they will have to pay for it later. It is as if there will be a nationwide scramble to cover the shortfall just as there was here with the library. As long as Democrats make promises to make their lives better with free college and Medicare for all sound like they include government spending, these voters will turn to Trump again — and it won’t matter how many scandals he’s been tarnished by.

[rownesheck]

3. Maybe their ignorance

is what causes them to be "ignored" or mocked. I've lived in rural areas, and from what I encountered, they deserve to be ignored. I had a boss who used to say, "Get right, or get left."

Editor's note: yes, I know not all rural people are ignorant. There are those who read and are not easily led automatons.

[Nay]

4. This is a depressing read all right, but after having spent the last month in areas

like this, I can verify that the author is correct. These 'tribes' just want to be left alone, and I vote that they should have that right. Of course, that means that blue states should stop propping them up with blue state money -- after all, if they don't even want to tax themselves a penny on the sales dollar for 2 years to pay off their own community library, why should blue states pay?

Their attitude is why their kids don't stay, med clinics fold up and go away, schools stagnate and have RW bible thumpers as teachers, industries refuse to move in, grocery stores close up, etc., etc. Well, OK, have at it, folks. Enjoy your remaining years on oxycontin and Cheetos. Obviously, any attempts on our part just exacerbate the attitude problem.

Edited to add: Isn't it remarkable how none of these people mind paying out the ass for expensive military adventures that only enrich the rich?