Can we now finally really forget about the "forgotten white rural voter"?

[StarfishSaver]

They've been getting shoved down our throats for at least the last 12 years. They're the most covered and catered to neglected people in American history. I'm sick of hearing about them.

Time to start talking about THESE real Americans.

Link to tweet

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. K&R.

[Ohiogal]

2. This.

[DeminPennswoods]

3. An ever-shrinking demographic in America

I might add.

[not_the_one]

24. Unfortunately that won't matter.

As long as the former slave holders and their sympathizers, in a state with a population of 800,000 (give or take), have the same number of senators as a state with a population of 40,000,000 (give or take), fairness is not in the equation. Add to that the electoral college, and you now have potential for the maximum clusterfucking of the American people.

The senate is a perfect example of tyranny by the minority. Furthered, of course, by gerrymandered state districts for maximum voter suppression.

One person does NOT equal one vote. We need to either (as Capt. Picard would say) "make it so", or drop it altogether.

[Johnny2X2X]

4. F*ck their feelings

I agree, these people are deplorable.

[d_b]

5. Whether we win elections or lose them

It’s always the same: what can we do to be more like a party/ideology that has won the popular vote once in 7 of the last 8 elections.

Twilight zone shit.

[AkFemDem]

6. No. Even in the deep red mostly white states

Look at the millions of votes Biden got. And in the rust belt? The cities carried him but not by much, if not for the poor white rural voters, he wouldn’t have pulled it off in places like Michigan, Wisconsin, and hopefully PA.

[StarfishSaver]

9. "The cities carried him but not by much"? Are you serious?

Black voters who stood in lines for hours are putting Biden over the top. Yes, some some white rural voters voted for him. That's nice. Does that mean we have to talk about and to them ad nauseum as if they're the only voters who matter?

BS. It's time to stop fetishizing these people and recognize that Black Voters Matter, too - especially since we consistently bust our asses to save this country from the majority of rural white voters who consistently support candidates who seek to destroy it.

[AkFemDem]

11. It's not about it being "nice"!!

It’s about the numbers. We have a race in Georgia where the final vote may literally come down to a few hundred to thousand votes. I’m not saying those non-city votes are MORE important than what we see from Atlanta and Athens and Savannah, but without them? It wouldn’t happen. We can not afford to just shrug off an entire demographic group as unwinnable, when clearly at least some are- and in some states cases “some” is exactly what we need. I’m not tossing any babies with the bath water. That’s foolish and it’s how we get 2016. Go after every.single.vote.

[StarfishSaver]

12. Who said anything about shrugging them off as unwinnable?

I'm talking about not treating them as if they are the only demographic that matters.

There are other voters in those states too. And they're tired of being ignored by the media while everyone chases around after rural white voters as if there's some kind of magical unicorns.

[AkFemDem]

15. Well then we aren't disagreeing-

They’re not the only demographic that matters. I’m saying we don’t give up on that group is all.

[Demsrule86]

7. No one thing this election showed is we need to win in rural America.

Look at state legislatures and the Senate.

[StarfishSaver]

10. So that means we have to cover them 24-7 as if they're the only voters who matter?

While ignoring the black voters who consistently save this country from them ...

White privilege manifests in many ways, big and small ...

[luv2fly]

13. Not sure about where you are

But here in WI no one "ignored black voters." The only progressive radio station in the state laid this out over and over, while simultaneously recognizing the importance of every vote... rural, white, urban, hispanic, black, etc etc etc. We make inroads when we lay out a vision that all can see, we're not always good at that though.

[Demsrule86]

21. No but we need a 50 state strategy which gave us a 60 member senate in 2008. Howard Dean

fielded great candidates in rural and red area. We need those votes and we can get them without compromising our Progressive principles. Look at red Florida, they passed a $15.00 minimum wage.

[StarfishSaver]

22. That's true - but that's not the point of my OP

[Demsrule86]

38. Well if you forget about rural voters, you can't pursue a 50 state strategy IMHO.

[Autumn]

43. The only way you are going to change their minds is to give them all the guns they want. Keep brown

and black people subservient. Drill baby drill and get rid of those deadly windmill and solar. Do away with more regulations. I say that as a rural American. We can't win those people and there is no reason to bother.

