Of course rural areas go for Trump. Myths of the heartland and the moral strength of country folk as the true people of a nation have long been advanced by tyrants and dictators because the strengths of urban areas - education, diversity of people and points of view and opportunity - work against them.
And while Trump is not even a shadow of the National Socialists of the 1930s, one can't help but note that Hitler had legions of people marching shouldering farm tools as he promoted Völkische Bewegung - the folk movement, the blood and soil white nationalism that Trump evokes.
51
Access Hollywood tape story (trump "grabbing" women's genitalia boast)- Oct. 7, 2016
General election: Nov. 8, 2016
Percentage of white women who voted for trump: 47% (probably more, like 52% by some analyses)
Percentage of white men who voted for trump: 62%
Go figure - is it that hard?
15
For centuries most Americans lived rural lives, and an enormous amount of our popular culture, national mythology and national meaning flowed from the image of the self-sufficent farmer, and the people who worked with their hands. Abe Lincoln took pride, and Americans related to, his humble beginnings.
Profound changes have taken place since then of course, and the national ideal has become the urban sophisticate, the industrialized, and now information economy striver. The once-noble Simple Country Folk which were offered dignity by the wider culture are now the derided as Hicks, Bubbas.
The sterotyping of anyone with a twang in his voice and a pick-up truck is brutal. We seem to have decided that if you fit this picture we can know everything we need to know about you, and it's all bad. Look at how mean spirited so many of the comments on this page are.
These safaris into the hinterlands by urban liberals trying to discover why Americanis Ruralis are too stubborn or stupid to understand that the liberal programs they reject are actually good for them, misunderstand the symbolic nature of these programs and policies. They are being offered by the forces which have vanquished them, turned their lives from something dignified into something to mock and despise.
23
This column would have had more punch had the author provided a contextual comparison with data in the NYTimes story by Eduardo Porter, "Where Government is a Dirty Word, but Its Checks Pay the Bills," 12/21/2018. How does rural Arkansas compare to rural Kentucky. In Northern Kentucky the tea party blocked expansion of a local county library system several years ago. The tea party leader now sits imprisioned on charges of human trafficking among others. There is justice out there.
33
Have scrolled down a few columns, and wow! We NYT folks really detest - and dismiss - rural, small-town people. Well, this sort of divide is growing all over the world, not just in the US; and it may be that the death throes of (unsustainable) capitalism and what is thought of as 'socialism' (often a slur on simple 'pragmatism') will get uglier and more violent before we find a better vocabulary, and clearer visions of what the country actually needs.
15
When I read about these mean-spirited people, poorly educated, who only watch Fox, refuse to go where the jobs are, refuse to learn their "hero" doesn't give a whit about them, just wants their vote, I wonder if they even know what really MAKES America great.
They believe their taxes are going to pay for states like New Jersey when the opposite is true. Arkansas, like 26 of the 30 Red states for Trump, is supported by taxes from donor states, 13 of which voted for Clinton.
The immigrants they despise? THEY go where the jobs are. They cut lawns and paint houses here, pick crops in California, Oregon, and Washington State, clean toilets in Donald Trump's resorts, and all the other hard, menial jobs that don't pay well, but need to be done. They aren't rich or even well-off, but they find ways to get where the work is.
Despite being "educated" I worked as a carpenter in upstate New York. When that dried up, I moved to North Carolina with a suitcase, backpack, & tool box, and built houses there, until I could go back to school, living on $5K to $7K/year, eventually going back to school, and getting into the "white collar" world where I moved, yet again, with everything I owned in a rusty car and U-haul, and again 10 years after that.
Moving isn't easy but you go where the work is.
But these people in Van Buren County, Arkansas, whining about how tough things are, stay where they are like they are "entitled", they don't get it and make it hard for me to care, at all.
3037
This comment sums up feelings very well. Thank you for it.
226
@Dadof2 The day laborers here had an informal union - they set the base price that people could work at. So if you want someone to help "rake the forest", it's $20/hour.
75
@Ned Yep, that happened here in Seattle about a dozen years ago. The people who hang outside Home Depot, available for day labor, have a scale. And it makes sense. You can't live on less, so what's the point of raking forests, if you are homeless?
126
You want to meet the "real America?" Meet my family. We came here to escape religious persecution--just like the Pilgrims did, only 3 centuries later and from Eastern Europe. We worked in factories, in stores, in offices. Some of us served in the military and some of us protested the Vietnam War. We all went to public schools, nothing fancy--some got degrees and some did not. We raised our children, paid our taxes, and voted.
You should also meet our neighbors. The guy upstairs is a doctor whose family came from Africa. The people down the street came from Thailand and opened one of the best restaurants in town. The family that moved north from Mexico are descended from Native Americans who arrived on this continent around 40,000 years ago.
So I'm sick of being told that a minority of the population--white, ignorant, racist, and resentful--are the "real Americans" and all the rest of us are lesser, tainted, or counterfeit.
7849
@Martha Shelley Amen - and congratulations and thanks to your family and those you mentioned for advancing the American spirit.
453
@Martha Shelley can I add that my grandfather came from Europe in 1911 - worked in a coal mine, but by 1922 the family had moved to Paterson where there were good schools, libraries and opportunity. These people represent what might be considered leftovers. Everyone else with ambition left and this is what we have now.
339
@Martha Shelley
So you are 100% correct. I get your point migrants are the real Americans because we were all at one time immigrants. Real Americans do not fly a confederate flag, Real Americans respect the constitution and believe what it stands for. Real Americans did not come from this country they came from every corner of this earth. A broad swath of humanity that has many ideas created the greatest society on earth and now people who do not understand how a library and knowledge can help them wants to shut out progress.
781
There was a time when a the leftist mainstream media would have fallen all over the people in rural Clinton, AK---trying to better understand them, or at least feign enough empathy to gain some partial, patronized insight. Even the quotes used herein, meticulously presented so as to depict these folks in the most unflattering of light ("I learned the Dewey Decimal System when I was a kid...", "The worthlessness of a college degree", etc. etc. ad nauseam ad nauseam) would have been used more favorably, perhaps to illustrate 'The abject frustration of the average rural American, where higher education is both expensive and for all practical purposes unrealistic'. After all, so the narrative would go, the world does still need it's plumbers and ditchdiggers and those with their names embroidered on their shirts. We can't all be lazy urban office dwellers, now can we.
Even now, what has really changed? Where before a smiling big city reporter would pay a visit to Palookaville, feign a bunch of concern, and return home with a giant condescending piece on Li'l Abner. Today, rural Americans are savvy enough to see you for what you are---they know you don't have much respect for their kind. They know you're only searching for a 'stereotype' and a few juicy quotes to employ as punchlines.
That you would ever truly understand that a $2-million library and 42K librarian are too much for their shrinking community; that this was about economics, not politics at all, really.
52
Trump crowed, "I love the uneducated!" Here we see why.
As government pays less and less for education, and purposely dismantles the public education system, Americans grow dumb and dumber. Their anti-tax vote for Trump meant tax cuts for billionaires like himself, which is the reason government money for the services on which everyone relies is so scarce. But there’s plenty for Betsy Devos’ $25 million security detail and $5 billion for tax credits for religious schools.
These are Reagan's children—anti-tax, self-centered, resentful, ignorant. "We're the exceptions!" Americans tell themselves, thinking we're still the world's leaders, when they know nothing at all of what's happening in the world.
Bring on the immigrants. We need fresh blood.
164
We have pockets of these people, up here in very blue WA state, as well. Uneducated, arrogant (for no good reason), beligerant and always ready to fight.
The big, gas-guzzling pickups they drive, frequently have bumper stickers on it that say "Just Say No to Taxes.
How are they going to get around, in those trucks, to show off their flag and bumper stickers, without taxpayer-created roads, to drive on?
The glaring ignorance and stupidity hurts my eyes and brain.
196
These people are hilariously unsympathetic. This justifies every idea I've ever had about them.
This is what happens when Reconstruction isn't finished.
81
As a younger person in a major metro area with a strong anti-Trump bias, more than anything else I'd just like to know more about Trump's core demographic. The single biggest eye-opener to me throughout the Trump presidency has been, from day 1, the fact that clearly there is a very large portion of America that I don't hear about at all.
I sincerely don't think white rural Americans are stupid, or ignorant, or incapable of acting in their own self-interest. The people who support Trump are generally the ones producing the food I eat and fighting in wars so that I can sit around typing comments on the Times' website, and more than anything I just want to see where they're coming from. Until we all understand and respect the emotional motivations of our neighbors who are so despondent that they support a blatantly corrupt traitor who colludes with hostile foreign powers in our highest office, we're doomed to partisan chaos.
98
These people are brainwashed by fox “news” and other right wing media spouting daily nonsense while making multi millions per year for spreading propaganda in service of huge corporations who benefit the most by not paying taxes
73
more people didn't vote than voted for trump.
these angry illiterates, these deplorable, are a lost cause.
organize the unorganized, and reach the people who can read and write and make clear to them that there is a difference between the parties -- and make clear to the democrats that pandering to hate and the right wing agenda will get them nothing
48
This is ignorance. Ignorance is the enemy. Defeat it, shame it, end it.
66
The resentment against taxes (or public-servant salaries) of any sort in rural communities is depressing.
In the "go it alone" mythos of towns like Clinton, who is supposed to pay for, say, the fire department? The police? Clean water?
Do citizens of Clinton have insurance of any sort? When a flood or drought happens, to whom will they appeal? If, say, a giant meteor took out their town, would they deal with the wreckage "on their own"?
One wearies of the libertarian fantasies of the sort described in this article.
Probably this goes against the NYT policy for civility in comments--but I'm tired of Stupid America pulling the nation into a sump of authoritarianism, demagoguery, and xenophobia.
120
As I read this, (a) I can't get the first notes of the Beverly Hillbillies theme song out of my head; (b) I realize that if, 'to save my life,' I had to go to one or the other -- Mogadishu, Somalia or Van Buren County, AR -- I'd be looking to book a fare on S/Hole Country Airlines; (c) Tim Widener must make at least the $25 hourly 'he' won't pay the local librarian with a Masters (How else could he have afforded enough Big Macs to fill that frame?); and (d) I bet Mr. Widener hopes the Gov't's Medicaid program will pay for the sleeve gastrectomy HIS life is bound to be dependent upon (sooner than later, if not even now).
78
As the old saying goes, you can’t fix stupid. Especially if you can’t raise taxes to pay teachers a living wage.
99
What we need is for these people to hurtle back to the 15th century -- no schools, no modern medicine -- why should educated professionals and doctors want to live there -- and let their life expectancies plummet because of opioids, suicide, and above all, stupidity and resentment. Let them have all the vapidity on TV and the internet without the benefit of discernment.
California, New York, and the other big blue states need to stop sending their tax dollars to the federal government only to have them be sent to these people.
73
Don't need no higher education.
Library...we don't need no stinkin' library.
We don't need diversity.
We will help our own kind..thank you very much.
If the residents of this town were into reading they would find what they describing to be Dante's Inferno.
59
1) Rural Arkansas has a lot of Black and Brown people, what do they think about all of this?
2) As an educated and professional Black daughter of the South, I pay a ton of taxes and I no longer want to support people who want to destroy this country. Let's vote to only extend our rich state tax dollars to the poor and underserved in our own communities.
3) Stop calling these people Christians. Nothing in their beliefs or actions justifies the appellation. Stop.
4) White elites have played the white poor for centuries. Nothing new here. Trump will leave them poorer. False dignity is shallow and soulless.
153
A profile in self-destruction.
53
Come to Little Rock!! I love it here and attitudes such as you describe simply are not tolerated.
26
The real unfortunate issue is that the residents described and quoted in this opinion piece will probably not read these comments,that’s the pity....Fox News,ignorance and blind faith in a con man will not save them.
37
A good essay on why parts of “flyover country” should be flown over.
77
"Why should the government be allowed to help someone who's different than me?" a rural German in 1930 might have asked. Rural American in 2019 are asking the same thing. It's an unfair question, and one with horrible implications. This article makes me think about the similarities I see between America's white, rural votes, and Nazis, in addition to their mutual appetite for totalitarianism.
When the First World War ended, Germans had no idea why. The vast majority of the war had occurred outside their borders, and their Kaiser had convinced them that they were winning.
The Weimar Republic, the German Empire's successor, had some initial success in creating a functional government, but was ultimately unsuccessful. There are a host of factors responsible for this, the two most important being the reparations required of Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, and the disaster that was the Great Depression.
Germans grew more and more poor, and saw less and less opportunity. As they did, they became increasingly receptive to the racist, hateful ideologies espoused by Hitler's National Socialists. Blaming their misfortunes on racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities––all of whom seemed to reside in cities––was ever so much easier than addressing those misfortunes' root causes head-on.
It's a tale old as time, and one that I fear is not yet over.
70
How ironic that Trump, an urban, elitist, playboy born with a silver spoon in his mouth is a here to rural America. It's like the medicine man showing up with his wagon selling panaceas that are little more than opium and alcohol.
83
I used to be a libertarian and a fiscal conservative... I got better.
69
There is a saying about a horse and water: you can bring water to the horse but you can’t make it drink. Only people who want to read need libraries. Clearly the people in this county don’t. What would they be reading anyway? Pamphlets by some snake-oil preachers? I have seen those small towns with ten churches and a pathetic little library: it is a joke to suggest that this library is some sort of a beacon of enlightenment. In the world today, anybody who wants to read any book can get it. It is called Amazon. My mother who grew up in the USSR told me about risking her freedom to read an illegal copy of “1984”. When my children were growing up, I told them “I may not have money to buy you toys but I’ll always have money to buy you books”. Unless the inhabitants of rural America have the same spirit, I could not care less about their librarian’s salary. Judging by the way they look, they will all soon keel over of diabetes and heart disease anyway,
52
"Concerned that ... people like them, in places like theirs, were overlooked and disrespected,” she wrote in Vox, explaining that her subjects considered “racial minorities on welfare” as well as “lazy urban professionals” working desk jobs to be undeserving of state and federal dollars. '
Proudly ignorant, profoundly bigoted, and demanding of respect from those they openly disparage. They pay almost no Federal income tax and would rather watch their towns die if surviving meant a brown person they never met in state they never visited was also being helped.
A community determined to hang themselves by their own bootstraps.
You can't help those who refuse to help themselves.
68
“It’s really a sad waste of taxpayers’ money,” he told me.
Sir, did you read the Mueller report?
All of it including the footnotes?
What did you think of volume 2?
....crickets...
They complain but the vast majority (reportedly ~97%) of Americans did not read the report. Your money was spent so why not read it?
Because it is easier to complain and remain in your bubble.
I have yet to meet a single person that has read it.
I did., all of it including the footnotes.
Not a waste of money IMO and for those that claim so with knowledge of the report how much could have been saved had all cooperated?
38
Trump will keep these rural, white voters. He has already lost suburban women. They cannot stand him and his self-evident mental instability is not going to move them back.
The same goes for Main Street businessmen who voted for Trump on the successful businessman theory.
AS for the folks in the story? Like all Red=staters they are subsidized by the 550 Blue Counties. They are all “....Takers...”.
50
This writer's view of these "rural" folks tells a story, it's only part of a larger story. Trump also won over Union folks (many who voted for Obama twice) in both rural and not-so-rural parts of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
Unfortunately, it is stories like this that make we "sophisticated city folk" feel superior to the dumb, "rural" hick, racist, Trump voter.
As we read from a paper based in a city whose schools are the most segregated in the nation. I look forward to the NYTimes story about a writer moving back to NYC and writing about how city minorities continue to vote for democrats who cannot improve their segregated schools?
They are no different from the folks in this story.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/nyregion/school-segregation-new-york.html
https://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/news/press-releases/2014-press-releases/new-york-schools-most-segregated-in-the-nation
24
As a Californian, I am sorry that these fine people and their ilk all over the country benefit from part of my taxes and that their only thank you is arrogant selfishness and unconditional support for a corrupt politician who only makes their lives worse. Secession does have some appeal ...
