A new book shows how many supposed “elitist stereotypes” of rural MAGA voters are true—and backed by hard data.

In the popular imagination of many Americans, particularly those on the left side of the political spectrum, the typical MAGA supporter is a rural resident who hates Black and Brown people, loathes liberals, loves gods and guns, believes in myriad conspiracy theories, has little faith in democracy, and is willing to use violence to achieve their goals, as thousands did on Jan. 6.

According to a new book, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy, these aren’t hurtful, elitist stereotypes by Acela Corridor denizens and bubble-dwelling liberals… they’re facts.

The authors, Tom Schaller, a professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Paul Waldman, a former columnist at The Washington Post, persuasively argue that most of the negative stereotypes liberals hold about rural Americans are actually true.

  • mightyfoolish@lemmy.world
    101·
    8 months ago

    Perhaps, you just missed out the sarcastic use of “empathetic” in my post.

    What the hell did some stupid farmer in the bumbfuck middle of nowhere do to warrant being shot in their home by people of a different skin color?

    The media made them paranoid. No one is actually coming for them. Also, many rural communities put so much effort into making non-white lives miserable (that includes voting to sustain systematic racism); to them retaliation isn’t out of the realms of possibility because that is what THEY would do if THEY were put in the same position.

    But in one of the rare instances of legit “both sides-ism” I’m starting to see a very concerning trend of the far left giving in more and more to the language of normalized violence too.

    How can you complain about “both sides-ism” when you randomly bring up leftists? What even are the two sides here? There’s paranoid rural people and their news. That’s all.

    Some racist asshole living in a rural inbred community where everyone looks the same because their family tree has the same roots of people who never left their own poverty stricken hellhole

    Isn’t this a tad much? Not all rural people are racist and inbred.

    • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world
      5·
      8 months ago

      The media made them paranoid. No one is actually coming for them.

      Truth. They also let people on sites like “Truth” and social media grifters tell them shit like “Public schools are turning your kids trans!” and they eat it up.

      • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
        2·
        8 months ago

        They also let people on sites like “Truth” and social media grifters tell them shit like “Public schools are turning your kids trans!” and they eat it up.

        Yeah, but they get their handful of cases they can use to prop those narratives up, like that girl who decided she was trans, went on T and got a double mastectomy all while still a minor, then desisted and is now generally unhappy since she’s decided she’s a girl again but there are permanent effects from going on T and she had her breasts removed (she’s basically the right wing face of desisting). Or the one school that defended helping students socially transition while keeping it secret from their parents. If you ever ask the “public schools are turning your kids trans” folks for evidence that what they are saying is actually happening you eventually get pointed to one of a few cases like those.

        • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world
          1·
          8 months ago

          In the case of the school helping students socially transition without telling the parents, being a parent myself, I can understand how upset those parents might be, but the public school was probably told not to tell the parents for fear that the parents might not take it well. That’s a lot of parents. If my son came to me and said he did not feel right as a boy, I would respect his feelings, and support and help and empathize. Not many others would. At the school district in question, there would be so many kids pulled out of school and sent to Christian indoctrination centers to be forced to see themselves how their parents what them to see themselves.