[johnp3907]

8. Totally!

[modrepub]

14. Said This Many Times

I strongly urge the Democratic party to create systematic bumpers to keep tax receipts local. The Farm program Trump put in place is a perfect example of how government tax receipts are funneled into areas that probably are "takers". The rural areas of most states probably receive more government monies than they pay into the system. How many times has Mitch and other red state senators or representatives bragged about bringing home the bacon. I'm convinced the reason a lot of areas have high local taxes is because they have to make up for state and federal tax money being siphoned off to go to other areas that oppose taxes to begin with.

Austerity is coming at some point in the future. Democrats need to put the in structural back stops in place (while they're in power) to make sure future cuts in government funding are shouldered by areas that don't pay their fair share.

[StarfishSaver]

17. Whose demonizing anyone? I'm saying to stop fetishizing white rural voters

as if they're something special - and consistently portraying them as "forgotten," "neglected, "unlistened to," etc. when they're nothing of the kind - while treating black voters as if they barely exist.

[StarfishSaver]

23. You apparently have missed the last 10+ years of obsessive media coverage of the "forgotten"

and ignored white rural voters.

And it's interesting that when black voters are covered, it's during election season and always focused on how Democrats are doing to get is out to vote. But there's little discussion about what Republicans need to be doing to get our vote and in between elections, we go right back to focusing on the needs and concerns of the poor, forgotten rural and/or working people - but only the white ones because they don't seem to think that black people also work and live in rural areas.

[Chakaconcarne]

18. As long as they persist to be as rabid and nonsensical as they have been

I say....screw them.

I guarantee if we were to go paper everywhere, they would be on their own.

[Amishman]

19. Don't focus on them but don't ignore or deliberately antagonize them either

they are what keep the republicans viable.

This goes back to Dean's old 50 state strategy. Find blue dogs and see if you can win or at least force the pubs to put in an effort in those areas. A Manchin type on our side is much more desirable than a Tom Cotton type Republican in the same seat.

[treestar]

26. +1 million zillion

Every time people rant against blue dogs, you want to scream, it's Montana! It's West Virginia! We do what we can there.

[treestar]

25. The EC and Senate unfortunately

make it so to win, we have to get some of them. It's so clearly an urban/rural divide. They have more power than we do because of those two institutions. The only way to be equal is to get rid of the EC, expand the House (even it if getting disproportionate) and do something to lessen the powers of the Senate.

Some states can afford to forget them - NY, CA, DE, etc.

But others can't. They have too many of them and their cities not big enough to outvote them.

[ismnotwasm]

27. Yes.

They have exactly zero problems showing us who and what they are.

[Caliman73]

28. The Democrats don't really forget about any demographic.

Democrats make policy that benefits most groups. The difficulty with dealing with such a diverse group of people and trying to make the budget fit something in every constituency group is that people do not get everything they want. Democrats absolutely make policy that benefits the White rural vote. The problem is that when it comes to spending, those bills die in the Senate, which has been controlled by the Republicans since President Obama's second term and prior to that, were using the filibuster to slow down or kill any legislation.

The difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats do not make policies to "win votes" we make policy to help people. Republicans rely on propaganda and the politics of racism and resentment. They do absolutely nothing tangible to help the average person, but they are VERY good at making it seem like Democrats do not care about anyone except Black Transgendered Lesbian Socialists who want to burn the flag and molest children.

I think we definitely need to cover the White racists but not to reach out to them, but to find out what (Fox and right wing radio) keeps them racist and how to deal (eliminate Fox and right wing radio) the situation so that we can move forward.

[Blasphemer]

29. Yes! Black Americans built this country and are saving its democracy despite the fact..

that it was designed to deny their personhood.

[maxsolomon]

30. No, we still need to care for the poor.

Rural America HAS seen a catastrophic loss of steady, good-paying jobs over the last 30 years.

Rural America IS being brainwashed by RW hate radio.

I care that they wake the fuck up and realize who's been screwing them over. It's not urban liberals. It's not African Americans.

Who shipped American manufacturing to China, in some cases literally sending the factories there? Republicans.

[StarfishSaver]

31. Read the OP

I'm not talking about whether or not these people should be cared for. I'm talking about the inordinate and completely irrational over the top coverage of them in the media.

[maxsolomon]

32. Oh, I agree on that basis.

It's pointless. I've never heard or read a rural voter make a substantive, accurate point in defense of Republicans. They are utterly bamboozled by ignorance, lies and resentments.

