My perspective is that of a traditional (authentic) Democrat now living in a rural area. My former party advocated for the working class and was largely effective for a time because underneath it all was an abiding respect for the common man. I didn't find your money quote until 3 paragraphs from the end - “Liberals hate rural people.” Prior to that what I read was an analysis of process, organization, and perceptual manipulation, none of which effectively address the problem of liberal bigotry. Nobody joins a group where they don't feel welcome.
I was a lifelong Dem and now I vote Republican. Yet I have been perfectly consistent: I always vote for the party that's most popular with the working class. Nowadays, that's the GOP. And for good reason.
Wyoming and Montana have both in recent times elected Democratic governors. If Democratic candidates are in the same place on most issues as the voters, they stand a better chance of being elected.
Every candidate is going to be asked about guns, especially semi autos. Before any candidate gives one speech they should have that issue sussed up complete with a genuine opinion that uses non offensive vocabulary and doesn't cross any red lines. Most candidates blow this question because they ask the opinion of people like Tim Walz. Nothing is more fake than a Democrat trying to sound gun friendly by talking confiscation.
Amy Klobuchar has quietly earned support in the rural parts of Minnesota by voting the right way on an issue foundational to rural MN that flies completely under the radar in most of America. Wolves. Minnesota's moose population has been decimated but not due to any votes by Klobuchar.
A Democrat who is elected to a rural congressional district is going to have to be genuinely outside the mainstream of the party on some issues, get over it. If we had a couple more southern redneck anti abortion senators in 2015 Row would still be the law of the land, and Merrick Garland would be a supreme. Trump is able to push through the less appealing parts of his budget unimpeded for lack of two congressmen.
Senate and House majorities are made from a big tent.
Let's not forget that covid lockdowns and policies were not so popular in the countryside. First of all many rural Americans had to keep going to work anyway. However their kid's teachers didn't have to work, for a year in blue states, so their kids were stuck at home. Small businesses were closed and many never recovered. So again, the subject never mentioned on LP, the effect of covid over reach by democrats, played a role in their loss of popularity - and credibility.
I'm a rural voter and I will NEVER go back to voting for Dems until they stop pretending they don't know the difference between males and females; stop acting like it's a crime to deport undocumented gang members; give their FULL support to Israel's efforts to defeat the spread of violent Jihadism around the world; stand up for our right to secure borders; support school choice (as the mother of an autistic child, school choice saved us) and take the plague of violent crime in poor neighborhoods seriously (I've volunteered with homeless women in Austin and San Francisco, and these ladies are preyed upon like animals. KEEP SEX OFFENDERS LOCKED UP).
If the Dems aren't serious about reversing course on the issues I've listed above, they can count me out from ever voting for them again. And I suspect I am far from alone.
I am a centrist Democrat and I, too, am irate that the Democratic Party has embraced trans activism over the rights of women and children.
However, it is incorrect to say that Democrats act like it is a crime to deport undocumented gang members. What Democrats support is the rule of law.
Even if someone is in the U.S. illegally and suspected of being in a gang, the government still has to follow basic legal steps before deporting them—not to protect criminals, but to protect the system from mistakes, abuse, and false claims. That’s not “coddling criminals.” It’s making sure the right people are targeted—and that dangerous ones can’t exploit loopholes to avoid justice later. This is not something a Biden or Obama judge made up. The source is the U.S. Constitution as interpreted by judges appointed by Republicans and Democrats alike.
Here's why due process matters—even for someone we think is a bad guy:
Proof matters. Just calling someone a gang member doesn’t make it true. The government has to present some kind of evidence—a tattoo, an affiliation, a criminal record, or gang intel. Otherwise, innocent people can get swept up, which only wastes time and resources better spent going after actual threats.
They get a hearing. Immigration judges—who are part of the executive branch, not some liberal court—review these cases. If there’s strong evidence someone’s in a gang and here illegally, they get removed. That process already exists and works when it’s used correctly.
No judge = more chaos. If the government could just grab anyone and deport them without a hearing, what stops them from targeting the wrong person—or using it for politics? The process is there to keep the system focused on real threats, not to protect gang members.
