Democrats torch Trump failures on rural digital divide

[bluewater]

Democrats are offering President Donald Trump's rural supporters a reason to turn against him in 2020 — his failure to bring them the high-speed internet he promised.

Several presidential candidates including Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg have rolled out proposals for tens of billions in new federal dollars to bring fast broadband service to rural America, with Warren’s $85 billion plan leading the spending pack.

They call broadband yet another example of Trump letting down people who helped send him to the White House in 2016, including people in the same farm-heavy states suffering from the president’s trade wars. Trump’s challengers also say the slow internet speeds that prevail in much of the nation are a drag on the economy and a threat to U.S. competitiveness.

“I see that the country of Iceland has all hooked up, and we’re not,” Democratic hopeful Amy Klobuchar told POLITICO when asked about Trump’s record. The Minnesota senator pledges to connect all U.S. households to broadband by 2022.

Calling out the country's "failure to invest in rural areas," Warren wrote in a blog post last week that "both corporate America and leaders in Washington have turned their backs on the people living in our rural communities and prioritized the interests of giant companies and Wall Street instead."

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/17/rural-digital-divide-democratic-candidates-1655290