[StarfishSaver]

33. Exactly

Yet they are covered obsessively as if they are the touchstone of "real America" while black voters are virtually ignored.

[Staph]

34. Take a look at this Cracked story from 2016.

The life of rural whites is more complicated than the national news sources portray it.

https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/

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 -- either wide-eyed, naive fluffballs (Parks And Recreation, and before that, Newhart) or filthy murderous mutants (True Detective, and before that, Deliverance). You could feel the arrogance from hundreds of miles away.

"Nothing that happens outside the city matters!" they say at their cocktail parties, blissfully unaware of where their food is grown. Hey, remember when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans? Kind of weird that a big hurricane hundreds of miles across managed to snipe one specific city and avoid everything else. To watch the news (or the multiple movies and TV shows about it), you'd barely hear about how the storm utterly steamrolled rural Mississippi, killing 238 people and doing an astounding $125 billion in damage.

But who cares about those people, right? What's newsworthy about a bunch of toothless hillbillies crying over a flattened trailer? New Orleans is culturally important. It matters.

I remember Hurricane Juan back in 1985, a slow moving in late October. When it got to West Virginia, it basically stopped, dropping many inches in a single day. Forty-four West Virginians died and many of their bodies were never found. Mountain communities were cut off for days or weeks with roads and bridges washed out.

But when we turned on the national news, we saw stories of the waters of the Potomac River lapping the edges of the Jefferson Memorial. No mention of the state of emergency in West Virginia. No mention of the deaths.

We only exist as a punching bag or a joke.

[StarfishSaver]

35. This completely misses the point of my OP

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

36. The thing is they aren't forgotten

because they are overrepresented by the senate and the ec for their population size. The urban people are the ones that are underrepresented.

[StarfishSaver]

39. Exactly. But the media obsesses over them

while ignoring black and brown voters.

[Dem2]

37. Well, that's millions of Democratic votes

Lots of us who grew up in urban areas and are Democrats for life live in lesser populated areas.

[StarfishSaver]

40. They don't vote Democratic

The media doesn't cover Democratic white rural voters. Their obsession is with white rural voters who claim they vote Republican because the media and Democratic "elites" continue to look down on and ignore them, when they are actually treated as something special and definitely not ignored.

[Demsrule86]

42. If we made an effort, 50 state, might be able to turn some into Democratic voters which has a huge

impact on statewide races...this would include the State Senate , the US Senate and the presidency.

[StarfishSaver]

45. I doubt it

I'm fine with doing a 50 state strategy and if those voters come along with us, that's great. But I don't think we need to be falling all over ourselves chasing after them - we've been doing that for years and it hasn't worked. And NOT because they haven't heard or don't understand our economic message - it has nothing to do with economics at all.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

41. We don't want to ignore them though

We need to figure out how to get these people to understand the republicans have been using them and screwing them over this whole time. I think if the dems were able to visit these rural places more it would make a difference. I think they feel neglected in the way that the Dem candidates typically don't visit them unless they are in a battle ground state.

[StarfishSaver]

46. They understand that but they don't care

The Republicans satisfy another itch of theirs and that itch is far more important to them than anything we can or are willing to offer.

We need to stop making excuses for those people. They're not stupid. They know just what they're doing. And unless Democrats demonstrate that they're willing to kick minorities to the curb and out-racist the Republicans, they're not going to change allegiances.

[Sogo]

44. Yes, we must recognize Black patriotism,

but that should not be at the expense of any other Americans.

As Biden reminds us, he will be the President of ALL of America, even those who did not vote for him. We are the UNITED States of America.

BTW, I'm a rural white voter, who votes Dem....

[StarfishSaver]

47. At the expense?

They're not victims and they don't have some kind of God-given right to receive overwhelming media coverage.

Scaling back on the nonstop media coverage of the "forgotten white rural voters" is not doing anything at their expense. We can certainly reduce the amount of attention and coverage given to those folk in order to spend some time covering other people, including black people who are never accorded that kind of attention. Giving a little less coverage to white rural voters isn't some kind of oppression or discrimination against them.

You're not the rural white voter I'm talking about. The media hasn't spent the last four years sitting in just about every diner between here and Montana talking to rural white Democrats.