50
As easy as it is to find fault with these people, for their quickness to blame others, their seeming inability to take reponsibility for their own problems, and their indulgence in politicians who take advantage of their gullibility, it will continue unless we take action. Brain drain pulls away the more intelligent, hard working folks. If you have a state with 50,000 people and 49,500 all the smart folk go away to college, and move away for opportunity, you now have a 500 people left, and the get the Senate votes . The less educated, and lazier people still get their 2 Senate votes. We need to reverse populate these places. Consider it missionary work. Convince wealthy Democrats to open outposts in all the Red States. Send the workers there. They will vote. Amazon should open the largest Kentucky warehouse ever known to mankind, and get rid of Mitch McConnell.
34
That Fox News propaganda plays a big role in reinforcing these beliefs is no surprise.
30
Yep. Trump country would rather cut the social safety net out from under themselves than give a dollar to programs that will benefit “the other”. It’s racism writ large.
34
These are good people, but under educated...sad. Time will pass them by.
12
I say, continue to develop the urban areas and siphon off people who look to the future from these backwaters.
13
An American irony: To move back to rural America, to go back to the place you grew up, to show your high school teachers and neighbors that you’d made it, only to be shunned for your success because it was too easily acquired in a soft job—just another example of The American Berserk.
43
Why would you want to live among these people? The residents of Clinton and dying communities like them focus only on themselves, use religion to justify their worldview, and seem unwilling to want to help themselves.
And yet Van Buren county, where Clinton is located, has received almost $10M in federal farm subsidies since 1995 with $6M of that being disaster assistance. Alway there for a hand out but unwilling to provide a hand up.
https://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=05141
Take the cue of the young people of Clinton who are leaving for the cities and get out while you still can.
45
Karl Marx’s phrase, “the idiocy or rural life” comes to mind.
12
So these people are “very religious” but have an attitude that is “against helping your neighbor”? Go figure.
42
Willful ignorance is a choice. Making Fox 'news' your only link to the outside world is a choice. Evolution comes for everybody eventually - it just gets there sooner in red states.
21
@Patricia: brava! Arkys should refrain from driving cars or using electricity. Don’t want to get above your raising with high falutin’ new fangled ways.
10
For a number of years church groups and social agencies have recruited refugees from around the world and placed them in dying urban and rural cities across America. These refugees have stabilized and helped to revitalize their new home towns. A google search will identify many of these cities. Trumps anti immigration policies have effectively killed this positive program. Another example of the left behinds voting against themselves.
23
Everything is a one-way street with these people. Their red states get more federal dollars back than what they paid which means blue states receive less. If they're so in love with all this bootstrap -y self-reliance how about we change that so they can't receive more than they contribute? The way it is now is too much like (gasp) socialism! Abolish those farm subsidies too. If you're so intent on supporting Trump's trade war why should we pay you to be his lackeys?
The city dwellers could grind their own axe with you. After all they're subsidizing your idyllic pastoral lifestyle. I'm looking at that rather well-fed gentleman whose picture is featured in the article standing in front of what I'm assuming is his home. He might even own some land. These would be unbelievable luxuries to the city dweller paying to rent some tiny over-priced apartment.
He probably drives some giant pickup or SUV while the city dweller is squeezed into some smelly, dirty bus or subway. If he could afford a car, he probably couldn't find or afford a place to park it. So we all have our crosses to bear. Don't listen to the candidates that are stoking your resentment. These people are playing on a whole different level than we are and pitting us against one another is all they have. Bill and Hillary attended Trump's wedding, Ivanka and Chelsea are friends, Trump used to be a Democrat. Pay the librarian.
41
I am curious what these people think made America great. Perhaps it is too obvious and reductionist, but is it simply having a white man in the White House? (I am also struck by all the nice shiny trucks in this poor town.)
21
When folks are poorly educated and have not been exposed to travel, and are still fighting the civil war, and FOX NEWS is their only contact with the outside world, the situation is hopeless. Flee for your life, and try to out live them in a safer place.
36
These rural leftovers are dying out anyway.
And from the looks of some of the accompanying photos, it’ll be sooner than later.
As Trump accurately proclaimed, “I love the uneducated.”
16
So the people in Clinton are “very religious” but “against helping their neighbor.” Which religion is that? Certainly not the one with the story about the Good Samaritan.
38
This article is thoughtful and insightful. It also makes me incredibly sad. How can a community as a whole be so cold hearted and self defeating?
How can they be so willfully ignorant? Knowing the source of your misery but insisting that fixing it means retreating to a heartless place of selfishness. What does this community tell their off spring?
It does make me feel hopeless!!
It seems as a community they are not interested in improving their lot in life but would rather cling to their ignorance be proud of it and gleefully drag the whole country down to the nadir with them
20
I wonder how the residents of Van Buren County feel about subsidising the President's golf and country club activities with their tax dollars?
46
Not picking on anyone. Just picking on most of us. During a boom most people spend like it's never gonna end. It don't matter if you're running a household or a town or a county or a country. I would like to think that people running a municipality are planning a decade or two in advance.
My town has a great stream of revenue and I still cringe every time they put up a fence around a park or a street side curb, saying, "Did that really make any body's life better?"
Back to your town; It would be interesting to see how everyone spent their money during that "flash in the pants" boom. Plus, show me a photo of the old library. The new one looks fantastic. How did that get approved in the not so distant past and now there is a dispute over the librarian's pay? Too wacky.
8
Trump support from low-income rural America is a big distraction, takes our focus away from the well-educated people of means who, if honest, would admit he's a mean-spirited liar, but support him to maintain their own privilege.
25
Perhaps the parvenu Aimee Hamilton should move closer to her workplace, instead of complaining about life-enriching services of Facebook.
6
I know the Times moderates the comments here for civility, but it's hard to formulate a civil response when you read about people who are so willingly ignorant, who live so unconsciously and who have no real purpose in their lives.
Donald Trump's trampling of the Constitution isn't enough to make them see that he has no other interest in mind than the perpetuation of his own power? Do they consider it a badge of honor to be marginalized and mistreated? They might as well be wearing a T-shirt that says "I have no respect for myself whatsoever."
28
There's an absolutely wonderful organization called "The Bitter Southerner". Bless their hearts, they are hoeing in a very tough row.
4
The article is revealing, but rural Americans today do not live in a vacuum. The author's brief mention of the reach of Fox News into this community tells another story. Super-wealthy conservatives -- including of course Trump himself -- pour big $$$ into all forms of media to corral these voters for their own self-interest, whatever that might be -- presumably power and the sheer pleasure of manipulating other human beings. This piece -- good as it is -- nearly blames rural conservatives for pig-headedness that is not entirely of their own making. They are victims as well as agents.
19
Rural areas like this are failing not because of lost industries or bad economies as much as because they refuse to adapt in productive ways. Rejecting education is simply a backward, counterproductive response to a changing world. Sucking down fact-free Fox "News" as their main source of information to the outside world is poisonous at best; it feeds the negative spiral. Insisting on remaining in an economically dead zone is inviting poverty, especially when refusing to adapt in any way. Becoming mean-spirited and spiteful of those who adapted to the inevitable helps no one. They refuse to understand what taxes are supposed to do, and how very much they benefit well beyond what they themselves pay into the system. Their response to income inequality is to forcibly drag everyone down to their level rather than trying to improve our collective lots.
The saddest part is the stunning mean-spiritedness that masquerades as self-sufficiency, responsibility, and conservatism. It's dishonestly selfish and guarantees they will continue to fail.
37
Now I get it. Rural southern "americans" only care for themselves and their immediate family so they elected and fawn over a president who shares exactly the same feelings. I had wondered why people of modest means (like me), who have a reasonable right to be concerned about taxpayer money, could be so behind a president who travels to Florida seemingly every week on the public dime to play at his resorts while spending most of his time "at work" blabbing at the mouth and tweeting. At my job, a person like this would be fired... Hmmmmm.....
40
It seem to me that they have some misinformed views about themselves and how our country operates
9
I'll never forget staying in a B&B in very rural south cental Virginia, Spring 2015, on a road trip through the beautiful Blue Ridge and then to the Outer Banks. The innkeepers, a made-for-Mayberry middle-age couple, greeted me warmly and showed all the hospitality one could desire, that is, until the morning breakfast. An Israeli couple were also guests, and having joined the breakfast conversation a bit late, I instantly regretted not going to McDonald's. The Israeli husband and the wife innkeeper must have discovered their mutual political views, and were trashing Obama over his "anti-Israel" attitude. The Israeli wife was squirming in her seat every time she looked at me. Finally, after trying to avoid joining in any part of the conversation other than "please pass the syrup," the woman innkeeper inquired as to whether my silence and Yankee license plates meant I was one of those Obama-loving liberals? I hesitated, took the bait, and gave a spirited defense of his Presidency. I was immediately and angrily told he was a Muslim who was openly inviting ISIS terrorists into the country, and as a result, the country was sure to suffer a devastating attack at any moment. Honestly, the paranoia and fear in their voices disturbed me more than the politics! I cut breakfast short, spent the day sightseeing, and stayed in my room that night. I was never so glad to see a place in my rear-view mirror.
54
If you described me to the people in Van Buren county, they would probably say I’m the kind of person who looks down on them and disrespects their view of the world. Truth is, I would be inclined to like and respect most of them — despite their disastrous vote and continued support for the con man, racist and cheat who is sickening our country. We’re all in this together and deserve much, much better.
22
No wonder Trump said:
“We love our poorly educated.”
— Las Vegas, 2016
“People are dispensable and disposable in Trump’s world.” If Trump is elected President, he warned, “the millions of people who voted for him and believe that he represents their interests will learn what anyone who deals closely with him already knows—that he couldn’t care less about them.”
— Tony Schwartz, who penned "The Art of the Deal" for Trump
21
The rural mindset described here seems to reflect the economic reality of those rural communities.
I don't see them as stupid or uninformed. You only know what you know.
Financial struggle is like a disease, it effects everything in your life.
It's only the experience of some level of financial security that lets people let go of their well founded fears of complete ruin.
12
The disdain the author and these commentators feel for those who have different beliefs and values is palpable. They are the ones who are truly intolerant. And until they develop some self-awareness about their elitism and bigotry we (Trump supporters) will continue to win. And, BTW, I have 2 advanced degrees. Why isn't the NYT profiling Trump supporters who fit my profile? There are many more of us than you think, but we go quiet when on the cocktail circuit in New York.
16
I'm originally from a small town in South Carolina and know these people and the culture. I would suggest the origins of their attitude has something to do with their names, James, Hamilton, Singleton. The name of the count seat is Clinton. These people are decedents of Scot Irish clans who will always identify with their own. They are frugal, cheap or what my father called "tight" as in tight with a dollar. Their are this way because of the very genes and attitudes they inherited.
They see Trump as the last great hope in a nation under siege from south of the border. They see "The Squad" as the poster child for the Democrats and a party led by a woman, a woman called Nancy...from California.
Look down on these people if you will , but they are no different than blacks who vote for blacks. Hispanics voting for Hispanics. Fundamentalist Christians who vote for Christians. We are a nation, maybe even a world of clans.
343
Willful ignorance is incurable. These people want to live how they have always lived even though all the jobs they have historically done have disappeared. Read Hillbilly Elegy if you don't believe me. Patronizing elitists will always irritate the willfully ignorant, so when you combine the pro-business elements with the true believers I think we will have a repeat of 2016 even if Trump gets impeached.
7
Truly sad. How do they expect to grow, improve their conditions, when their attitude is "Go Away", "Leave us alone". The kids do not want to stay because they want to improve their lives, and these people simply do not. Unless it comes for free. And if it is one thing the GOP promises, it is Free Lundh.
6
When wealthy coastal liberals venture into the heartland their reportage most resembles Margaret Mead writing on the pre-contact tribes of New Guinea. This affluent liberal condescension to people who acturally labour for their sparse earnings is a factor in the distemper of our times.
23
They don’t need a “big gubmint” library because they can get their information from the internet. Nobody has told them that the internet was conceived by uselessly educated university types and funded by the federal government.
58
Thanks for publishing this story. I'm not sure if people living in rural areas like these know that Trump despises them. He thinks they are "losers." He believes anyone who has to labor for his living is someone to be used and exploited. I will bet he has not invited a single one of them to Mar-a-largo. If you are a farmer he won't shake your hand because he thinks you have manure on your hands and will make him sick. And just what has he done in the last three years to help you out?
Wake up folks, like the contractors he never paid you are being stiffed.
Alan Dater
47
Rural America has taken to voting as trolling: it's more important to frustrate the coastal elites and city dwellers than to sensibly address their own needs.
40
Did Ms Potts ask these folks what Trump and his salt of the earth folks like Mulvaney, Mnuchin and Ross have done for them? Or if they care about them other than their votes? The biggest con job of all is the fraud perpetuated on people who thought this administration would make their lives better
24
Why not? I'll try a sixth time to get something posted....
Isn't food stamp (EBT) usage in rural areas more of an indication of the high levels of poverty there rather than their hypocritical laziness, as I read so often here? Is there any evidence that they rely on federal support any more than do the poor in urban areas? I very much doubt this.
8
imagine if they new the truth about trump. A tax cheat, broke, and a traitor. Wait until they find out about all the money trump and his family have robbed the country of...
13
History has shown that fascism preys on the marginalized - trump is doing just that.
25
The Federal Government is 20 Trillion in debt. Perhaps these country bumpkins you disdain actually have better math skills than the big city politicians spending future generations into poverty.
6
But spending taxpayer money on golf doesn’t bother them?
44
I wonder what the residents of this town think of the giant deficit that their favorite liar has created for no good reason. Wasn't that spending for handouts? How is that "lean & efficient" and business like? Maybe trump's businesses...
23
This story about Arkansas on the front page of the electronic edition of the paper says everything readers need to know about the "red" states.
As someone who has worked to get Democrats elected locally in Northwest Arkansas, the Propaganda Organ watching locals are beyond saving. They are proud of their ignorance, and believe potholes fill themselves and schools and libraries are full of unnecessary luxuries. Like paid staff.
Dirty little secret: those dependent on Federal Disability, food stamps, etc? They don't, won't or cant vote.
Please blue state congress people, come up with a plan to get the voters attention as thoroughly as the change in the deductibility of state and local taxes did suburban voters, Make it harder for them to get those federal highway dollars to start with,
30
And this is an example of why public education is important...
26
Sum it up: Uneducated, uninformed, victims. Have you ever tried to argue with a three year old? Why bother? The onus is on us that we have failed to properly educate 30% of the population so that they are not capable of logic.
31
With their logic, why should I pay for their military. The rural & urban republicans are the same, selfish and spiteful. Based on the photos, they cannot even take care of themselves and unfortunately doomed in many ways.
19
Instead of asking rural folks whether they support education. ask them how they have the trucks they drive, who had/has the knowledge that provides TV. smart phones, microwaves and all the other things they may use every day, as well as the knowledge required to transport and process the food that fattens their bellies. If the road they use to get to an emergency room is washed out, and they refuse to pay taxes or support government, who will fix it? — and which uneducated good ol’ boy will be their doctor when they’re having a heart attack? Rural or urban, there comes a time when deliberate stupidity catches up with you.
40
I think this essay is incomplete; it ignores the fact that these rural types might be smarter than the author realizes. Being uneducated is not the same as being stupid. Is it not possible that these rural people’s opinions are based on a justifiable skepticism of the madness of cities and the hysteria that seems to frequently accompany ‘sophisticated ‘ lifestyles? They have a solution to the purpose of life - whether we like it or not - and is it really all that worse than the suburban obsession of consumerism and work? It does make them vulnerable to (predatory) conservatism.
20
Their self defeating mentality eludes me. Their embrace of policies that benefit the 1-2% of the wealthiest and penalizes them is equally unfathomable. Their willingness to vote for our amoral, foul mouthed President and his indulgent lifestyle that they are paying for is incredulous.
Rather than turning inward, why not entertain, explore, and embrace possibilities for personal and community enhancement?
