Even though 80% of America lives in cities, rural people have as much control over our electorate as they ever have. Republicans obnoxiously answer that the Founding Fathers designed America that way–back when predicting the invention of skyscrapers would’ve gotten you burned at the stake. But now it seems almost obscene that North and South Dakota have double the level of representation in the senate as California, a state with 15% of America’s population.
So if rural states have over-representation in government, it’s worth asking why do they vote Republican?
1. They falsely believe Democrats are for entitlements that don’t affect them when in reality blue states pay more in federal taxes than red states. The ten poorest states in America are almost exclusively red states that do not pay hardly anything in federal taxes, being subsidized by the Northeast and West Coast.
In addition, a significantly higher percentage of rural Americans use food stamps and are on disability/welfare, but they don’t believe this because they have swallowed this false narrative that cities are full of welfare bums while rural Americans are “hard living” manly men working on railroads and farms and such that hasn’t actually been the case for decades (less than 2% of America works in agriculture and many factories have either been off-shored completely or moved closer to cities that have the shipping ports and/or tech they need). In cities, most people are working 50 hours a week for apartments that aren’t as big as a trailer.
2. Demographics…Except for a few counties in the Southeast, rural areas are overwhelmingly white while black and Asian people tend to gravitate towards cities. Even when you look at Southern states where black people do make up the majority of a rural county, it has been so ridiculously gerrymandered that you might see black areas in counties that barely touch cut and pasted together to get one black congressional representative for an area that really should be 2 or 3.
3. 80% of people in America live in a city or within 5 miles of one. If red and purple states were not gerrymandered within an inch of their life by the Republicans, you would not notice the huge power imbalance between cities and rural areas where rural areas typically get more of a vote.
4. Most people in rural areas don’t vote at all…I actually do think rural voters are more liberal than people think, but there’s an enormous turn-out (and voter disenfranchisement) problem in most red and purple states. You may have heard Texas described as “not a red state, but a non-voting blue state.” And that’s why Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are actually beating Donald Trump in Texas in POLLS, but we’ll see how many of those people actually vote. When I lived in a rural area, most races are done in “mid-term” or “off year” elections like 2018 instead of 2016, and if 25% of people who could vote actually did, that was considered excellent turn-out.
5. Lots more “single issue” voters…In cities, I meet very, very few “single issue” voters as life is much more complex and faster paced, and you can’t afford to focus on one issue to the detriment of all others because you have a laundry list of concerns and cost of living means people are constantly trying not to go broke. Lots of rural voters (who have generally lower cost of living) might exclusively care about abortion or guns or immigration, and those people tend to be conservative.
6. And yes, there is a slightly “left behind” feeling. When you see Democratic candidates in cities talking about “gig” economy this or “digital” that…that doesn’t really mean squat to rural people because tech companies aren’t considering those areas for jobs. And some of the biggest employers? Something related to the military (which some liberals want to reduce) or hospitals—which some liberals want to essentially nationalize. The single biggest, best-paying employer in the rural county I lived in was the hospital—it was massive, and that’s probably true for a lot of rural towns where something like healthcare is very hard to “digitize” and leave rural people behind (replacing retail stores with Amazon and local newspapers with sites like Vox has been a disaster for rural areas), and they’re not really looking forward to changing that.
A 7th reason is loyalty to the commands of the church.
In the pursuit of political power, church leadership is able to convince people that God wants them to vote a certain way. Their message surpasses singular issues, so that their followers are told what to believe in how the political parties should be regarded.
In a Tweet on October 21, 2019, the largest church in Colbert County, Alabama ( @GraceLifeShoals ) released a video commentary by its Pastor ( @Jeff_Noblit ) , who was announcing its withdrawal from the Southern Baptist Convention due to modern socio-political disagreements. The Pastor expressed his disgust for Democrats and praise of [sic] God-favoring Republicans. The same sentiment is expressed all over the state of Alabama by the clergy themselves or by the politically-minded circles within the congregations. This is a very powerful influence upon the minds of people who are active in their communities, who tend to be present at Sunday Services. This is why all GOP candidates ‘wear their religion on their sleeve’ and makes it a point to emphasize the label of “Christian” on every GOP Advertisement, Social Media site, and public appearance, and why they brag about having “Alabama Values” (which is a dog-whistle-code, in essence)!!!
Democrats/Progressive/Liberals have the need to wrestle away the monopolized claim of Godliness, Values, and Righteousness from the Political Clergy & the GOP. It is a necessity because that’s just what the multitudes in Alabama respond to. That’s reality !
When Alabamians saw the hypocrisy and fakeness involving the “God-loving” [sic] Judge Roy Moore, they rejected him. If Alabamians can realize that much of the GOP positions are intertwined in hypocrisy and the opposite of the teachings of Jesus, then maybe they will realize they should distrust and reject the GOP and seek the expression of their faith in their voting elsewhere. (But they’re all watching Fox News which is airing in their homes, in the restaurants, in the doctors’ offices, in lobbies, etc…..)
But if Roy Moore can lose to a Democrat, then there’s always a possibility.
To Josh…
You’re right that churches definitely play a huge role in rural life particularly. And even though I’ve seen some liberal or Democrat-leaning churches (black churches mostly and some Catholic ones in the bigger cities), the vast majority of rural white churches encourage Republican voting–sometimes exclusively on the basis of abortion.
In Alabama specifically, I remember when Don Siegelman put the lottery to a vote, and the churches were out in full-force encouraging people to vote against it.
Well, it’s 20 years later and Alabama still doesn’t have a lottery…we’ve lost tens of millions in revenue to surrounding states, and Alabama is one of the poorest states in America. Meanwhile, the churches don’t seem to be missing too many dollars.