Analysis: Rural Coloradans feel ignored and 'looked down on.' A policy expert looks at how and why.

Colorado ranchers asked the state’s wildlife commission to delay wolf releases in 2024. 
Their petition was denied. (Photo by Hyoung Chang, Getty Images via The Conversation CC)

In a tale as old as the American West, farming and ranching Coloradans resent being ignored and dismissed as "dumb" by city folk. "Many rural Coloradans, especially in agricultural communities, feel looked down on by their urban counterparts," writes policy scholar Kayla Gabehart for The Conversation. "One cattle rancher I spoke to put it plainly: 'It’s an attitude. . .We are the idiots. . .We are the dumb farmers . . . We don’t really matter.'"

To help understand attitudes and cultural differences between rural and urban Coloradans, she began by looking at each group's response to certain policies. Gabehart explains, "A designated day to forgo eating meat. . . and the ongoing wolf reintroduction. . . .These policies, while specific to Colorado, are symptoms of something larger. Namely, an ever-urbanizing, globalized world that rural, agricultural citizens feel is leaving them behind."

The "MeatOut Day" was declared by Colorado's governor as a way to draw attention to the health and environmental impacts of farming food animals by abstaining from a day of eating meat. The day received minimal attention from more urban Coloradans, but those from rural areas were incensed. Gabehart writes, "Neighbors in Elbert County promptly responded with outrage, flying banners and flags declaring their support for agriculture and a carnivorous diet. . . . There are nearly 36,000 cattle in Elbert County. This is relatively typical of a rural Colorado county."

Wolves were hunted into extinction in Colorado during the 1940s. And yet, in 2020, urban voters, who were by geography unlikely to encounter or be economically impacted by wolves, voted for wolf reintroduction. "Rural residents voted decidedly against the initiative. Despite much legislative and grassroots action to oppose it, wolves were reintroduced in December 2023," Gabehart adds. "Several cattle have since been killed by wolves."

"Rural residents in Colorado have told me they feel excluded. This is not new or exclusive to Colorado, but a story as old as America itself,” Gabehart explains. The American caste system "is entirely constructed and designed by the American upper class to intentionally exploit resentment of working-class white people. . . .The result is what sociologist Michael M. Bell calls a 'spatial patriarchy' that characterizes rural America as dumb, incapable, racist, poor and degraded."

When it comes to who American rural voters support, maybe part of it is tied to which candidate mirrors some of the resentment and isolation of rural living. "Rural communities have the distinct feeling that urban America doesn’t care whether they fail or flourish," Gabehart writes. "Nearly 70% of rural voters supported Trump in the 2024 presidential election. He won 93% of rural counties. Rural Americans feel left behind, and for them, Trump might be their last hope."