18
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain
36
These people, as a group, appear to do little or nothing to improve their situation, preferring to let their community to die a slow death. Assuming they have water, land, and some educated people, they can at least attempt to get enterprises looking for reasonably priced land and labor to provide a tax base, not just mineral exploiters who take and leave.
Just hunkering down and electing a con man who exploits ignorance and indolence is not the answer.
Sometimes you have to let go of a dime to pick up a dollar.
18
I wonder if some of these folks think social security, Medicare, and Medicaid are a waste of money. Get real folks, get real.
20
“Call me narrow-minded but I’ve never understood why a librarian needs a four-year degree,” someone wrote. “We were taught Dewey decimal system in grade school. Never sounded like anything too tough.”
Exactly, that's part of the reason you have a poverty rate of 22%, because, apparently, a lot of you don't want to learn anything. You think you've been left behind; no you have chosen to stay leave yourselves behind rather than try to adjust to a changing world. The world is not going to adjust to you, if you want to come along you have to adjust to it.
34
The irony of the political mindset of the downtrodden, White, uneducated, racist and “religious” rural population profiled here is that neither trump nor the Republican Party cares a whit about them. While they sit back, grousing about paying taxes, and disparaging education and achievement, they seem to be mired in a lifestyle that will lead to their extinction. The only thing that I would hope for is that they do not vote. They most definitely would not even pass the test for those seeking U.S. citizenship.
16
There is something fundamentally unappealing about a lack of generosity toward others.
29
I was born and raised in small town Arkansas, and this article sums up why I left and won't return. Educated or not, we all choose to either remain open to learning, or escape in willful ignorance. These people are not stupid, just oddly proud of their own ignorance; yet they ultimately chose our president...and sadly, they probably will again.
27
Do they not find extravagant Trump’s spending of taxpayer dollars on golf almost every weekend of his presidency? They think Trump is a folk hero come to deliver them from *liberal elites,* when in truth Trump was a millionaire by the time he was three due to his father’s tax evasions.
26
Selfishness breeds selfishness.These people exist everywhere, not just rural areas. It's a failure to see that a community survives if it respects the whole, not just a few. Unfortunately, when you equate one person, with a superior education, as having not earned his/her salary, you destroy the chances for anyone else rising above their ignorance. in the end, the community loses the very thing that it needs the most.
12
Hard to contemplate this attitude of self reliance when self reliant is the last thing these people are. Come do my “office job” and see how “lazy” I am. Except you likely don’t have the education to do so. Whereas I could do the manual labor in Arkansas, one is more mentally draining and the other more physically draining; but don’t deign time call either lazy. I’m up at 5am every day and in the office before 7am and don’t leave the office until 6pm am home at 7pm, eat something and put in a couple more hours at home every day. And usually several hours on the weekends. You’d be just as tired. Lazy. Ha. I did manual labor work all through college, and worked nights through grad school. Don’t dare say I am lazy. Let’s switch places for a week and see how well that fits with your perceptions and mine.
29
The USA is fast becoming a banana republic - probably is there already. I suppose if you don’t read you don’t see a need for libraries or better education.
It’s a travesty that these people are unable to see what’s in their best interest. Remind me, Trump supporters - what is the county’s current deficit, $2 trillion, or is it more? That’s your leader being so very fiscally responsible!
I fear that it’s the end of the republic for you guys.
17
Do progressive and educated americans need to get over their indignation of being ruled by the ignorant, and start to view the issue from a different angle? If they are right in identifying ignorance in rural white America, then what is the best way to enlighten their fellow americans?
9
This is a story that goes through the ages.
I grew up in rural Mississippi in the 1960s and a white politician could rob the people blind in plain sight and still get elected as long as he was screaming white supremacy and hate the federal government.
Simple self-defeating hatred of "others" no matter what.
22
And these people vote for an elitist who claims to be a billionaire as their savior? They are so ignorant they can’t see that Trump and Republicans shower government largesse on corporations, defense contractors and the donor class while gutting services that help people like them. But of course they think that the Republicans are cutting government. But only certain types of government.
This is the most wasteful administration in history.
The bottom line is: he taps into their bigotry. I don’t feel sorry for them at all. We (Democrats) need to build a coalition without them and not waste our time trying to win them over. They will benefit when we win but they will still hate us. C’est la vie.
18
These people vote against their own interests, but so do New Yorkers. New York is the richest big city in the world, and yet, due to waste, mismanagement, and identity politics, it has a mass transit system with massive delays and a construction cost structure twice anywhere else, a school system whose best schools are under attack by its own mayor, and nearly a billion dollars that disappeared into a network of organizations linked to the mayor's wife. When New Yorkers vote out strange failures like DeBlasio, they will have standing to criticize these foolish people in rural Arkansas.
8
So I guess these folks all have jobs that provide top notch health insurance to keep them from going under in case of a sudden health emergency? And none of them use federally funded food programs like SNAP or reduced school lunches? They can afford to fix their blown out tires when the poor roads become a hazard? Great! They really don't need the government at all, they have everything figured out. Can I stop having my tax dollars go to Arkansas since it seems like a waste of money? Maybe they don't want it anyway, as I'm college educated and on the east coast.
As frustrating as this article was to read, the ignorance and fear of these rural voters is desperately sad. Whether they truly don't know better (their president thinks they're stupid) or don't care (their hero is a millionaire surrounded by men even richer), the result is the same: they will remain in poverty while wielding serious voting power.
Our only hope is that independents see the bigger picture and we can leave these folks to themselves (while they continue to benefit in some way from the government whether they like it or not). The rest of us need to move on without them.
20
The only way out of that town is through those library doors.
38
When there are few opportunities, so that people with ambition and talent are pushed to leave for opportunities to better themselves, that is a decline that leaves behind a population with an enriched proportion of losers.
9
Charts show that the loss of manufacturing jobs and the increase in income inequality began and accelerated during the Reagan administration over 40 years ago. That's when many white working class Americans abandoned their best interests and became "Reagan Democrats".
Race, counterculture, religion, feminism, abortion, and fear were the keys for GOP victory. Scared, easily manipulated people voted against their own interests, and progressive people were baffled as how to fight back.
Politicians politely did not call them stupid, but most attempts at trying to woo them back with compassion and understanding instead of criticism was viewed by these folks as condescension. They were right. Playing nice did not work. Let's abandon our condescending politeness and tell these stupid "snowflakes" that they are intellectually incapable of rationally deciding the future of their own lives and of the nation.
They like the brutal clown they elected to be president. Perhaps they only respond to unvarnished cruelty.
14
According to the Arkansas Salary database, Mr. Widener is one of those horrible people living on government's wasteful salaries. He makes more than $25 an hour.
26
This is the same story in most small towns across the US and also in western Europe. We have lots of kin folks in both North and South Carolina. I see it first hand.
I cannot predict the future, but based on my observations going back the 60 + years since I was 20, their future gets dimmer every year. Living in small communities, they have to conform to a life of financial and intellectual poverty to get along. They spend their days in Easy Boy Lounger chairs glued to Fox News. They believe that every government employee is stupid and/or a crook.
The smart young people leave, and the rest make their's a life of hate. They hate anyone who is not part of their social circle. They hat anyone who does not look like them, they hate the rest of the world. They believe that fiscal responsibility means never spending any money. They fight any attempt to invest in the future.
Maybe the good news is that they will soon die out.
11
It's a curious mixture: pathos and self-destructiveness with a hint of racism thrown in. I feel sorry for these people and hope they can find their way to a better life.
9
Here is the problem with this article. It is written by someone sneering at the people of this small town for the amusement of people who are sneering at all people who live in similar towns. In that way, the author is engaged in a kind of tribalism.
I couldn't disagree more with people who disdain libraries but painting them as ignorant and greedy, and disparaging them for using the democratic system to vote for a candidate they like is simply a non-starter. In America, it is incumbent upon you to prove you have better ideas and solutions by persuading the people with whom you disagree. Parading these people around like freaks for the amusement of the "enlightened" in the big cities is itself an anti-intellectual enterprise.
If these Arkansans' ideas are so bad, show them why yours are better. Better yet, engage with them and listen to what they have to say before you tell them what you have to say.
That's leadership. Anything else is just tearing the country apart.
9
I'm making a copy of this article to reread again because it hits squarely at why Trump appeals to this kind of rural mentality.
I am a 74 year old Vietnam Vet now retired after working for 15 years in three of Ohio's prisons. I truly believe America is living now in a Dark Age of Ignorance every time I read a article like this about people are are arrogantly proud that they're so backward and ignorant and look down upon anyone who has the ability to think critically about Trump and his gang of Republican's con job.
Biden says we're fighting to regain "the soul of our nation" and Trump claims what? we're fighting another Civil War? I look at America now as a nation in a battle to restore rational thought from people are proud to be ignorant like these people.
18
Self-destruction is one thing, but people who see no value in libraries will destroy civilization if we let them.
20
It seems that... in the United States the political power belongs to those who know... the least...
So Trump is not the problem, only the symptom.
Well... good luck America! (You - unfortunately - will need it a lot. Lots of luck.
I swear I grew up wanting to move south of the border an become an American. Not anymore. America has in fact become one of the last country where I'd move. Really, really sad.
14
Sound education, including a good library, leads to improved minds, including critical thinking ability. Improved thinking ability, including the ability to understand how a healthy community functions, leads to wise civic decisions and election choices. Wise civic decisions and election choices lead to a stronger local economy including creative business leaders and social services. Oh, and critical thinking ability also includes being able to spot a con artist, failed businessman, degenerate and corrupt politician.
11
I’ll bet the citizens of Van Buren County would vote for a tax increase for a new high school football stadium.
19
I can’t help but think a root cause here is our abysmal k-12 education system. We could dissect all the flaws in these people’s arguments and tell them they’re wrong, but why not give them the tools to figure things out themselves? There is a deep current of anti intellectualism in rural America and I’d love to overeducate it out of existence.
8
Self-defeat is a polite way to put it.
5
Folks from Van Buren County Ark, should all come live with us here in the Bronx, NY . We're just as poor, but we have really great libraries.
10
If they hate government so much - why do they vote at all?
8
Government is the people! By the people, for the people, of the people. The full story.
4
Do the people Ms. Potts describes think that Government savings are going to reduce their taxes under this administration? If they want more money in their pocket and want to stick it to all the big wigs in Washington, they should be voting for the socialist Bernie Sanders. You could read all about it at the library where points of view that are not trying to sell you anythings are found.
6
So, basically, you think that YOU know what these people REALLY need and what their money REALLY should go for and how much they really OUGHT to pay in taxes. And that you know this better than they do. And yet you dont understand why they dont like Democrats. Precious!
3
Cut them off. No room in 21st Century America to subsidize willful ignorance and entrenched mediocrity, and especially no room to let their bitter votes count more than mine. It is sad they don’t realize they are pawns of the ultra-rich, instead blaming George Soros or whoever the latest pseudo-villain of the Right is...it is the Koch’s and their ilk who are the primary benefactors of rural America’s myopic “world” view.
5
I say this so often that I won't be surprised if/ when the Times stops printing my [repetitive] comments:
The only way to change things in 2020 will be increased voter turnout. Increased turnout = more Democrats voting (yes, maybe more Republicans too, but they are already "fired up and ready to go").
Any Trump supporter who is still supporting him is obviously immune to change; those who were capable of being disillusioned fell away long ago.
What we need is --- as I said --- increased turnout, and Democratic voters with enough maturity to vote for the eventual nominee in the general election no matter who that might be. Say what you like about what a flawed & unpopular candidate Hillary was in 2016 --- the alternative was TRUMP, for crying out loud. If we can't pull up our big-boy pants and vote for the nominee even if it isn't Bernie/ Liz/ Pete/ whoever, then we deserve whatever 4 more years of Trump will bring.
10
Compulsive public school education-critical thinking skills-civics—-followed by a year of service in America working together with people from all walks of life.
WW II did that. Let’s repeat without a war and heal divisions without losing lives.
7
Can't really expect people who barely can read to be making smart choices for them selves.
6
I want someone to ask the people of Clinton ow they feel about their taxes going to pay for Trump's golf junkets. And if a tornado hit their town would they want to go it alone, or would they want disaster relief?
6
Education, education, education.
We talk a good game in America, but we openly admire ignorance, reptilian brain selfishness, religion, physical violence, and the infliction of fiscal pain on the next generation.
8
Just sad. No optimism. No empathy. Just unceasing whining and grievance and self-pity. Luckily they are becoming increasingly irrelevant by the day.
7
Dispatches from a foreign country. They do things differently there.
3
These people are the definition of cynicism: they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
9
The Electoral College was dreamt up by white, rural farmers. Coincidence?
4
I wanted to hear much more about Southwestern Energy which, according to the story, invested heavily in the community when market signals looked good and then, when the natural gas market turned, complained about local taxes and left the community with substantial debt —and its denizens with lingering resentment toward each other and.... big government?
A cursory search yielded this:
“Southwestern Energy Completes Transformational Sale of Fayetteville Shale Business [1.87 billion]
Transaction enables the Company to increase focus in Appalachia region; reduce debt; return capital to shareholders”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181204005597/en/Southwestern-Energy-Completes-Transformational-Sale-Fayetteville-Shale
Part of this story seems to be about corporate responsibility to not only shareholders but to the communities in which they operate.
4
As a native Arkansan with relatives who still live in White County, a stone's throw from Van Buren county, this is so on target.
8
Isn't it true that the federal government puts far more into Arkansas than it gets in taxes? The residents of Arkansas should refuse to accept such a handout. Anyway, this is what we should expect in areas where for many, many years all the best and brightest wanted to do was get out, and the remainder have been brainwashed by the likes for Fox News.
9
I don't think anyone realizes how much talk radio has influenced these people. Rush Limbaugh is on for three hours a day. And then Sean Hannity is on for three more hours. Right wing talk radio (even more than FOX News) has created the mindset that you're witnessing right now. These hosts have them all convinced that government is evil, education is just left wing brainwashing, the mainstream media lies all the time, immigration is an invasion of people who just want to live off the government. Oh, and then there's the attitude toward black people in the "inner cities" and Muslims. It is a sad situation that will not be changing anytime soon.
11
Thank you for a wonderful article that explains trump.
4
What was interesting in the article was the photographs showing all those big expensive and relatively new trucks.
8
Really sad for the country. I grew up on a small farm outside a small town in rural texas. Nobody was like these sorry people.
7
Arkansas and the entire south is a long but uncomplicated story. For 250 years the area wed itself to slavery and the notion Blacks were inferior.
It comes down to morals and ethics. When the south is ready to accept progress in the human condition, then it might move along in a progressive manner.
Otherwise, frankly, at a time when things are really complex, I wish the south would simply just leave the union. They are unneeded in a modern world.
10
They really are deplorable. No other way to describe them.
7
These folks are on the dole, too. Maybe it's time to more clearly point that out. Then, let's talk about companies that happily employ illegal immigrants rather than savaging people who are willing to work.
4
More services = more immigrants = more new businesses = more prosperity for everyone. You have to spend money to make money.
4
This article made me think about a time and place where librarians were seen differently.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/horse-riding-librarians-were-great-depression-bookmobiles-180963786/
4
It would be interesting to spend some time with the coastal elites at Fox & the right wing media who feed these people their nonsensical anti-government philosophy, and hear how they justify themselves.
5
As a proud nerd, I can’t abide baseless criticisms of librarians, issued by individuals who don’t recognize that these beautiful souls do the Lord’s work.
“Call me narrow-minded but I’ve never understood why a librarian needs a four-year degree...We were taught Dewey decimal system in grade school. Never sounded like anything too tough.”
Mr. Narrow-Minded, had you ever taken a moment to consider why a librarian would even devote themselves to working at a grade school library?
“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
10
Leave these sad people to their sad places. You can bring a horse to the river, you can not force it to drink. Dems should not even try to woo such people. These people do not want a better lives. It is their choice to have no choice.
6
Remind me again of why I'm supposed to respect these rural people who show such disrespect for anyone different from them?
