Opinion: Addressing white rural rage may mean using a broader scope of understanding and asking better questions

The book White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman has continued to stir debate. The Rev. Daniel Schultz shares his insights on the book's controversial themes in his opinion for Raw Story. An excerpt of his opinion is shared below. To read his entire opinion, click here.

To begin with, the book faces two primary objections. "First, Schaller and Waldman may have misrepresented or misunderstood scholarship on the rural context. Second, their thesis — that white rural voters pose a unique threat to American democracy — may be overstated and undersupported.

"I've known of Schaller and Waldman's work for a long time and know Tom himself at least a little. So, I was surprised to see the vehemence and breadth of the pushback on the new book. I was equally surprised to see other folks I know strongly defend their thesis. The authors got their own word in at The New Republic."

Natilyn Photography image, Unsplash

It's time to consider that rural voters may be voting for race. "While I was groping around for what I did want to say, Noah Berlatsky ... just went ahead and nailed it: 'Democrats struggle not with rural voters in general, but with white rural voters in particular. And white rural voters do not vote for the GOP because they are rural. They vote for the GOP because they are white.'

"That's pretty much it. As one scholar argues, if you control for other factors, the difference between rural and urban voting patterns essentially disappears. Race is a much stronger predictor than things like income, religion or place of residence."

Social life and an unwillingness to 'rock the boat' motivate rural voters. "There is one factor particular to rural areas that deserves consideration before we look at potential answers to the 'rural problem.' Rural folks traditionally don't move around as much as city folks. Deep roots feed social capital through rich networks of relations, neighbors and friends. . . . But those same roots provide lots of incentives not to rock the social boat."

"There's a need to start asking better questions. "I don't say these things to valorize or demonize rural areas. It's just that knowing them helps us to ask the right questions. . . . The usual hot take is that they've been hoodwinked by Republicans into voting on culture rather than cold hard cash. But that doesn't give them much credit. They're not fools." 

"Democrats and progressives will need to do a lot less writing off rural districts as hopeless and a lot more intentional work on developing solidarity with them. . . . It would help if there were a leftwing media ecosystem to push the good news coming out of those developments."