Over the past 30 years, the American political landscape has been characterized by a growing divide between rural and urban voters, almost as if they’re on two opposing teams, according to Suzanne Mettler, the John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S).
But the divide is confined largely to white Americans, Mettler and collaborators have found in an examination of the racial and ethnic facets of the trend.
When it comes to politics, Black and Latino residents of rural America differ far less, if at all, from their urban counterparts than do non-Hispanic white residents, the researchers report. With one in four residents of rural America now identifying as nonwhite, the study’s findings raise concerns about political representation of Black and Latino Americans and highlights a need for further research on rural people of color broadly, including racially marginalized groups beyond Black and Latino people.
I have thought about this as just some fucking Lemmy commenter.
Rural white Americans used to benefit from conservative systems. Maybe not the current people, but their parents or grandparents. And while conservative leadership destroys their lives, campaign promises are often made to farmers/miners/other heavy industry. Any failures (the system working as intended) are blamed on “the other side” This upholds the divide between rural and urban whites as intended.
With black and brown people becoming more prominent in rural communities as members instead of just laborer, those previously felt conservative views don’t hold up. They aren’t benefiting, their parents didn’t, their grandparents definitely didn’t. On top of the racial divide that conservatives operate under, rural whites and rural POCs are likely to not share the same political values despite being a like in lifestyle.
But what do I know, just some guy from the suburbs death scrolling Lemmy
Rural whites have a cultural identity that is going to be really hard for them to shake. In addition to country music and trucks a major component of that identity is being conservative. People all over imitate this, as you know from probably seeing lifted pickups in your suburbs.
I agree that white people in rural areas have been getting massive benefits like farm and oil subsidies, that wouldn’t have as much effect if there weren’t a cultural component getting people to identify as “country.”
I like how this informative article has zero comments in 6 hours. Guess it’s not inflammatory enough for the drive-by commenters.
This is very interesting. I suspect rural areas in different states might vote differently too, but maybe it’s not a huge difference.
Conservatives need to realize they lost. They’re still tilting at windmills and trying to put the genie back in the bottle.
It’s over. Reality won.
As long as they can maintain control of the rural areas they can maintain control of the country. They haven’t lost anything.
This article links to the London School of Economics summary, which includes the graphs and goes a little deeper: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2024/06/07/the-rural-urban-political-divide-is-mostly-driven-by-white-voters-and-there-are-fewer-divisions-over-policy-than-many-think/
Here’s the core image highlighting the differences: https://blogsmedia.lse.ac.uk/blogs.dir/58/files/2024/06/Brown-Fig-4.png