16
I find it impossible to forgive these people, let alone sympathize with them. They have the same internet and cable tv that I do, so can avail themselves of facts in legitimate newspapers, not biases, and can read a book now and then. There is simply no excuse for their narrow-minded rejection of everyone different from them, and no excuse for the sheer stupidity of their position on nearly everything government can and does do—including what it does, and could do, for them.
4
The saddest and most ironic fact of this whole situation is that the “hard-working, self reliant” folks in rural counties across America have been taken in by a city slicker con artist who has absolutely no regard for their welfare and values. But appealing to their worst instincts, and aided by a party that is been totally corrupted he will continue to pat them on the back with one hand and empty their wallets with the other.
6
The bottom line being that capitalism has never been about people helping other people. Capitalism creates motivation and breeds the “make me great again” kind of selfishness that goes all the way back to Reagan: ”Are YOU better off now than you were four years ago?”
Community is soooo overrated in that worldview.
4
Anyone interest in helping to raise money for their library and salary for the librarian? Crowdfunding? The article scared me, sad people. Can we share?
2
No matter how they try to explain or justify their hateful attitudes, there is nothing there but ignorance & jealousy (which clearly accounts for their fanatical support of a crooked, bankrupt, billionaire). Most of these people pay less in taxes than most while receiving taxpayer-funded services that they don't even recognize as such. They are basically supported by the liberal states they hate so much. Ditch the Electoral College & quit funding programs in these areas. If they feel so left out & put upon, give them what they want. See how they like that!
10
When driving through towns like this in Oklahoma, dying, decrepit places, I asked aloud, “I wonder what keeps people here?”
My wife answered immediately, “Fear.”
And that it is.
Fear of change, fear of something new, fear of bettering oneself, fear of the outside world.
Fear of “the other.”
15
There is a simple solution.
Let the good folk of Clinton, Ark and others like them live on the munificent taxes they contribute to the general welfare.
People like me who pay lots in taxes would be happy for them to get off the public dole and return to their bucholic lives of Mountain Dew and opioids
As for books, who needs them?
Fox news is all they need if they want an education.
i recall once attending a meeting of Jehovah's Witnesses and heard one of their leaders state that education was worthless and sinful. Everything we need to know is in the Watchtower, he said.
Whatever.
I refuse to support such people just as they want nothing to do with me.
12
It’s wonderful how liberals insist on true democracy when it benefits them but when the majority is Republican or conservative and they choose to support a program, tax or candidate, they are uneducated rubes who shouldn’t really have the right to make decisions and would be much better off if we allowed coastal liberal elites do what’s best for them.
5
The searing paradoxes in this article are really something to behold.
2
Wow. what an accurate summation of why Trump won and might stay!
1
I just want to point out that the blatantly condescending attitude expressed in these responses will go a long way toward helping get you-know-who re-elected. Just as many of the comments published in 2016 helped elect you-know-who in the first place.
6
Well, here in what James Carville referred to as the "T" of Pennsylvania (that is, "Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama in the middle" ) I am a bit envious of the folks in Arkansas. The minimum wage in PA is $7.25 per hour, lower than West Virginia's. In Arkansas it's $9.25. The Repulican contolled State Legislature says it will destroy businesses and jobs if it's raised.
As the greatest Pennsylvanian once said: "We are all born ignorant, but must work hard to remain stupid" - Benjamin Franklin.
7
This article shows how poor regions and people stay poor.
3
As far as this smug liberal elitist (me) feels, I wouldn’t want to live within 1000 miles of a place like Clinton.
I already live in a small rural town though close enough to DC. to give it some diversity and many educated people. The locals are “nice”, and yes will help you when your car breaks down. But the Trump loving abounds and I can’t square that with the other actions. It continues to elude me.
2
It is all about fear, fear for you and your family, for your future. There's good reason to have that fear. What makes no sense is unwillingness to join with others to face the things you fear. Instead, these folks are withdrawing. Why is that? Because people like Trump tell them they need to be afraid of others: blacks, hispanics, moslems, African, middle-easterners, liberals, gays, and the list goes on. Tellingly their list doesn't include huge agri-corporations, predatory drug companies, rapacious international banks, non-tax paying companies, and the obscenely wealthy. I wonder why that is?
4
There were two Democrats in the small Midwestern town where I grew up. One was the town drunk, the other the high school political science teacher.
Within a couple of days at college, I realized I would never live there again.
5
Sounds similar to the people from Louisiana's bayou country in the book "Strangers in Their Own Land" by sociologist Arlie Hochschild. Its a problem that seems to have no
resolution --- yet.
3
This article is not about understanding others, but about judging them.
6
Why a Library? They probably can't read anyway?
Put a nice, high wall around the lot of em.
A prototype for our first "re-education" camp.
Shades of Hillbilly Elegy. This is what you do. You go to that well equipped library, sit down at one of the computers and apply for jobs anywhere but there. I can imagine that a great deal of people on on social security disability, welfare, food stamps. I remember a woman being interview in the Seattle area after being moved there post hurricane Katrina. She was asked if she might return to Louisiana and she said absolutely not. Her kids were in great schools and she had a good job. What is being described is a second world existence inside of the richest country in the world.
4
Where do these people think the internet which they apparently cherish, comes from?
3
50 years ago we went to the moon and today in rural America people don’t even want to go to the library....
10
Its kind of an evolutionary death spiral. The people with ambition and intelligence leave for urban areas with more opportunity and those remaining..........well you can figure it out.
3
France, 1876
Germany, 1923
“The South”, 1871
Japan, 1949
this is what modern societies look like after they lose THE WAR
but, what war did this society lose?
The Culture War
(you might want to look at the birthrate there, corrected for the emigration rate)
1
Trump is the symptom of the disease at the very foundations of American society, which was founded by violent revolutionaries with deep paranoia misanthropy and sociopathology.
The only thing that permitted America to flourish (besides slavery and stealing Indian lands) was endless expansion. The ethos of America is selfish individualism and distrust of others.
As a nation of immigrants who often fled harship in their home countries, Americans seem innately suspicious and distrustful of others.
The support of these misfits for Trump is similar to the support for chattel slavery by poor southern whites, the very people who were most harmed by the economic advantages of the plantation system.
Trump has helped move America back to its roots of violence, rebellion, selfishness and distrust. If nothing else we can be grateful that he has exposed the hidden cancer of our "exceptional" society.
5
Trump whines and cries, wraps himself in the American flag, and wallows in self-pity. No wonder these people feel fully represented for the first time.
I always get the sense that they think that if they were black or brown they'd be taken care of. Is that the message they receive via Fox News? Are the traumatized Hispanic children and the gunned-down black teenagers not included in the nightly reports? The idea that they are oppressed because they are white is simultaneously pitiful and, because they seem to cheer Joe Arpaio and his ilk, worthy of disdain.
Perhaps their religion tells them that the deity is a lot like Fred Trump: always there to shove a few million into another lost cause in order to maintain his son's self-esteem. The prosperity gospel is the psilocybin ingested by an uncomfortably large number of voters, rendering them impervious to reality.
It's hard to discuss people who reject the sort of community spending that provided the road upon which they traveled and the building in which they met.
However, in a country in which we have allowed a small group of fanatics to dictate national policy, perhaps we will deserve it if they can change state laws and gerrymander maps and thus preserve minority rule in perpetuity.
Real Americans my foot.
6
Face facts - people with ambition, intelligence, and worldliness leave places such as this to seek their fortunes elsewhere.
Those that are left behind (usually older folks) become ever more fearful, clannish, selfish, and ignorant.
My advice to young people who live in dead-end towns such as this - get out as fast as you can!
4
Ms. Potts said, "They believe every tax dollar spent now is wasteful and foolish and they will have to pay for it later."
What is really wasteful and foolish are Republican tax cuts for the rich.
Stop those and we would have some money for things like education.
7
Insulting, belittling, condescending comments towards "rural" (meaning white, non-liberal) Americans only makes them buy more ammo and dig in their heels against those "enlightened hypocrites" in their urban dystopias (how much does a one bedroom cost in NYC or San Fran these days?) who denigrate them. Hence Trump.
7
Could someone please explain to me how this willful ignorance has gained such a hold in this country?
4
Ignorance knows no bounds. Do as I say, not what I do. It's safe to say that all the politicians they support are happy that these people think this way. The reality is that these people are millionaires and keep getting richer (Trump, Fox news hosts, and radio folks). Sorry, these politicians could care less about your situation. Go ahead - implode. And I know you would agree "don't come crying to taxpayers to bail you out".
2
The trouble with many white liberals is that they regard themselves as normative and everyone else as deviant. Though they are a class, they have all the arrogance and smugness of an ethnic group carping about the oddities of another ethnic group. Yet, if held up to the same level of scrutiny as those in "Appalachia" - there's a loaded, white liberal word - white liberal customs and folkways would also look very strange indeed. People adapt to their circumstances in distinctive ways, whether others approve or understand or not. Instead of regarding rural America as the land of odd people, the New York Times might do well to report through an emic-etic lens - that is with the sensitivity of an anthropologist attempting to understand individuals and groups from inside the culture and the prisms of that culture's experience of life, and then from the outside. The pictures that emerge will be complex and rich and they won't be caricatures.
5
Do Republicans and Trump have a plan yet to insure all these unemployed or underemployed rural folks once they take away Obama Care? Dude in photo should probably google what an infected diabetic foot looks like. Just in case his public university job disappears in midst of state tax cuts.
2
This sounds like rural Indiana counties, if you add in bigotry of every sort: racial, religious, anti-immigrant, homophobic, etc.
I suspect that rural Arkansas has those too.
3
Wonder how those country bumpkins who think and believe "every tax dollar spent on government is a waste" view the State Dinner in the Rose Garden that Trump just conducted??? Was that government waste? They probably never viewed all the photos of the crooks parading around in the dinner costumes, being entertained and eating grand entrees and drinking wine. How about the waste for all those flights to Mara Lago to play golf?
6
Lacking the intellectual resources to live a better life people band together in a regressive tribe. The tribe then creates a false narrative, that is reinforced by conformational bias (FOX), that their way of life is actually desirable. The tribe then soothes its misery by accusing those who have a life, they can only yearn for, of being the undeserving, ignorant ones. To live with themselves, still more illusory thinking is required. The tribe must find a group of scapegoats to blame and look down upon, so that they may feel superior. The scapegoated tribe always has darker skin. It is just too hard to blame yourself for your depravity. Better to embrace it and be proud of it, at least your not black or brown. Finally, they need a leader to tell them that their tribal construct is real. That demagogue is Trump!
3
Imagine the monumental lack of information, education, analysis and understanding it takes to make it OK to send the extremely wealthy a $1.5 trillion tax cut while denying a small tax deprived county a library. Layer on an unwillingness to treat immigrant children who are sick and you have the outcome of greed joined at the hip with racism.
No wonder Mitch McConnell has been able to stay in the senate for so long. I know, he is from Kentucky and this is about Arkansas. Kentucky is worse.
4
Lacking the intellectual resources to live a better life people band together in a regressive tribe. The tribe then creates a false narrative, that is reinforced by conformational bias (FOX), that their way of life is actually desirable. The tribe then soothes its misery by accusing those who have a life, they can only yearn for, of being the undeserving, ignorant ones. To live with themselves, still more illusory thinking is required. The tribe must find a group of scapegoats to blame and look down upon, so that they may feel superior. The scapegoated tribe always has darker skin. It is just too hard to blame yourself for your depravity. Better to embrace it and be proud of it, at least your not black or brown. Finally, they need a leader to tell them that their tribal construct is real. That demagogue is Trump!
5
Funny how Trump doesn’t get blamed for wasting tax dollars on the massive tax cut for the rich. And the expensive trips to his elite golf clubs and Maralago resort.
7
We really are two countries at this point.
550
Clinton sounds like a place in need of a community organizer. Sometimes religious leaders fill that role, at last they did in years gone by. But religion is not the progressive force it once was. That's a nicer way of putting it than if I were talking to you face to face.
1
The fiercest enemy this country faces is not China or Russia,not even North Korea or Iran or all of them banding together;It's FOX NEWS
18
The people of Clinton, Arkansas at least know what the librarian makes and show up to discuss the issues.
4
It will always be this way because poor white folks in America see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
11
This is approximately 1,000 times more insightful than David Brooks’s last column.
15
Geez, how smart do you have to be to realize that trump is a con man?
7
Land was stolen from Native Americans by Euro-Americans. These Euro-Americans then labeled African-American, Latin-American, every thing that moved, ect...
But never labeled themselves so it looked like they were already here before the native.. lol.
What a circus, horray for clowns.
8
I grew up in rural Ohio, and left to be become a terrible coastal elite liberal. Barely under the surface racism, anti-intellectualism, and righteous act-like-you-know-it-all ignorance when you in fact never read or study anything are consistent traits of the white folks in my home town. Not to say they’re not all mostly nice people, on the surface.
55
I hear these same sentiments echoed in my own community and I've arrived at this prediction: Democrats will win or lose this election based on how they choose to talk about immigration. It's the singular issue that encompasses so many of these grievances, as well as a sense of abandonment. I summarize it as, "I've done everything right, worked my $10/hr job all this time but y'all treat me like I'm an idiot while lavishing attention and sympathy on immigrants, many who cheated to get here."
The truth is, they aren't wrong: the disdain that educated, "city folk" (hint: I'm one of them) have towards rural Americans is real. Indeed, it's hard to reconcile the passion with which so many Democrats defend illegal immigrants -- sorry, undocumented workers -- with the scorn they view white rural Americans. Their defense of the former takes on a nobile-savage quality that should give Liberals pause.
My point: I believe that immigration might be the one issue that a Democrat might use to get a toehold with rural Republicans... If, that is, he or she has the courage to suggest **and broadcast** a reasonable, measured policy that addresses immigration honestly, and does so in a way that is not immediately dismissive of their (sometimes unfounded but also not completely illegitimate) grievances.
29
David Brooks, meet Monica Potts.
19
This is a sad situation. But thinking Clinton, Arkansas equals rural America is like believing Hillbilly Elegy is an accurate representation of life in flyover country.
15
I hope Ms. Potts will show her neighbors a few of the comments on the article. For example, the one pointing out that Arkansas residents enjoy an $845 per person subsidy from the coastal states; another one showing that the food programs that no doubt feed some of their residents will be killed by Republicans at their earliest convenience. And if they'd watch a bit of real news instead of Fox, they'd quickly learn that the guy who promised to drain the swamp is actually the lizard king of swamp creatures.
140
So do rural Americans who see it as wasteful to work as a community and raise money for things they all can benefit from not see their hypocrisy in supporting Trump? They hate anyone from big cities and view them as entitled and lazy. So they support a man who never really had to work hard at anything, grew up in one of the largest cities in America with a father that gave him everything ? A man who has spent more time golfing than actually working as President and who has billed them, by their taxes well over $200 million dollars for said golf trips? This illogical mindset is the very reason they are being left behind. They have no one to blame but themselves for their situation. By being irrationally stubborn- they pay the price.
107
Every Democrat, especially every Democratic candidate, should read this article.
43
The democrats should spend exactly 0 trying to reach communities like this.
79
That the Republicans desperately need the citizens of this lost town to stay as poor, mean spirited, and uneducated as they are, say everything about the Republicans.
146
But there is their own mythologizing - both of themselves and of Trump - they are no longer 'mending fences all day' any more than Trump is a contractor, a builder, in a hardhat, who made good..Both of them are actually sitting watching FOX news all day and eating twinkies and McDonalds hamburgers. Mending fences, I think not..And these are NOT the 'deplorables' Hilary was talking about - she was more about the Steve Millers, the Brietbarts, the Mitch McConnells, as the real evil deplorables in our society - they know better but refuse to act for the good of all. And these rural voters are more likely to represent the vast majority of america who just don't vote - lets get some stats on how many just sit home on election day..I bet ya it is way more than 50%, in this county.
26
Operation Divide and Conquer is Complete. Those that have next to nothing fully resent and despise those that have absolutely nothing instead of those who by hook and crook have a near-infinite supply of everything (dollars, power, influence, privilege). You've got to hand it to the Republicans.