Democrats aren’t stopping deportations of criminals. That’s a lie. Gang members are being deported. But the law has to be followed, or else the whole case can fall apart on appeal. Then the gang member stays. That’s what smart law enforcement is trying to avoid.
So yes—kick out the criminals. But do it the right way. Because if we throw out due process for them, it’s just a matter of time before it gets thrown out for us too.
No, just MAGA siding against habeas corpus. The accusations of the movement’s fascist impulses are being substantiated ever more each passing day. The Ozturk affair will be the final test—I am very doubtful MAGA will pass.
Some "centrist." Nope, you're one more typical "progressive" who shouts Nazi. No wonder the Democratic Party's popularity is at its lowest point in many decades. It's shake and bake, and you and your kind helped. So which arrogant Ivy League finishing school are you from, anyway?
Not Nazi, no. The proper historical analogue is Italian fascism. The lines of development are pretty much the same--Italy was in total disarray after WWI, and parliament was totally unable to alleviate the problems facing disaffected industrial workers, farmers in the Italian interior, and war veterans; this made them skeptical of democratic institutions, and hence increasingly open to rule by a strongman--one who was able to cultivate, with the help of new media technologies, a cult of machismo they found attractive--with the idea being that he would push aside the squabbling elites in parliament (who, according to him, were just "exploiting them") and their corrupt, inefficient rules and procedures of state, and fix the people's problems using the efficiency of centralized power.
The fallout from 2008 and, later, COVID was what threw the American polity into disarray; the inability of Congress to rebuild it is what discredited conventional politics, and this laid the groundwork for an acceptance of the the iconoclastic rhetoric of Trump, alongside social media technologies, which have the same tendency to balkanize and provoke political extremes as earlier communications technology like the radio. (and of which Mussolini was extremely talented at using) In both cases, the promise of those who join the personality cult is the same: "'Democracy' is a scam; the people who run it are just effete elites exploiting you and ruining the nation. I will brush them aside and 'get things done', because I am the one who truly represents the common person." It's not necessarily the case that people who support this are simply 'bad', because there are legitimate issues driving them, and to a degree it is the old political elites' fault for failing to manage the nation well. But that doesn't change the fact that it is a fundamentally illiberal movement, which recasts things like 'habeas corpus' as encumbrances to the strongman's ability to finish his project of 'rebuilding the nation'.
Nazi Nazi Nazi. It's all you faux-"centrists" know. Oh, wait. "Italian fascist." And waaacist. Now I know you're an Ivy Leaguer. Maybe a congressional staffer? Lawyer too?
This is a sharp diagnosis of the party’s rural collapse, but it leaves out a critical factor: the GOP’s all-out war on Democrats, especially under Trump, has relied heavily on lies, conspiracies, and distortion—not substantive critiques of the Democratic platform or record. Missouri didn’t turn ruby red just because Democrats left; voters were pushed by a disinformation machine that the piece doesn’t acknowledge. Any 3,244-county strategy has to confront that head-on.
Yes. I'm open to local Democrats depending on their focus, but it's very hard for me to vote for them because even though I live in a suburban area of a big Metropolitan city, my parents and my siblings do not. I can't stomach the way Democrats talk about rural Americans. Contrary to the narrative, these people are the backbone of this country, the are not stupid, they have more common sense in their pinky finger than most uber-educated progressives, and they are the essential workers. If they stopped working, this nation would fall. I can't say the same about the thinking class.
I won a similar rural Western Illinois House district in 1988 using the same strategy- knocking on doors 7 days a week from June to November. But local issues don't mean much today when the D. C. messaging is so toxic.
Democrats need new D. C. leadership focused on FDR's 2nd Bill of Rights....
When it comes to running the party, rarely do locals have a say in important policies. As bill says, with the public faces of DC Dems on TV 24/7/365, you'll never get enough at the local level to make a difference. Nor will the arty elites allow them to progress up the party ladder. the odds say you will win a few, but enough to make a difference, it's not going to happen.
I live in a rural county. 1,900 sq miles, 23,000 people, about 10,000 in half a dozen towns. Roughly 55% R, mostly Eisenhower-style. A couple of elected Ds in two towns. A few years back, a D ran for county commissioner, which around here is an important position. It was right after George Floyd died in Minneapolis.
