Republicans have nothing to offer rural voters. Let them know that the Republicans they support obstruct policies to help them.
Democrats must address rural America actively.
Have you ever wondered why Republicans own rural America? They have much better poker faces than Democrats. Democrats have a better hand, but Republicans have better poker faces. There are no Republican policies that help rural America.
Red State governors who refuse to accept or take the modified Medicaid Expansion to the Affordable Care Act are responsible for many rural hospital closures. This refusal means long drive times to emergency rooms, delayed access to healthcare, or death. Tax cuts for the billion-dollar agri-business give them more capital to take over more farms. Trump’s agricultural secretary Sonny Perdue inferred to farmers that small farms might not survive.
One could enumerate policy after policy that hurts farmers and rural communities. Yet, these folks continue to vote for Republicans. The GOP has successfully made them believe ‘the others’ are taking their birthright and that only they care. Democrats are paying the price for their absence of real political investment in these areas. Republicans understood one thing.
A rural vote is worth more than an urban vote because of our intentionally flawed constitution. It would take decades to reprogram these areas if the Democratic Party decided to invest. But there are options to hold back the water in the short term — engage our communities, invest in our base, and not in consultants. The big TV ads are nothing more than throwing spaghetti on the wall and hoping enough stick, a terrible proposition. Donna Brazile, a Democratic operative, seemed to have gotten it. She recently appeared on This Week and made the case.
“Democrats got a stop sleeping at the wheel,” Donna Brazile said. “Stop sleeping at the wheel. Stop waiting for the last six weeks of the election. I know we’re about to spend a ton of money on television. That’s like just throwing water in the wind. Democrats got to go back and create communities and remind people what the Democratic Party is doing to help them, help them at the gas station, help them in the grocery store, help them where bad is in their wallets and in their homes.”
One hopes the Democratic leadership is listening. Irrespective of them reading the tea leaves, one hopes the Progressive activists will remain engaged as they did in 2018.
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