They know how to get it done.
63
Librarians are such a great resource. Maybe this librarian can show them how to write a grant proposal to submit to their beloved Walmart to pay for the library and the librarians salary.
49
The self inflicted willingly ignorant attitude so accurately reflected here is the "sea anchor" now threatening to slow, even stop the progress of America into a successful and prosperous future, both economically and politically.
Trump with his lies and fear tactics is perfect for attracting these people. The rest of America must wake up and focus on changing this situation in honest and positive ways. That is a challenge that our traditional political parties, both Republican and Democrat may be incapable of archieving...but together, we must all try, together. Or else, America in general will become like Clinton Ark. appears to already be: lost in direction, will and hope.
27
This is a rejection of the concept of governement. These folks are rejecting democracy. Reading this makes it clear how much we need to encourage immigration to America. We need reforms to process the backlog, pass the Dream act, and elect an anti-racist president. We need a transformative wave of new people.
51
If these folks think the cost of literacy is too high, they should try ignorance. Oh wait... they are. And how is that working out for them?
Seriously - what has Trump done to help them? Absolutely nothing.
69
What a depressing read. At first I thought of H. G. Wells', The Country of the Blind i.e. that these people oppose the idea of the library because of this impulse of levelling down.
But as I progressed into the article it became apparent that it is simply deep ignorance not design that dictates this attitude.
These people don't have any idea how society and government work.
The problem of convincing them should be solved by psychologists; there must have been plenty of studies on the best methods to fighting prejudice.
21
Malarkey. The sheer number of urban voters sick of this President and the deplorables he caters to can and will prevail in 2020. We just need to show up in numbers great enough to overcome GOP voter suppression and rural electoral advantage. That can be done if people just show up and vote.
44
The essence of this challenge is simply "there" in the American culture and ethos - to be dealt with and overcome, not "solved" - by a more caring and enlightened majority of our population driving it back into our dark corners in the hope it will wither and die.
Example: Presaging a parade of 100,000 down Pennsylvania Avenue, 90 years ago this month 20,000 Ku Klux Klan members and would-be initiates gathered for a massive "Klonvocation" - in Worcester, Mass. of all places - cleaving to and spewing the same hateful messages of "our" current president - and the retrograde citizens profiled in this piece who constitute the base of "Trump's unbeatle appeal."
The answer today - as in the unbelievable but all too real, ugly resurgence of the Klan 90 years ago - is not to convert but overwhelm and subvert and then extend the possibility of educating and rehabilitating them. So when that pernicious American disease appears again, we can treat and stifle it before it becomes yet another epidemic.
11
The message that this article represents to me is that all Democrat candidates should not waste a dime trying to contact these people. The Democrat candidates and the party must concentrate heavily on the urban areas of these states, especially those urban areas that are least racist. We must try to get every single urban voter to the poles for every election no matter how small (school boards, local sheriffs, judges, etc.). We must make it a knee-jerk reaction that when the word "election" falls, that we immediately plan how to get there and bring our neighbors.
I do not feel sorry for these people who deny help to their neighbors, since their neighbors are just as selfish and greedy as they are.
Maybe we should even play the Republican game of trying to make it less attractive to vote - stage country and western music fests for that day or local shindigs and hoedowns that take up their time and energy - far away from the polls.
I feel sorry for the rest of us who are being robbed of our democracy and our freedom of want in a country so rich that we can spend more money on the military than do Russia or China or all of Europe.
Those are also the people who drove me out of the town that I grew up in because I am gay and bilingual. I feared them then and I fear them now.
48
Drive through rural Norway. It is prosperous, beautiful and clean. The Center Party (Senterpartiet) represents rural Norway. The party does include those who oppose immigrants and refugees. but others who don't. The party joins in coalitions with parties of the left. Farms (most are family farms) in Norway are heavily subsidized and food is expensive.
There is something else. Many of these families have been on their land for many centuries. White rural America was settled by people who went there for opportunities. Those opportunities are gone because of changing technologies and/or economic circumstances and/or lack of government support. Why do they stay? Not money. Not community. Not the Stave church that was built in 1200. Not the solidarity that comes from having lived through almost half a millennium of Danish then Swedish colonialism.
Often rural America polluted water and land.
But not all rural America. Vermont is the most rural and the most progressive state in the country. Fine schools, libraries, social programs, and Act 250. Yes, there are trumpsters here. But they are a minority in almost all towns.
But the trumpian rural America is literally dying. Suicide by stupidity
48
They hate lazy urban professionals but see nothing wrong with the man holding one of the hardest jobs in the world spending all day watching television and tweeting. Their tax dollars are paying for those weekly trips to Mar a Lago, too.
75
Democrats need to talk more about how much money Trump costs/wastes. He spends extravagantly. Trips, a staff to put back together all the paper he tears in half...
33
Had Andrea Singleton been a man seeking $25/hour, this would have all been a moot point. No-one in Van Buren County would have blinked. The sad truth....
33
Trumps main ideology is less government and every thing for the rich. Libraries are funded by the tax payers and so are the GOP wars in the Middle East. They love the wars but make home people suffer is their main goal. If Trump is elected again you can bet your local rural mail will be gone and expect to have to travel 10 plus miles to get it. You are reaping what you sow by voting for the GOP/Trump. Shame on you.
18
A big problem is that these rural voters have disproportionate power at the ballot. One person, one vote, get rid of the electoral college and perhaps we will not be dragged down by these backward self interested people who seem to hate everything.
31
While reading this I felt such sadness well up in my heart. I feel deep sorrow and compassion for these folks who don’t have a clue that they are their own worst enemies and that Trump could care less about any of them. They don’t know the extent to which they are being used. It’s sickening and just so incredibly sad.
32
As a teacher of humanities in a city of about 100,000 I can easily relate to this story even up here in Canada. Our federal election is heating up and the nastiness of the conservative right is going into full effect. Climate- change denial, anti-Islam and homophobia is again rearing its ugly head among the base of the federal conservative party. I teach 16 yr olds that disagree with science, prefer a community of only their skin color and scoff at any efforts of recognition by the LGBTQ community. These children are generally the ones that never leave this community, instead preferring to become incubated by a community and people they see as like them. The fortunate and smart ones leave both the community and people behind them and, while many do eventually return to raise families of their own, they are easily identifiable as more progressive, educated and wealthy than their former peers who toil away at their redundant, archaic jobs and drive around town in their big trucks and offensive bumper stickers admonishing our political leaders of the day. These people are the forgotten and left behind. Our electoral system here in Canada recognizes strength in numbers, and an immigrant-laden city like Vancouver does not share the same time-warped values of smaller communities than many people carry and have carried with them from generation to generation. Trying to convince these people would be an exercise in futility here, just like Arkansas!!!!
29
The key to the story is that propaganda works. The news outlets in almost all such places are dominated by Fox and Sinclair. They are inundated with identity politics. White rural "Christian" identity politics. As with "political correctness" the term "identity politics" was invented by right wing media, for their own purposes.
24
Most Americans believe that they can do whatever they wish because the constitution gives them permission....no matter if what they do is moral or immoral, decent or indecent, or right or wrong. With this kind of total freedom the future will have no need of prisons, law enforcement agencies, nor law books. Why? Because if the law allows you to do what you want, then there is no wrong you can do.
Blessed are those who do not see yet believe. To those who believe in His name: who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
3
I certainly understand. This description shows the divide in this country. Yet I notice the folks all were buying new trucks, seem well fed, dressed and healthy. Yet they don't see or refuse to acknowledge the changes that have slipped into their lives. There seemed to be all smoking, despite. The folks there have a good life, friends like them, even though their beloved Walmart Home Depot, and CVS changed their town shops and merchants forever. Rural life seems fine to me, less traffic, smog and crime, but the trade-off , at least in this community is nothing for anyone but me! And trump is the same, only bigly.
4
These Trump voters are the very people who accept social security payments and medicare without blinking an eye. When our Republican, 'Real Americans' start returning thier federal benefits - the ones they receive from my east coast, liberal taxes - l'll believe what they say.
Until then, all they, Fox, and Trump are talking about is code for their racism.
25
I love the NYTimes commenters. But no where did I see any reference in the article to"real" Americans.
What I did see was a group of people (rural) who are disgruntled because their free lunch is over: no more royalties; no more services paid by gas industry taxes -- they either have to pay (like the rest of us do -- please check out Seattle taxes), or do without. This evidently is what they choose to do, while blaming others for their predicament. Classic Trumpism alright.
24
One of the important points here, though not dwelled upon, is that the news source is Fox News. We now have a generation of folks who, if they pay attention at all, watch the disinformation of Fox News and swallow it hook, line and sinker. They whine about $25/hr while our wannabe dictator blows billions in a multi trillion economy. Intellect matters and it's severely lacking in Red America.
26
I grew up in a rural county in Arkansas so know full-well how many of the people there are and the way they think. They like to talk about their Christian values and how bad government is, yet many of their kids are using and selling dope all over the place.
October 19, 2017: Rates of drug overdose deaths are rising in nonmetropolitan (rural) areas, surpassing rates in metropolitan (urban) areas, according to a new report in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The attitude of many is that "I deserve mine but you don't deserve yours" especially if you're a non-white person.
At the same time, many of them are among the first to try to get on disability payments and qualify for food stamps.
Sadly, things are not likely to change.
35
Many thanks to the writer and the Times. The ruby-red voting pattern of rural mid-westerners will puzzle us no more.
Isn't it sad?
12
This is not new nor limited to rural America. I once had similar conversations with patients who were dependent on TANF, SNAP, and Medicaid and Medicare who voted for the candidates who had pledged to sharply reduce funding for these benefits. Why? Because (clearly other) poor people didn’t deserve help from The Government and would be better off without it.
They saw no hypocrisy in their beliefs—if The Government was stupid enough to offer these benefits they were certainly going to take them. In addition things would be better if their candidates came in and reduced immigration to prevent “them” from taking jobs (they didn’t want) and stopped wasting money on public services they didn’t use, like libraries and schools.
Fortunately this was in blue districts where the majority believed and voted for programs that helped the entire community.
15
Nobody's appeal is unbeatable, not even Trump's in Arkansas.
7
Don't tell them how much money is spent on corporate welfare and the wealth of the 1%. They don't want to know that is isn't poor people of color who make them poor. It's easier to make scapegoats of children in cages (or their parents) or sick people (using hospital resources) than it is to imagine that the king and his court (that they voted for) are indifferently heading up their destruction. Denial is a powerful drug.
21
What we have here is a circus and whom we see in charge is a clown. It’s not going well for the clown or his audience, but like any spectator event the crowd remains glued in their seats hoping to be wowed by the final act. What will it be: War with the “evil empire” or a “puppy dog parade?” Who can tell in this daytime drama of our values. We all know one basic rule: Republicans destroy and Democrats create. What will be the outcome: to build or to bust? Nobody wants to live in small towns in Arkansas, unless you are from a small town in Arkansas and were too scared to ever leave....but, the party of Mitch has no clear agenda on how to leave Arkansas, figuratively and literally.
8
Most of these red states in the middle of the country receive way more in federal tax money than they contribute. In other words, all those who feel superior to the rest of us are actually bering supported by us. Further, their exalted way of life actually is not. Just look at their rates of alcoholism, divorce, suicide, etc. Definitely not the paradise they imagine.
18
I can understand many of the frustrations the author sees moving back to rural America. However, using her stats, the average private sector job is paying $10-$13/hr in the area and the economy is shot. You don’t have to be a belligerent Trump supporter to see the folly in paying a librarian double the average wage (in a library that was built during boom times). I don’t think this is the example of ignorant rural voters everyone is looking for.
6
These folks sit home and play video games online when new immigrants get busy. Ignorance is generational in these areas spoken about in the article.
4
The only thing I'll ever give Trump credit for is recognizing the overwhelming sense of abandonment that exists amongst the poor and the poorly educated. In fact, he couldn't care less. All he's doing is exploiting their wide-eyed innocence and their lack of personal accountability.
14
Hey Blue State citizens!
Let’s agree with our Red State fellow citizens to reduce federal taxes and start spending this money to improve our own states.
12
The population and income are declining. Those with ambition, education, and abilities have left. In essence, most of the remaining people in a poor area are jaw droppingly self destructive and ignorant and don’t want to improve their lot. So, they support a truthless New York con man who ensures they will stay down. Why?
The article offers a lot of reasons why these poorly educated people don’t seek to improve their lot, but omits the real reason: they don’t want to help “those people”. Wink. Wink. Why does this otherwise excellent forget this?
10
Let's recover the trillions purloined by billionaire elites twixt 1969-2019. Time for Liz & AOC. Rejoining heartlanders & coastals is the labor of another quintigesimal.
3
I am an immigrant. I stand for education, courage, vision. I stand against ignorance, gullibility, and defeatism. I am an American!
34
To keep telling us that these people are "Real Americans" is the equivalent of telling us that Donald Trump is a Real honest patriot, or that the "Christian Right" is somehow christian or right.
The only thing "real" about these folks (and their brethren) is their affinity for self wallowing in pity and righteousness.
I'm wondering about when the next food stamp cuts arrive...will they they love their President even more.
13
I don’t agree with Trump supporters, but I do think I understand them to some degree. I can imagine my deceased father voting for Trump. What I can’t understand is why they can’t see how Trump makes a mockery of their anti-tax stance. They think gvt. waste is bad? Trump wastes their money like a drunken sailor. Don’t want to pay your county librarian $25/hr? Why are you willing to pay a supposed billionaire to play golf and watch tv all day long? They know the today’s spending can mean higher taxes down the line? How can they tolerate the Trump tax cut that is sending the nation’s debt levels into the stratosphere? And on and on. Want to vote for an anti-spending Republican? Then find one and vote for him!
14
I was the physician in a poor rural county on the Chesapeake Bay. The insurers and the US govt and state of Virginia would not pay for my service to those poor, sick, and old. Rich and white people went to Richmond for care.
Othering through wage/class separation promotes the feeling of never enough. The poor, white vote against their interests repeatedly. No discourse of kindness, generosity, forgiveness, compassion, altruism finds its way to them.
There seems no openhearted/minded leadership to bring the "othered" together. The politics of our lives sows fear , hatred, anger, and delusion. The absence of a free press, loss of local press, loss of postal services, loss of public health, leave any true information in the gravel that borders the road.
WE THE PEOPLE..are just that. We means all of us, even the neighbourhood thief, drunk, abuser, minister, teacher, librarian, motherless child, white people on welfare....you get the idea.
The life that is mine is precious to whoever I think of as me. Your lives are all precious to me. Your suffering is mine. Your dissatisfaction is shared.
Find the goodness of each other. You are in this together. Each breath. May all manner of things find their way together. Death is here and comes for us all. You may as well turn gently toward each other as we walk along toward home.
15
This article - finally someone gets it!! Democrats as a whole aren't looking for a free college tuition, for government to "put food on the table" (as one candidate said on national public television, another example of Democrats shooting themselves in the foot). National health care? Yes!
5
If these people think government isn’t doing anything for them, then they shouldn’t vote. Do it all for yourselves. Go back to hunting and gathering. They want respect? Respect is earned.
18
If you drive cross country as I have done twice 2 decades apart, you can witness the state of desolation that characterizes the USA.
Broken down houses with abandoned cars in the front yard, trailer park towns with no culture. Same fast food in every small town.
You know the people have no health insurance and no education , as it costs fortunes and they are dirt poor . Absolutely no culture.
The only escape is the US Army.
As a European, I know that there is no such poverty in Europe. No trailer park towns, no 3 broken cars in front of planks and tin roof farms and the people if they are not rich, eat well , have health insurance and free education up to university . They have dignity and a deep local culture of being from somewhere and belonging to a community, even a historical lignage.
28
"...rates of educational attainment are low."
that really says it all. the concept of a social contract--uh... what's that? social darwinism--hmm... darwin wrote evolution, and that is just a theory, you know-- praise the lord! given that level of "thought", nothing in the hypocrisy of those who have hoodwinked these people into believing that their best interests are being served by the GOP should surprise any one.
further no wonder that the GOP has been working to degrade, if not abolish, the dept of education since at least the time st. ronnie reagan.