In the 2020 local election, she called for "defunding" the county sheriff's department and denounced racism toward the "Latinx." Almost all of her campaign money came from outside of the county, including a public employee union far away from here. She lost her election by the widest margin I have ever seen here.
In this county, the more affluent the precinct, the more Democrats. They tend (but not all) to be just like their Eastern counterparts: rich, smug, sanctimonious, arrogant "Karens" who never listen to anyone but themselves. Around here, they are for every tax increase. If Dems think they will be popular in rural America, they'd better take a much harder look at themselves than they've been doing. Beyond the richy-rich persona, their gender politics, their anti-gun position, and their taxing of gas, diesel, and propane makes them a no-go with the majority here.
p.s.: We have a sheriff who has performed poorly. Long story. There was a petition drive on the issue that came from the Democrats. I called the head of the local party and extracted his promise to keep me off of any membership, supporter, donation, or recruitment lists if I signed. He agreed, so I signed. No solicitations of any kind since then.
The moment progressives started infiltrating the Democratic Party in ever larger amounts, Ivy League rich kids with no work or life experiences matching the majority of Americans, using alien language of the academic far left (“birthing people”, “my pronouns are”, “decolonization”), it was the death of the party. The party will continue to die until progressives are removed from the party, shot out of a cannon, into the sun.
My corner of rural America in 2018 elected a dead pimp to the state legislature just because he had an R after his name (and the mechanics of replacing a dead candidate). He did win the primary while alive against an establishment Republican who had voted for a large tax increase. He wasn't under the radar either. He had a TV show about being a pimp. It is telling that most of the evangelical ministers in town supported him. His Democratic opponent campaigned mostly on higher taxes and gun control. I think it would be more lopsided today because of the deeply toxic (to rural people) issues that the national Democrats support. The party not only needs to quit hating rural people and find some working class issues, they need to ditch the toxic stuff.
You are talking about rural Nevada, in a part of the state where prostitution is legal. Your corner of rural America is NOT representative of most rural parts of the country. I'd like to see a pimp try to get elected in my small Texas town. Ha! We'd run him out on a rail! But there are plenty of bright BLUE cities that want to legalize pimping and sex buying. We don't want that in rural America. Clean the "sex work is work" crap out of the Democratic party, and maybe we'll talk. Until then - forget it.
Agree but this was an illustration of how toxic the Democratic Party is here that this could happen. Pretty sure that the brothel law dates from when Democrats controlled the area.
This is hilarious. For any Democrat to appeal to these rural voters, knocking on doors or not, they would have to adopt almost 100% of Trump's platform. But the TDS raging in the hearts and minds of Democrat will prevent them from that realization. Also, what would happen with all those over-educated radical chicks... they will never support a Democrat party returning to the working class.
The only hope for the Democrat is that their party ejects the left and turns purple to take back the working class electorate from the MAGA Republicans.
Rural America is growing in racial and ethnic diversity, with a notable increase in Hispanic residents. Immigration has benefited rural areas which suffer from labor shortages.
"Local money, local organizing, local candidates, and local issues."
Jess Piper and her "View from Rural Missouri" newsletter couldn't agree more. Here's an excerpt from her "Tough Row to Hoe" post: "You may have already figured this about me, but I love an underdog. I adore a spitfire and I am a sucker for folks doing the heavy lifting. Especially in rural spaces.And that’s what it’s like running in a red rural area — lots of heavy lifting. You’re asking to take a licking from your community and maybe even friends and family. You’ll upend your life — you may lose your job. You’ll have hate and discontent heaped upon your head.And if you do it anyway?I love you and I will fight for you with everything I have. I will always fight for rural America."
My perspective is that of a traditional (authentic) Democrat now living in a rural area. My former party advocated for the working class and was largely effective for a time because underneath it all was an abiding respect for the common man. I didn't find your money quote until 3 paragraphs from the end - “Liberals hate rural people.” Prior to that what I read was an analysis of process, organization, and perceptual manipulation, none of which effectively address the problem of liberal bigotry. Nobody joins a group where they don't feel welcome.
I was a lifelong Dem and now I vote Republican. Yet I have been perfectly consistent: I always vote for the party that's most popular with the working class. Nowadays, that's the GOP. And for good reason.