19
I am a retired Librarian and grew up in the northern Ozarks of Arkansas- The folks in Arkansas would cut their noses off to spite their face-The church is the social gathering point for most-The hypocrisy of the church’s embrace of Trumpism is unexplainable to me-Arkansas is a beautiful state stuck in time and ignorance is embraced down in the holler!
29
Arkansas is one of the red states that gets back more tax money than it pays in to the federal government. I would be interested to know what that refund pays for and how the citizens of Clinton feel about it. I venture a guess that they are happy to have someone else pay for Arkansas services and may even laugh at the fools who are paying.
16
OK. If the Democrats win the national elections in 2020 they should, as a matter of national policy, leave these particular areas alone. No federal taxes on them. No federal dollars to them. And of course, wish them the best of luck in their Rand-ian paradise.
13
There is nothing new about a significant population that resents those who are better educated, earn more money and or are different in color or religion. There is nothing new about propaganda machines like Fox News/Breitbart that whip up the fear and prejudices of these same people.
What is most shocking and dangerous is that the Republican Party leadership is knowingly and willfully building their political base upon hatred, bigotry and anti-education. What is also shocking is that the extremely wealthy Republican donors who benefit most from the destruction of a functional government that tries to helps the poor and middle classes is financing a future that could potentially lead to total financial chaos.
Working class people have been voting against their own economic interests since Nixon promised to fight against civil rights, since Reagan promised to slash taxes for the rich and eliminate social programs that benefit blue collar families in order to finance a "New Morning in America" - for the billionaires.
The people who buy into the lies and hatred promoted by the Republican Party are actually a minority. Americans who care about the future of this nation, the future of their children and grandchildren will work hard to get out the vote and make sure that a minority cannot re-elect an ignorant despot like Donald Trump. The greatest threat to our democracy is voter apathy and indifference.
18
I'm so saddened by the realty of this . . .
5
America. Where the poor blame themselves and who believe this so utterly they will drag down everyone else. Except the wealthy of course.
3
Ms. Potts, I hope you'll peruse Poverty in the Land of Opportunity by Juanita Sandford, a radical feminist sociologist who somehow survived at Henderson State University. Her focus was poverty among elderly Arkansans.
4
I have long thought that conservatism is a dead end philosophy. This piece does nothing to dispel that.
9
Librarians have been more than helpful in my searches for information. My whole life. An hour a week won't kill you.
If any of the folks in this piece are like James my telephone salesman back woods genius friend from the Ozarks. Things will work out.
Good story but I do wish that you (as I suppose the book will do) looked into the rates of Medicaid and SSI-like payments to these govermemt-hatiing folks, as well as crime rates and opioid addictions in the region.
9
Never underestimate the capacity for persons to act against their own self-interest.
8
Clearly these people are so short sighted that they will not support a library. So close the library down and let them happily do without. Problem solved.
4
The influence of 30+ years of hate radio and the FOX propaganda empire cannot be ignored in all of this. Many have suggested that the author is "missing something" about the fundamental make-up of these folk. It's simple really, they've been brainwashed into believing a bunch of libertarian balderdash.
I bet you would see their worldview change if the 36% of their State budget coming from the feds disappeared. We would see very quickly how much they "help each other" by taking in all those who would be left out in the streets without the help of their fellow Americans (who pay taxes).
10
I am sadly familiar with this mentality in rural Kentucky. The religious culture teaches them to accept a life of fatalism. It’s up to God to solve these issues so why do I need to extend myself? Why do I need to go to school or the doctor when the course of my life is destined by a deity who keeps scoring my life in black and white. The only thing that maters is being with Jesus in “a better place.” We only need one book, a King James Bible. The Scopes Monkey Trial is still in session. God help us all.
19
AS they say in the south. "dont rise above your raisin."
The trillion dollars Trump borrowed just last year will have to be repaid - do rural voters understand thats where there money goes? I truly believe that the Democrats should push an urban agenda and shut all endless rural welfare programs these people don't understand yet think they are entitled to. It is a morality of smugness, ignorance and jealousy.
5
Andrew Yang has a proposal to let every taxpayer delegate a set amount of their federal taxes ($100 maybe?) to whatever program they want, on a day of celebration aka April 15.
These real people in AR whom you commenters are scoffing at, who are admirable in their desire not to spend money they don’t have (and probably heavily armed), could put it toward the border wall or Trump’s children’s travel expenses or foreign wars or whatever else.... maybe they’d choose the NEA after all.
My point is that we all could use some more direct participation in our government, taking ownership and seeing that it isn’t “us” vs “them”.
4
A good example of America and its mean streak.
13
I grew up Black as the South was lurching from segregation to desegregation. This mentality doesn't surprise me, not one bit. And no, it's not limited to the region.
17
Did Mr Widener have the same sentiments about wasting taxpayer money when Hillary's e-mails morphed into Benghazi? How long did THAT investigation go? And what was the basis for that compared to this !
10
Before this makes anybody go off and read "Hillbilly Elegy", please have a look instead at either of the two books by Joe Bageant: "Deer Hunting with Jesus" and "Rainbow Pie". Both relate to his hometown of Winchester, Va.
He speaks very well to these phenomena, and also to the local rich people, who tend to own nearly every business in the town, and much of the real estate - and help keep the income-inequality ball rolling.
11
This is the best thing I have read about Trump conservatism, one which avoids the lazy trope about religion. The analysis is based upon culture, or rather the lack it, and it seems to me, as a foreigner a 2019 updating of Toqueville's early analysis or the old Adorno, Horkheimer et al analysis of the culture of US conservatism. It is a lifeworld constructed from cynicism, resentment and dislike of education and social improvement. And, what a ghastly place to live!
So well done Rupert Murdoch. Your corrosive influence the civility of rural life is a distinctive contribution of massive impact.
The Enlightenment. But in reverse.
13
I look at the beautiful landscape in the picture and then day dream about what it would be like to visit the romanticized version of the south. Then reality sets in. Seems like a shame, doesn’t it?
7
I think it would be great to send refugees to this town to fill the population drop and they would revitalize the town. It would be a win-win situation. Perhaps the townspeople would become less ethnocentric.
6
I’ve lived, worked, fished, and hunted all over the rural South, MidWest, and Rockies (the Little Red River, on the other side of the lake from Clinton is a fly fishing jewel). That said, the author could move to my hometown in rural Alabama, attend the city council meetings there for a year, and write this same article 2 or 3 more times.
For the sake of my own mental health, I have stopped talking about anything related to government affairs with almost anyone that I know and love because most simply cannot rationally discuss civics without revealing their own blind involvement in the netherworld of bigoted ideology.
Sadly, I have a difficult time discussing many of the same subjects with friends that identify as politically liberal because they do not fully comprehend how much of this same ideology has also soaked into them.
Keep up the good work, NYT. Maybe I will live to see the second act of the civil rights movement: a true civil awakening.
20
The people in this Opinion Article, like many in America live in a New Dark Age.
They do not respect education. They do not believe in the Scientific Method.
They are also hypocrites of the first order. They drive cars, they use cell phones, they run to an Emergency Room when their children or spouse is injured.
If they are going to reject the fruits of The Enlightenment, then let them really do that. Give up the technology that was developed by people who where educated.
...Sorry, just had to stop as we had a small earthquake here in SF. I can see the New Dark Age liberal anti vaccination types here in SF run to the ER just like the folks in this article if buildings fell on their loved ones demanding that the pinnacle of the Enlightenment, Emergency Room Doctors and RN's save their family members...
My point is that across America we have come to the point where lots of people use the fruits of the Educated all the while scorning them.
It would be nice to see them actually live their philosophy and give it all up and live like a Quaker. I would then have some respect for them and then perhaps I would listen to or care about their issues.
10
Brain drain in rural America = Self-Defeat.
What will happen to these time capsule communities when the current generation is gone?
3
I've read lots of stories like this--Arlie Hochschild's book "Strangers in Their Own Land" is full of them--people willing to, as my late mother used to say, "cut off their nose to spite their face." They would rather let "undeserving" people suffer than improve their own lives and they wallow in, even take pride in, their own ignorance. It's time for the rest of us to move on, maybe blue states who subsidize them should cut the federal benefits they get and see how they like it. If they keep living the way they do, they'll pass on soon anyway, and then we can finally get real change in this country.
7
Andrew Yang has a proposal to let every taxpayer delegate a set amount of their federal taxes, $100 maybe?, to whatever program they want, on a day of celebration aka April 15.
These real people in AR whom you commenters are scoffing at, who are admirable in their desire not to spend money they don’t have (and probably heavily armed) could put it toward the border wall or Trump’s children’s travel expenses or foreign wars or whatever else.... maybe they’d choose the NEA after all.
My point is that we all could use some more direct participation in our government, taking ownership and seeing that it isn’t “us” vs “them”.
Similar thinking is not uncommon in Finland either. Sad.
2
I don't think there's enough of these country bumpkins to have elected the clownish Trump. No, he got votes from many city people too. Maybe these city Trumpers are now tired of the same old show and want a change to a more responsible, more sane president.
3
This is Reaganism - "Government is the Problem" - self fulfilled. Back then the demon was big government. Here it has devolved to an emaciated caricature if its former self.
3
It seems very very few rural citizens see the real need for the social fabric. They pay car insurance, most of them, because they couldn't drive without it. But health insurance? "Gee, someone who doesn't work as hard as I do might get some of that too. So I say no to it!" The people who holler about "taking responsibility for ourselves" are the very ones here who wouldn't agree to an increase in property taxes to support a better, safer fire department in a heavy fire zone (where I happen to live) after the Federal Government pulled out. Why did they turn down a small increase? Because it is the business of the government to pay for fire protection. We shouldn't have to pay for it! This is deeply stupid, and people are going to lose their assets, their houses, because fire insurance is being canceled. Yes, we can get other insurers. The cost will go from about $2 thousand to over $7 thousand. This is all so stupid. And cruel. But I believe it is so ingrained in so many rural Americans that we may well see starvation and death from curable diseases in our rural communities before any changes to the attitude will get through.
11
Funny how these rural Trump voters who are so fiscally conservative locally have no problem with his policies creating record national deficits and debt... who’s going to pay for that? The hypocrisy is astounding.
14
I grew up in Ohio, and I feel very far removed from the mindset of many of the people I know.
It's as if they don't have much, and they think that people who do should suffer along with them.
Instead of joining unions they condemn them for fighting for better wages and conditions for their members.
Instead of getting some education they condemn people who have it for being uppity.
It's a loser's limp of the worst sort. I feel like the best thing I could do for anyone there is provide a ticket to anywhere else.
Rural America is dying of willful ignorance, superstition and a self-destructive attitude toward their own well being.
17
There is just no getting away from the fact that the Democrats have become the party of higher taxes and bigger government. All the snarky comments about rural people being too white, too conservative and too uneducated to appreciate that don’t help either.
6
Many years ago the Governor of the red state where I lived at the time said he intended to run government like a business. A New York friend of mine said to me, “When you hear ‘run government like a business,’ you think IBM; he thinks Walmart.”
13
Being stubborn, being resentful, blaming others for the problems of the world and refusing to open ones mind is pretty much the case for small towns in the 21st century that are located away from the main stream. It is just a fact of life for these people who would rather sit and rot than face the real world head on by being a part of irreversible change. You have more guts than me moving back into a situation like this in rural America. My blood pressure would be off the chart living in a community such as Clinton.
7
The people quoted and considered in this piece are such perfect examples voters in the thrall of Trump & Co.'s sado-populism as to be caricatures, drowning in self-parody. I am loathe to rob them of agency; I'm ever-inclined to believe they know what they are doing and what's going on (or at least they make a good faith effort at such). If so, then what can be done with such willful cluelessness?
2
How much do these people weigh ? Literally and figurately .
And they also weigh a lot politically if their vote counts how many times more than in other states .
If you compare with Europe, the USA are very accultured and uneducated .
And there is no such hate for culture and education anywhere in Italy or Portugal or Spain.
And the contents of the libraries are very different .
It would be interesting to know what is in that library for example at the section " Philosophy " or " History " . Probably just mystical literature .
The quality of book printing in Europe is also much higher .
In the US, the quality of paper backs is so bad with cheap yellow paper and cheap printing.
11
As a rural individual, I can sure feel the hate in this forum. Take away corporate America's military spending and farm subsidies and see how your rural "deadbeat" argument falls apart. Big landowners, ranching and mining enterprises, and federal agencies, of course, get most of that federal help.
Not all the struggling rural Americans taking heat here.
17
Do they not understand that for every dollar of tax paid they are getting more than that dollar back in federal assistance given to red states by blue ones? Unless they are willing to 'go it alone' without roads, public schools, epa oversight of water, military protection, etc, they need to simply be grateful for their red state welfare.
43
My friends, an interracial couple with a son, lived in a beautiful House upstate overlooking the Hudson. Since 2016 they experienced open racial hatred and in 2018 they gave up and retreated to the City. Those haters are the kind of rural people some in media want us to understand. I say - nope. No sympathy from me.
60
This is a show of Darwinism essentially. Animals have to adept or die. The same with people.
These people don’t want help but they want a job with high salaries that require high school degree or less. As Bruce Springsteen sings those jobs are going and not coming back.
We have sections of this country who are living like this.
They will die out like the dinosaurs
31
Maybe what annoys the residents of these areas the most is being grossly generalized by people who either have no connection to the area or have been living far away for decades and are just there to write a book criticizing their political views.
14
Those demanding respect rarely deserve it and those who respect themselves never need to ask others for it.
22
Despite the economic limitations, the town people pictured appear to not be suffering from Malnutrition.
They will likely feed the medical industrial complex and consume a share of the Medicare budget. Very sad.
There sorry community is self inflicted conservative religious ignorance. Not my fault!
14
It is very sad, but unfortunately, the lack of social solidarity and a deepening ignorance are almost incurable.
20
Sounds like the folks in Clinton would benefit greatly from affordable health care, education and government services. They should be the most fervent supporters of socialism on the planet, if only they knew what it meant.
40
“Call me narrow-minded but I’ve never understood why a librarian needs a four-year degree.”
Instead of researching why this might be, what might be required of a librarian beyond understanding how to shelve books, this person goes with the gut.
Refusing to look into the facts is one of the very definitions of narrow-mindedness.
59
Can't help but notice all the $40,000 new pickup trucks in the pix.
Beyond that, everyone appears old, white, and resigned to the fact that 21-century life has largely passed them by. Just below the surface, one can almost taste the communal resentment toward those who left and later prospered.
If you took government-funded long-term disability payments out out of the equation, most of them may well have starved long ago.
39
The core concept for this community is "deserving." Clearly the white Christian less educated families are "deserving," while "those people"are not, including immigrants, non-Christians, anyone with brown or black skin, "people who think they are better than the rest of us," non-heterosexual people, and anyone believing in minority protections. All those undeserving people have to be slapped down.
Then these "deserving" folks wonder why they are "not respected."
The tragedy is that they buy into the idea that Trump respects them. The daily evidence that this is a tragic, exploitative lie doesn't faze them.
47
The Myth of the Libertarian Trope. They want self reliance or think they do and no “interference” in their lives, no taxes, etc. And as far as I am concerned - if that’s what they want let them live that way. But in a state that Federal Taxes actually heavily subsidize (vs states like New York that pay more in Federal Taxes than they receive in return) - the deal would require a New Yorker like me paying lower Federal Taxes and ending the subsidization of Arkansas. If these people are to stubborn to support and vote in their own interests, then the above solution is fine by me. Lower my federal taxes immediately and take away all the support given to Arkansas. They receive $2.6Bln more than they pay in taxes - so if they want to live this way every citizen of Arkansas should pay the rest of us back $865/year. It’s a deal if you want to be so “self-reliant” you get none of the following: NO Medicare, Medicaid, tax exempt 401ks, pensions that are insured, FDIC insurance, subsidized farm loans, subsidized school loans, tax exemptions for universities, military bases, student loans, shale drilling production tax exemptions, unemployment insurance, prescription drug benefits under the ACA, health care exchange plans under the ACA, subsidized pricing programs for agricultural products, food stamps, Pell Grants, Social Security, Welfare Benefits, DOT money for your bridges and highways, or USPS. You get nothing. Let’s see how long you can be “self-reliant”!
55
They have, can, and will vote against their own best interests -- just to stick it to those "liberals" and "elites". As their children and grandchildren flee the premises in search of an education and a job, their resentment only grows. But their ranks will simply continue to dwindle -- they are literally voting themselves into oblivion and irrelevance.
31
So, if I understand correctly, in a town of 2600 people and a county of 16,000, the Library board (of which the author's mother sat on) decided to build a "hulking" (author's word) new library building that the community is struggling to pay for? The library in the photo looks like the size of the library in my city of 100,000. And she wonders why in a community where the poverty rate is over 1 in 5 people, they balk at themselves paying more taxes to pay a higher salary for the librarian too? I wonder if she's going to have more empathy and compassion for the low income women she's writing her book about? She fits the "elite and out of touch" stereotype every bit as much as, maybe more than, the "ignorant, self-defeating rube" stereotype she's depicting.
19
And how many in Van Buren have diabetes and the other obesity related diseases and disabilities. From your photos, quite a few. Could be the soda pop, chips, fried food, etc etc having an effect on their mood, on their brains. In the 1930's people welcomed the government's help with jobs and electrification. No Fox, no fries, no Walmart.
10
California has about 40 million residents and 2 US senators. 12 of the most conservative states in the country* have a combined population of about 30 million with 24 senators. Unless this insane constitutional inequality is eliminated or somehow mitigated, we will always have people like the unhappy few in Arkansas electing others like Trump and Mitch McConnell who will happily tear this nation to pieces.
*AL, AR, MS, WV, MT, SD, ND, WY, KN, OK, UT, NB.
43
So strange that these folks vote for the exact opposite of what they need. They voted in a president who lives in extreme luxury on the taxpayer's dime. He is an elite. His grift is easy to spot: while they imagine life to be unfair, the guy stealing from them echoes their calls. Sadly, these folks haven't figure out that he is a reality show actor who is, very simply, using them. My Mom, a child of the Great Depression, stressed to us that art and knowledge are what separate us from the other animals and a library is a sacred place. She also taught us that there are 3 kinds of people: those who talk about other people and don't want others to succeed, those that talk about events and those that talk about ideas. I believe the last type becomes more successful and that the first group is jealous of them. So, they hurt themselves to get back at the perceived 'unfairness'. The cycle continues.
26
It is a total fiction that these people are totally “independent.” That because they don’t have a child they don’t “use the schools.”
Every day, most of us touch and use things that required the inputs of many different types of people and many different investments. Moreover, it is rare for a rural area not to pay less to the federal and state governments than they receive to maintain the basic infrastructure of “our cherished way of life.” Maintaining governmental services such as roads, cell and internet service in places that are shrinking is expensive. The presumption they will have access to internet to avoid the library is based on their willful blindness to the fact that many of us in the economic engines of the country are heavily subsiding their ability to function “independently.” Not investing in themselves and seeing investments in their own community as “waste,” they are strangling achieving full potential of themselves, their family, friends and neighbors.
These people aren’t just voting to disinvest in themselves. They are voting to turn the entire country—including the economic engines and the social and cultural centers—to barren wastelands. The electoral college gives more voice to the people in our country with the least ambition, least vision, least desire to solve our challenges as a community. We are told repeatedly that these are the “real Americans.” They have not learned the lesson “that no person is an island.”
27
I lived in a rural area where the church was the center of everything . This same church had people that condemned our new Minister because of the educated way that he spoke . He modified that and was also prayed for the healing of the mole on his wrist by those encouraging him to seek divine healing {I believe in God healing along with respecting our bodies to maintain health with our good doctors ) but some did not think a Doctor necessary in his case.
I had moved away , but on a visit I went to the parsonage to see how he was and there he was dead in his rocking chair . His wife was at the church giving the sermon that Sunday .
It’s been years and my heart still hurts for this humble man and those ignorant people that had such an influence on his life .I would never choose some rural areas to live in .
I will vote Blue even as is said “ If it’s a yeller dog running”
11
I lived among people like this in California's Modoc County, population less than 10,000. Then Gov. Brown called the population "Modocians" because these folks from way up in the far northeast corner of CA were always complaining about their liberal state. Most wanted to secede from California and wouldn't be missed if they did since they took in far more of California's tax money then they paid into the state. Unfortunately, their campaign against California only succeeded in keeping out businesses and progressives who might have helped the struggling county realize its potential.
8
I don't believe that they are concerned about waste. If they were truly concerned about waste they would be upset by the millions of tax payer dollars spent on golf.
21
Tax dollars? Morbid obesity is a form of waste, and it is more prevalent in rural areas of the US than in urban. As the photos of Singleton and Widener depict, health ignorance is endemic in "Trumpland." Obesity-related illness puts demands on Medicare and Medicaid – federal programs that I pay into but don't use.
14
They choose to be there. They made their choices and stayed. If working for $10 an hour or not working at all is something you're willing to endure or tolerate, then have at it. It's a free country. For a while longer at least. They even have the freedom to turn away from the needs of the many in favor of their own and themselves, wearing MAGA hats while thinking there's anything great about turning their backs on what is still unique to America; Its promise to those who need help and freedom and the freedom to be different. It's a rural shame!
9
The challenge is to find ways to get these people to stay home on election day.
8
The only way out of that town, and that way of thinking, is through the library doors.
20
I hear it over and over that Trump supporters are suspicious of the "East Coast Elite." Do they not realize that is exactly what Trump is? And what should make it even clearer, he disrespects and looks down on them. Checking his past in dealings with people much like them while he was in business, the poor and uneducated were treated with such disdain that it is hard to understand why they remain loyal? Is his message of hate towards anyone that doesn't look like them so powerful that it outweighs their ability to see who he really is? He has given them a voice and permission to spread this hatred of "the other" in an open and proud way without recrimination.
10
It’s the same thinking process that opposed Obamacare. Why would I spend money in health insurance if I am healthy?
Until people decide to open their minds to something else but Fox, they will remain in that position.
Additionally, it made me think that residents with school age children had left Clinton AK already.
6
If there is one country in the world where you would think everyone, regardless of political affiliation, would see the benefit of a good education, it would be the United States of America. Compare the attitude of (some) of the residents of Van Buren with that of people in many developing nations. In countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, for instance, girls can literally get killed for wanting to get an education—think Malala Yousafzai—, any kind of education, in fact, not even the high-caliber kind available to US nationals. And yet (some) residents of Van Buren seem to pooh-pooh schooling. These are probably the seem people who complain that the economy has left them behind, and disparage emigrants, particularly people of color. A recent study by The National Center for Education Statistics revealed that, “U.S.-born adults make up 66% of adults with low levels of English literacy skills in the United States”, while “non-U.S.-born adults comprise 34% of the population with low literacy skills.” The attitudes of (some) of the residents of Van Buren may go a long way to explain the first piece of the data.
8
My god, this was a sad, sad read. The people in this article sound no different than those in rural coastal parishes in south Louisiana, where I live. The prevailing attitude is exactly the same among the population: all taxation is theft; all government is evil; higher education is frowned upon as liberal indoctrination; the public square is not needed or wanted; and anyone who is not white, Christian, and conservative is an enemy to be hated and/or feared. They continually vote against their own best interests based on information fed to them mostly by Fox News and Breitbart. They gladly accept industrial pollution and shorter lives as a necessary sacrifice for the greater good of capitalism. Accepting government assistance is a mark of shame. Most of them work at Walmart or Dollar General. Conservative media has taken its toll. This is what Fox hath wrought. This is the end result of Reaganism.
29
Electoral college reform and changing demographics are the only solution to deal with this
9
In a consumer spending based economy if most folks make $12 an hour, that’s not enough money to run an economy. It’s that simple. Right now we sanction money flowing to “job creators” like DeVos buying the 5th yacht and corporations fat with cash hiring contractors. Folks making $12 have no healthcare, def not college and barely a car. In 5 years, Fox News will be sponsoring the Hunger Games in Arkansas. Something needs to change and soon.
10
It is time to move beyond Van Buren County, Arkansas. The world has passed them by, and the political leaders they admire are the ones who reinforce their racism and bigotry. The problems that Van Buren faces, and will not acknowledge, are ignorance, racism, and poverty, all of which are interrelated. Let them vote for Trump. All he gives them is hatred and divisiveness. This is 2019, not 1850.
15
What is the purpose of this article and others like it? Why continue to publish them? We get it. Rural Americans are, by and large, undereducated, resentful of and unwilling to change and, oh by the way, mostly white. I do not need more of these stories--I have read ENOUGH! Whether it's rural West Virginia, rural Kentucky, or rural Arkansas, or rural (fill in the US county), their attitudes, with a dollop of distinction, are the same. They don't like immigrants; they don't want to pay taxes even for the things they use; and because they cannot choose who gets help, they don't want to help anyone! Common sense is their ultimate guide and badge of honor! Well, let them go back to the dark Ages when men used common sense to reason that the sun must revolve around the earth!
18
These are people with their heads in the sand, nothing more nothing less. They are left behind and no longer represent this country and they simply don’t care. Those things that could change their lives are demonized by the ruling class and these people buy into the big lie.
6
epilogue to my last post re: the need for education:
When I was a poor kid growing up in the Appalachian foothills, a tabloid was that weird rag in the grocery checkout line, people read it to poke fun at it...now it's the number 1 rated news show on TV. They're fighting to close the library, then go home and turn on Fox News, small wonder our country to going this direction. The first amendment is being abused badly.
8
Let’s hope that this author has finished the book she is writing about her home town. She may need to skedaddle after the townspeople get hold of this article. Being of their mindset, they’re not likely to take too kindly to it.
3
All these southern states need better K-12 education and free community college. It is the only way they will pull themselves out of poverty, low wages, and suspicions of their fellow Americans.
5
The attitudes described here make me sad and sick. Sometimes I really do wish that my native California, my current home in Washington and our neighbor Oregon would just secede and form our own union. Think about it: we have glorious natural resources, powerhouse agriculture, excellent universities with the brain power to fight climate change, the might of Silicon Valley (though I personally despise the likes of Twitter, Facebook, etc.), and Hollywood. Let these willfully ignorant people go it alone and see how long they can last without the fruits of our labor and the power,of our ideas.
11
This article persuades me that racism and xenophobia may be less central to this social dysfunction than I had thought.
Chronic economic anxiety is clearly a central cause, and survivalism is probably an intensified next step up. But people who've reached the point of thinking that they are living on Noah's Ark are obviously going to start experiencing cabin fever.
3
I once saw a graph of population density versus political party. The relationship was simple, the lower the population, the redder the region and the greater the population, the bluer the region. What has happened recently is a shift in the suburbs. Suburbs that were red are now shifting towards blue as the cruelty of Trump's policy towards migrant children has change the views of mothers/women. The reason we have purple states is because of the mixture of rural, urban and suburban areas. Also consider reading 'Hillbilly Elegy'.
6
I’ll preface this comment by saying I’m neither an American, nor particularly well experienced with how the world works. With that in mind, can someone please tell me* why places like Clinton couldn’t begin to start community projects like, for example, planting forests to sell carbon offsets against? Or perhaps set up a community-owned tourism company, as another example?
*Bonus points if you make me look like a fool, please be civil though.
5
True, there are people whose minds you will never change - "unreachable." I have two very wealthy friends who resist facts about taxes, unions, and services that they do not use. As soon as I mention The New York Times, eyes roll. They are intelligent and reasonably knowledgeable, but not up for a challenge. We are not all Blue here. And we are not all inclined to share.
6
I grew up poor, in a rural place not unlike Clinton, except my town was Hispanic. From an early age, I heard from white America that minorities like myself had a responsibility to “stay in school, get a degree, seek opportunities, get a job, work hard”. I did all that and have worked hard for over 30 years, paying my taxes and living a comfortable middle-class life.
I left my hometown for the city in search of a better opportunity. I uprooted my family twice to move to different states seeking even better jobs. This is what conservatives preach to us minorities; It is your responsibility to adapt.
And yet, they see people like myself as “underserving urban elites”. For what? For doing what they said I should? This is the curse of white America; they have been told they must be better, always. Better to see neighbors fail than face the reality that the story of superiority of their rural lives is a lie.
White Americans demand of others a level of personal responsibility that they do not seek for themselves. Their lives must remain unchanged, undisturbed and culturally frozen in time. Higher education and the pursuit of dreams outside of town are anathema to their culture. It is others who should study, work, move, so rural white America is preserved as it is.
My advice to poor white Americans: Stay in school, learn a skill, get a job, and if there is no work in your town, move away, to another town, city, state or country. That is how it should be.
34
I grew up in a community of 200 people on the edge of Appalachia, so none of this is all that surprising, except one thing: How did a billionaire (who was a millionaire before he could tie his own shoes) from the despised New York City become the hero of rural folks like the ones in my town?
We were proud of our country heritage and our closeness to the earth. And many of us hated anyone with a New York City accent -- "the wickedest city in the world." "The City" even stole our farmland to make a reservoir.
But today I imagine most of the people I grew up with slavishly follow the liar who "tells it like it is," who represents the greed and nastiness (and, yes, the wealth) we detested in "city people," even when it didn't exist. I've been away too long, I guess -- I just don't get it. These people are not bad, and they are not stupid. I can't understand how they got pulled into the Trump cult. If he'd been a country bot, it would make sense to me, but he embodies all of the things we resented so much not all that long ago.
1692
those with get up and go, got up and went.sometimes, I believe, with government help. or not. western Massachusetts hill country is criss crossed with the stone walls of failed farms abandoned in the mid nineteenth century.
11
I think one of the most important comments is the one that implies that someone with a high school education would be qualified to be a librarian. This is a defensive attitude against those who have done the hard work of getting educated to the masters level not to mention what they paid for it in dollars and time.
65
While the author quickly assumes the mantle of superior intelligence and morality (those backward hillbillies are sure lucky she has come to their town), the real point of the article is socialization of an economy’s wealth. Axiomatic of liberal theology, adherents believe they know what is best for others and how best to spend the productive gains of society. The library described in the article is a wonderful metaphor for this attitude. While I happen to personally love libraries, I also recognize that they are quickly becoming as useful as Civil War monuments; thus, no longer worthy of limited public funds except as a source of internet access. Something most legacy libraries do, but poorly. So while the author finds fault with the individuals she has interviewed, the “wisdom of the crowd” is correct. That is, the county should not spend much of the limited public funds on the library. Generalizing that conclusion, liberals do not have superior knowledge any more than Soviet central planners and should not confiscate and spend the nation’s productivity.
23
So Clinton built a library when money was available and now when money is tight still pays their librarian 1.5 times what the average area job pays. This does not sound like a place that devalues libraries. But now when Clinton does not want to pay its librarian 2.0 times what the average job pays it somehow is backwards? To me this article comes off as just another memoir of an east coast intellectual visiting the deplorables. Like it or not 50% of voters voted for Trump and the only way this is going to change is by recognizing their opinion as being a legitimate one to have.
And Clinton isn't "remote" either. Any place that you can drive your car to on a paved road following directions on your phone is not "remote."
22
I have always been a voracious reader, so are my kids and their kids and when their was little money to buy books, there was always the library. To say that the libraries are a waste of money is, in my eyes, a terrible statement!
44
I'm not a Republican. I'm not on the Right. I don't hate taxes. I like reading. I like and use libraries a lot. I despise Trump. Nevertheless, I see no need for a head librarian of a small library to have a Master's Degree. Such is overkill. A smart high school graduate who loves reading could do the job if he had some on-the-job training. Also, in the Internet Age why waste money on new buildings. Use the money saved to greatly expand your ebook selection.