What policies do you think make the Republicans better for the working class than Democrats?
Liberals these days are deathly afraid of rural America.
Wyoming and Montana have both in recent times elected Democratic governors. If Democratic candidates are in the same place on most issues as the voters, they stand a better chance of being elected.
Every candidate is going to be asked about guns, especially semi autos. Before any candidate gives one speech they should have that issue sussed up complete with a genuine opinion that uses non offensive vocabulary and doesn't cross any red lines. Most candidates blow this question because they ask the opinion of people like Tim Walz. Nothing is more fake than a Democrat trying to sound gun friendly by talking confiscation.
Amy Klobuchar has quietly earned support in the rural parts of Minnesota by voting the right way on an issue foundational to rural MN that flies completely under the radar in most of America. Wolves. Minnesota's moose population has been decimated but not due to any votes by Klobuchar.
A Democrat who is elected to a rural congressional district is going to have to be genuinely outside the mainstream of the party on some issues, get over it. If we had a couple more southern redneck anti abortion senators in 2015 Row would still be the law of the land, and Merrick Garland would be a supreme. Trump is able to push through the less appealing parts of his budget unimpeded for lack of two congressmen.
Senate and House majorities are made from a big tent.
Amy Klobuchar might be against wolves, but she's for men in girl's sports and for every other crazy Dem policy.
David Hogg has joined the chat.
Let's not forget that covid lockdowns and policies were not so popular in the countryside. First of all many rural Americans had to keep going to work anyway. However their kid's teachers didn't have to work, for a year in blue states, so their kids were stuck at home. Small businesses were closed and many never recovered. So again, the subject never mentioned on LP, the effect of covid over reach by democrats, played a role in their loss of popularity - and credibility.
I'm a rural voter and I will NEVER go back to voting for Dems until they stop pretending they don't know the difference between males and females; stop acting like it's a crime to deport undocumented gang members; give their FULL support to Israel's efforts to defeat the spread of violent Jihadism around the world; stand up for our right to secure borders; support school choice (as the mother of an autistic child, school choice saved us) and take the plague of violent crime in poor neighborhoods seriously (I've volunteered with homeless women in Austin and San Francisco, and these ladies are preyed upon like animals. KEEP SEX OFFENDERS LOCKED UP).
If the Dems aren't serious about reversing course on the issues I've listed above, they can count me out from ever voting for them again. And I suspect I am far from alone.
I am a centrist Democrat and I, too, am irate that the Democratic Party has embraced trans activism over the rights of women and children.
However, it is incorrect to say that Democrats act like it is a crime to deport undocumented gang members. What Democrats support is the rule of law.
Even if someone is in the U.S. illegally and suspected of being in a gang, the government still has to follow basic legal steps before deporting them—not to protect criminals, but to protect the system from mistakes, abuse, and false claims. That’s not “coddling criminals.” It’s making sure the right people are targeted—and that dangerous ones can’t exploit loopholes to avoid justice later. This is not something a Biden or Obama judge made up. The source is the U.S. Constitution as interpreted by judges appointed by Republicans and Democrats alike.
Here's why due process matters—even for someone we think is a bad guy:
Proof matters. Just calling someone a gang member doesn’t make it true. The government has to present some kind of evidence—a tattoo, an affiliation, a criminal record, or gang intel. Otherwise, innocent people can get swept up, which only wastes time and resources better spent going after actual threats.
They get a hearing. Immigration judges—who are part of the executive branch, not some liberal court—review these cases. If there’s strong evidence someone’s in a gang and here illegally, they get removed. That process already exists and works when it’s used correctly.
No judge = more chaos. If the government could just grab anyone and deport them without a hearing, what stops them from targeting the wrong person—or using it for politics? The process is there to keep the system focused on real threats, not to protect gang members.
Democrats aren’t stopping deportations of criminals. That’s a lie. Gang members are being deported. But the law has to be followed, or else the whole case can fall apart on appeal. Then the gang member stays. That’s what smart law enforcement is trying to avoid.
So yes—kick out the criminals. But do it the right way. Because if we throw out due process for them, it’s just a matter of time before it gets thrown out for us too.
A lot of words that boil down to the Democratic Party being on the side of criminals.
No, just MAGA siding against habeas corpus. The accusations of the movement’s fascist impulses are being substantiated ever more each passing day. The Ozturk affair will be the final test—I am very doubtful MAGA will pass.
Some "centrist." Nope, you're one more typical "progressive" who shouts Nazi. No wonder the Democratic Party's popularity is at its lowest point in many decades. It's shake and bake, and you and your kind helped. So which arrogant Ivy League finishing school are you from, anyway?
Not Nazi, no. The proper historical analogue is Italian fascism. The lines of development are pretty much the same--Italy was in total disarray after WWI, and parliament was totally unable to alleviate the problems facing disaffected industrial workers, farmers in the Italian interior, and war veterans; this made them skeptical of democratic institutions, and hence increasingly open to rule by a strongman--one who was able to cultivate, with the help of new media technologies, a cult of machismo they found attractive--with the idea being that he would push aside the squabbling elites in parliament (who, according to him, were just "exploiting them") and their corrupt, inefficient rules and procedures of state, and fix the people's problems using the efficiency of centralized power.
The fallout from 2008 and, later, COVID was what threw the American polity into disarray; the inability of Congress to rebuild it is what discredited conventional politics, and this laid the groundwork for an acceptance of the the iconoclastic rhetoric of Trump, alongside social media technologies, which have the same tendency to balkanize and provoke political extremes as earlier communications technology like the radio. (and of which Mussolini was extremely talented at using) In both cases, the promise of those who join the personality cult is the same: "'Democracy' is a scam; the people who run it are just effete elites exploiting you and ruining the nation. I will brush them aside and 'get things done', because I am the one who truly represents the common person." It's not necessarily the case that people who support this are simply 'bad', because there are legitimate issues driving them, and to a degree it is the old political elites' fault for failing to manage the nation well. But that doesn't change the fact that it is a fundamentally illiberal movement, which recasts things like 'habeas corpus' as encumbrances to the strongman's ability to finish his project of 'rebuilding the nation'.
Nazi Nazi Nazi. It's all you faux-"centrists" know. Oh, wait. "Italian fascist." And waaacist. Now I know you're an Ivy Leaguer. Maybe a congressional staffer? Lawyer too?
This is a sharp diagnosis of the party’s rural collapse, but it leaves out a critical factor: the GOP’s all-out war on Democrats, especially under Trump, has relied heavily on lies, conspiracies, and distortion—not substantive critiques of the Democratic platform or record. Missouri didn’t turn ruby red just because Democrats left; voters were pushed by a disinformation machine that the piece doesn’t acknowledge. Any 3,244-county strategy has to confront that head-on.
Must be disinformation that Biden forced trans athletes into women’s sport, or DEI indoctrination into any company doing business with the government.
Yes. I'm open to local Democrats depending on their focus, but it's very hard for me to vote for them because even though I live in a suburban area of a big Metropolitan city, my parents and my siblings do not. I can't stomach the way Democrats talk about rural Americans. Contrary to the narrative, these people are the backbone of this country, the are not stupid, they have more common sense in their pinky finger than most uber-educated progressives, and they are the essential workers. If they stopped working, this nation would fall. I can't say the same about the thinking class.
Great summary of the problem Dems face in rural. If you want to join RUBI's call for the DNC to invest more than 3% of its billions in rural, you can sign this petition: https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/tell-democrats-give-10-of-their-billions-toward-rebuilding-local-parties?source=web-share-api-button&utm_source=web_share_api&share=4f1138c1-02f0-40f4-ad2f-1bf32580048c
I won a similar rural Western Illinois House district in 1988 using the same strategy- knocking on doors 7 days a week from June to November. But local issues don't mean much today when the D. C. messaging is so toxic.
Democrats need new D. C. leadership focused on FDR's 2nd Bill of Rights....
When it comes to running the party, rarely do locals have a say in important policies. As bill says, with the public faces of DC Dems on TV 24/7/365, you'll never get enough at the local level to make a difference. Nor will the arty elites allow them to progress up the party ladder. the odds say you will win a few, but enough to make a difference, it's not going to happen.
I live in a rural county. 1,900 sq miles, 23,000 people, about 10,000 in half a dozen towns. Roughly 55% R, mostly Eisenhower-style. A couple of elected Ds in two towns. A few years back, a D ran for county commissioner, which around here is an important position. It was right after George Floyd died in Minneapolis.
In the 2020 local election, she called for "defunding" the county sheriff's department and denounced racism toward the "Latinx." Almost all of her campaign money came from outside of the county, including a public employee union far away from here. She lost her election by the widest margin I have ever seen here.
In this county, the more affluent the precinct, the more Democrats. They tend (but not all) to be just like their Eastern counterparts: rich, smug, sanctimonious, arrogant "Karens" who never listen to anyone but themselves. Around here, they are for every tax increase. If Dems think they will be popular in rural America, they'd better take a much harder look at themselves than they've been doing. Beyond the richy-rich persona, their gender politics, their anti-gun position, and their taxing of gas, diesel, and propane makes them a no-go with the majority here.
p.s.: We have a sheriff who has performed poorly. Long story. There was a petition drive on the issue that came from the Democrats. I called the head of the local party and extracted his promise to keep me off of any membership, supporter, donation, or recruitment lists if I signed. He agreed, so I signed. No solicitations of any kind since then.
The moment progressives started infiltrating the Democratic Party in ever larger amounts, Ivy League rich kids with no work or life experiences matching the majority of Americans, using alien language of the academic far left (“birthing people”, “my pronouns are”, “decolonization”), it was the death of the party. The party will continue to die until progressives are removed from the party, shot out of a cannon, into the sun.
My corner of rural America in 2018 elected a dead pimp to the state legislature just because he had an R after his name (and the mechanics of replacing a dead candidate). He did win the primary while alive against an establishment Republican who had voted for a large tax increase. He wasn't under the radar either. He had a TV show about being a pimp. It is telling that most of the evangelical ministers in town supported him. His Democratic opponent campaigned mostly on higher taxes and gun control. I think it would be more lopsided today because of the deeply toxic (to rural people) issues that the national Democrats support. The party not only needs to quit hating rural people and find some working class issues, they need to ditch the toxic stuff.
You are talking about rural Nevada, in a part of the state where prostitution is legal. Your corner of rural America is NOT representative of most rural parts of the country. I'd like to see a pimp try to get elected in my small Texas town. Ha! We'd run him out on a rail! But there are plenty of bright BLUE cities that want to legalize pimping and sex buying. We don't want that in rural America. Clean the "sex work is work" crap out of the Democratic party, and maybe we'll talk. Until then - forget it.
Agree but this was an illustration of how toxic the Democratic Party is here that this could happen. Pretty sure that the brothel law dates from when Democrats controlled the area.
Look on the bright side: at least there was no mystery involved. The rest of Congress is dead pimps too, but with better p.r. LOL
This is hilarious. For any Democrat to appeal to these rural voters, knocking on doors or not, they would have to adopt almost 100% of Trump's platform. But the TDS raging in the hearts and minds of Democrat will prevent them from that realization. Also, what would happen with all those over-educated radical chicks... they will never support a Democrat party returning to the working class.
The only hope for the Democrat is that their party ejects the left and turns purple to take back the working class electorate from the MAGA Republicans.
Rural America is growing in racial and ethnic diversity, with a notable increase in Hispanic residents. Immigration has benefited rural areas which suffer from labor shortages.
"Local money, local organizing, local candidates, and local issues."
Jess Piper and her "View from Rural Missouri" newsletter couldn't agree more. Here's an excerpt from her "Tough Row to Hoe" post: "You may have already figured this about me, but I love an underdog. I adore a spitfire and I am a sucker for folks doing the heavy lifting. Especially in rural spaces.And that’s what it’s like running in a red rural area — lots of heavy lifting. You’re asking to take a licking from your community and maybe even friends and family. You’ll upend your life — you may lose your job. You’ll have hate and discontent heaped upon your head.And if you do it anyway?I love you and I will fight for you with everything I have. I will always fight for rural America."
very useful, practical and non-doom-saying reflections.
Of course by extension it also is a critique of the urban-centric Lefty-Woke 'Progessive' agenda that helped lose these counties and bring us Trump
Over 99% of the wind farms and 74% of solar installations in the U.S. are located in rural places.
You must be referring to utility solar. I doubt that 74% of all panels are located rurally.