19
I think that when people are faced with lives that offer little hope it becomes easier to blame government and just about anyone who annoys you for any reason. Trump is a master at taking advantage of this hopelessness and people buy in to his unsubstantiated solutions because they see no other alternatives. Turning on others - whether fellow Americans or newcomers - seems to be part of the Trump promise. Its sad to watch the deterioration in American values, vision, and society under the Trump administration.
37
@Ruth Anne
You assert: “ To put this in perspective - Arkansas has 3 million people. California has almost 40. Yet, the Electoral College gives us an equal voice ”
Wow, did you hear that on MSNBC? (FYI: California actually has 55 votes and Arkansas just 6.)
It is factually correct that the electoral college system does protect smaller states from being completely dominated and ignored by the larger ones. The system is logically consistent with the fact that the US is a republic, not a democracy. States agreed to join only after being given the assurance that state rights would be enshrined and protected, including the electoral college system. It was a negotiated deal.
It is completely understandable that liberals, who now are disproportionately located in large states, do not like the fact that the structure of the Senate gives equal power to all states, effectively giving people in small states disproportionate Senate representation. But that was the deal that was made and remains the foundational basis for forming the US! And so too is the Electoral College system.
The very reason it was created is the exact reason that liberals want it eliminated. It is preventing the large liberal states from having the absolute control they want and believe they deserve.
It is at times like this that I am reminded of how incredibly wise and foresighted our founding fathers were!
20
My hometown in eastern NC resembles this - they flipped from conservative 'Dixiecrats' to Republicans in the past 20-30 years. Instead of people who reluctantly supported a social safety net, we have people are dead-set against it.
People in that area have given up hope in the collective power of 'us', whether its public programs or private charity, in favor of 'me-first' fiscal selfishness. Trump adds fuel to the scapegoating of immigrants and the 'others' - 'coastal elites', the media, and other perceived enemies. When someone else is blame for rural decline, you have little incentive to make your hometown a better place to live.
23
Your photographs reinforced the title of the land of self-defeat. We now recognize the dangers of obesity and smoking. Unhealthy life-styles have been promoted by an exploitative economy to the under-served, from inner-city to rural America. These same populations suffer from our imbalance in comprehensive health care. Tragic isolation.
15
It is a black picture, and appears to have no quick solution. It is unfortunate that the headline of this piece is unlikely to draw the attention it deserves.
The take home for me is that rural areas like this one have a mindset based on their own immediate predicament. They are hunkered down, and see the entire country in the same light. No change in sight, status quo forever, and death comes to us all. Circle the wagons and prepare for the worst.
12
I grew up in a small, rural community in the great flyover. Good people, many WWII vets, and more churches than taverns. Our elementary teachers had been local residents for as long as anyone could remember. The subversives were the out of town high school people. “I done pretty good and I never went to no college”, pretty much sums it up. My history teacher was a Marine veteran of the Korean War. He insisted that several of my classmates and I think beyond the city limits. As a result, we escaped, got financial aid and, “went away to school”, as it was phrased by the locals. After graduating, I joined the Marine Corps and did two tours in Vietnam. Then, used the GI Bill to earn two more degrees, and became a history teacher myself...thank you, Mr. Cox. I go back “home” every Memorial Day to put flowers on my folk’s graves. Nothing has changed, except the people. Most of my elders, and not a few of my old friends, have died. The town is drying up. But, for some, out there, reason, it’s still my home. Trump signs are still to be found on run down fences and barely habitable houses. Stop by the Sawdust Inn, and the talk is about Trump and “if they’d just get off his back...”. Anybody who really believes that this country is going to be brought back together again is dreaming!
36
So why don't they mind Trump taking out a loan of $3K per person and giving it as a tax break to corporations?
30
I see what you mean, but how is Trump selling these voters on traditional “Republican Fiscal conservatism” when all he talks about are pet spending projects like “building that wall”, increasing funding for border security and ICE, renovating infrastructure, and stopping the opioid crisis?
6
Isn't it tragic that while we are bashing the people for Van Burren for deeming 25 dollars an hour too big of a salary Hunter Biden received 50,000 dollars per month to sit on a board - virtually, no presence asked - for a company in Ukraine while his dad was overseeing corruption in Ukraine?
Oh, the irony. If both the Democrats and the Republicans did a better job at governing people would not turn o each others like a big flock of birds fighting for a fist of crumbs.
16
An important point, IMO, in Sarah Smarsh's bestseller "Heartland" is that a major force in rural America's propensity to vote Republican is simple inertia. You vote Republican because you, your family, friends, neighbors have always voted Republican. Voting Democrat is just not done.
What do do? Well unless you absolutely are resigned to the triumph of what Aldous Huxley called "invincible ignorance," you go to the mountain (or plains) and communicate communicate communicate.
That's where Bernie Sanders shines. Unless his heart attack is more than a speed bump, he will go to the red states and shock them out of their inertia by lucidly and explicitly calling out Trump's lies and, OMG, talking to them like they're adults -- funny how a lot of people like that. How do I know? Because he's already done it, in 2017 with a visit to Wichita with AOC where he raised the roof of the civic convention center.
Stay tuned.
19
Given the invasive species that we are, ecosystem-wise, I am pleased that people are choosing to live in urban areas, therefore wreaking less havoc on the ecosystem overall. However, by letting our economy disenfranchise large groups of people (white, uneducated people in rural areas), we are asking for societal problems now (drug abuse, epidemic obsesity, failure of the constitutional republic, etc). No democracy will long survive a country with the obscene income inequality we have allowed to metastasize among us.
The urban/rural divide is both a consequence of, and a cause of, our not caring for each other. Who abuses meth, who is cynical, alienated, and resentful? Those who know, consciously or not, that nobody cares about them. Those who no longer have healthy ways to get a sense of pleasure, well-being, or security, in a society that truly does not care.
6
In Oregon, we have counties where voters refuse to tax themselves even for law enforcement, counting on "good guys with guns" I guess. Sad and scary.
23
Let me get this straight. A billion dollar energy company stops paying its taxes, forcing counties into costly litigation, all the while paying their former and current CEOs millions annually. And government is the villain? The stunning cost of ignorance.
67
I absolutely believe that the Democrat party is foolishly overplaying it’s hand in the coming election and has gained no understanding of the frustrations of these and many other Americans. Candidates like Warren and Sanders are selling pie in the sky, government-funded policies to the progressive segment of their party at a time when the national debt is sickeningly high. Who are they kidding? I’m an independent, never- Trump voter who knows what a lot of other voters know which is that neither party has spent taxpayers’ money with any fiduciary responsibility. Neither Republicans nor Democrats can be trusted to spend our money equitably and carefully. Our government has become so large and, frankly, invisible to citizens that after decades of hearing about “government programs and policies”, such talk falls on deaf voter ears. I’m frankly so turned off by the democratic presidential candidates even though I know I have to vote for one of them. I’m just so tired and disillusioned by our partisan, power-hungry self, not public, servants.
18
It’s tragic irony what has happened in so many rural communities:
- they complain against people taking government hand outs, yet many take those handouts themselves, and those communities are most dependent on them
- they profess to follow Christian values, yet divorce, alcoholism and drug rates are as high or higher than anywhere else, teen pregnancy and single mother rates very high, Good Samaritan feelings and actions less and less. The sad joke in many rural communities is that afier a birth the population remains unchanged- one new baby, one less man.
There was a time when small towns were a bastion for hard work, strong character and keen sense of right and wrong. and strong communities that came together for common purpose and in time of need. I guess those that
upheld those values have either died or moved away.
Those that remain have become bitter, resentful, angry, and self-destructive. Trump speaks their language.
And so they buy his snake oil, many knowingly making a deal with the devil, believing it will help them somehow.
But it hasn’t, and it won’t. In fact for many Trump’s policies have made things worse. Trump himself is devoid of compassion, or any thought of a policy that might help them. He’s always been fixated on himself, as all narcissists are, using his base to fill a need.
Sad!
19
I would love to see someone create a community that is completely tax free but charges market rates for all services like public safety, public works, education and healthcare. You get kicked out if you don't pay and you only get what you pay for. It would be a horrible place - with armed guards to protect people from each other. The wealthy would have their super gated communities and the workers would be bused in from other communities and for sure bused out at night. Lawlessness is not appealing -
13
A perfect reason why the electoral college should be abolished. Giving people in a community like the one described outsized voting power is giving them an authority they don't really understand and don't deserve. Why contribute to the government when you've been brainwashed that all it does is take from you? They fail to observe that government and community also offer a lot. They want to isolate and cut themselves off from the rest of the world. Those who are ambitious and smart leave for the cities where $25.00 per hour is common. So whether they've had bad breaks, whether they are undereducated, whether they want to live in some fairytale they've been conned into believing, the truth is they've been left behind because of the way they view the world. Being in the party of the aggrieved might be easy for a demagogue to manipulate and exploit, but it's one big trap. They're on a long road going nowhere.
21
Well I’m guessing these $12/ hour citizens are the same ones hollering that the government better keep its hands off their food stamps and Medicaid. The trouble with dumbness is that it believes dumbness is brilliant. No need for everyone to be paid a livable wage-just make sure everyone in town is 5 minutes from the poorhouse, just like themselves.
29
These are not Democrats, never will be. It's a waste of time to court their votes.
Democrats already have a majority in the nation, if they have the wherewithal to preserve it for the election.
Rural communities like this are doomed. What's unfortunate is that the Senate and the Electoral College gives them power they don't deserve.
12
The remarkable thing, to me, is that so many folks in places like this really believe a man like Trump is going to make things better for them. Although in a way, I guess, he has: he's given them someone to hate (immigrants, the media, liberals, elites...) and to blame.
21
The folks are just being realistic. How many books are read in town each year, 50? Economically speaking, there is a point that the economy can't support, especially education that encourages folks to leave town and become worldly. In the North, education has been highly valued from the time the Pilgrims landed. The First Church required literacy to read the Bible. In the South there was an oral tradition. In 1850, a third of the white South was illiterate. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were more than stories, they were snapshots. People from an agricultural culture have little use for education, ask the Amish. Selling them a low value library is like selling me a time wasting TV. What they need is a Goodwill store that brings in cheap used donations from more prosperous areas including a couple of tons of 10 cent used books that might be of interest. Get the people reading before talking library.
6
So, this poorly educated minority in this country, that we are supposed to respect are, through the Electoral College and Trump's re-election, going to destroy what the government supplies to all citizens, especially them so they can have the freedom to hate the rest of urban and suburban America. This will include after the election Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the environmental laws (what's left) that provide clean water and air, and health care in general. It is obvious that logic will not be heard, only the lies and dribble on Fox News. I came from a poor family in rural California, and educated myself with my own hard work, but according to Trump's gang of electoral thugs, I do not deserve that. It's over for me. I can no longer attempt to understand Americans who revel in destroying our way of life just for spite. Truly sad.
18
Good article thanks.
Rural America is boring, predictable, whyney, entitled and will continue to be so in shrinking numbers as long as the few curious, unpredictable adventurous sons and daughters keep leaving to other places.
8
The obvious intellectual fraud here is that the average person in Clinton receives more federal government aid by accident that those people living in urban areas do on purpose.
When you see that Arkansas ranks 11 out of 50 insofar as government handouts it seems a bit of "keep the government's hands off my government handouts" if you ask me.
Do people in Clinton understand just how badly they're soaking the rest of us? My suggestion to them would be the same they're giving those that do not get nearly as much as they do: Get off the dole and then tell us how you feel about government spending.
In the meantime those ungrateful welfare recipients ought to at least learn how to say "thank you."
20
My mother knew a very wealthy couple here in the Bay Area years back. I asked her about their background, and was interested to learn the husband had grown up in a coal town in W. Virginia, the son of a miner. When he still a child, his mother realized they would be stuck in the same existence if she didn’t act. She took her children, and what little money they could muster, and came to California. After the war, he was accepted to Stanford (thanks to the GI Bill) and after that started a series of small businesses, investing in real estate on the edges of developing cities in the area. By the 1970’s he had amassed a large portfolio of very valuable properties. Thanks to the GI bill, and his mother’s foresight, he ended up far from the coal mines of his childhood. The lesson I take from his story is you have to take some risks, and whatever help is offered along your way. The idea there is some kind of special virtue in “going it alone”, and resenting those that try to improve their quality of life is a prescription for slow self destruction. I found the thinking of the people in this article pathetic.....
22
Through education you illuminate your world. It is sad to read of the library dispute. Even though I reside in one of the poorest cities on the East Coast after reading this article I would prefer to stay in Paterson. I have tried to understand the people who live in such communities. Yet reading this article I felt that the author was describing a visit to an alien planet. I have to hand it to the Republicans they certainly know how to market their spiel. The Democrats on the other hand seem to usually trip over their own message. Then again maybe they may never be able to connect to places such as Van Buren county.
12
Many people interviewed in this article remind me of lower income and poorer people in general who are deeply inflicted with jealousy, insecurity, low self esteem etc... due to decades and centuries of social and economic marginalization. They are constantly swimming upstream and are barely surviving if at all and they do not want to see other people (especially their co-horts) surpassing them or getting ahead in life.
20
@InfinteObserver Here's an interesting juxtaposition - these folks are described as not wanting their neighbors, peers etc getting ahead - now think about how immigrants have friends/family/villagers all pitch in money to get someone out to a better life (either via education in a foreign place, a job in a foreign country etc). And which individual "won"? which one will remember to pay it back and forward?
14
I wonder if I am the only one that feels that this debate has gone somewhat wrong. I've been living in a big city all my life, although not in U.S., and you may not be surprised to hear that I have more or less the same observations for preople living in rural areas, but certainly not the same feelings.
And reading the vast majority of the comments, I wonder who are really the racists. Them, or those that they dismiss them beforehand due to the place they live ?
As more or less everyone admits, living in these areas is not easy and taking the way out to a big city is the preferable option. Still, is this that we would like everyone to do, or we should be interested for people not to abondon these areas, stay there and develop them? If so, it would certainly make sense to understand what are their needs and care abouts and what has pushed them to the edge in such big numbers.
It is somewhat ironic to accuse the uneducated or the illiteral (generaly speaking) of not developing themselves, or the unemployed and badly paid that it is really their fault. Rather it is mostly the obligation of the "developed world" to make sure that we facilitate to raise the level of these people and help them thrive (e.g. by making the funding that anyway is flowing to these areas more targeted), otherwise others will certainly take advantage with them.
They need better and more education and jobs, we gave them more votes. It cannot be only their fault.
9
@Nikos
I thought twice before upvoting your comment--but I did. You make an important point about trying to view others with compassion. However, people can be disadvantaged *and* racist at the same time--so I disagree with you "really the racists" comment. The residents in the article are not being judged on the basis of their skin color, but rather by their actions. That is the opposite of racism. As for your solution, I think it's not so simple; part of what drives the residents seems to be pride. Acting paternalistically to "raise their level" may not be taken well. We have to emphasize working with them rather than doing things for them.
5
One of the things libraries are good at is to help students improve their math skills—ask me how I know.
Let’s try an easy one here. The *only* significant piece of legislation passed by Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress during Trump’s term was a $2 trillion tax cut/giveaway to billionaires and corporations. None of the “benefits” of that tax cut will go to help the people of Van Buren County. $2T/$2.1M (the price of the new library building)=952,381 libraries that could’ve been built across the country. Or, let’s say that money was used to build just Van Buren County’s library, and the rest put aside to pay the head librarian’s $40k proposed salary. 952,380 X $40,000 = 38,095,198 years’ worth of her salary.
This is what they voted for with Trump. This is what they continue to support by voting Republican. It’s clear their prejudices have nothing to do with fiscal responsibility.
30
The root problem is education and information. As others have pointed out Arkansas receives far more federal money than it pays. What is that money going toward? Clearly not education in rural areas. In the anecdotes described, people complaining about wasted taxpayer money, if the wages and incomes are as low as described they are paying very little, if anything, in Federal taxes. If they were properly informed they would know what they receive in Federal money, where it goes, and what they actually contribute to.
It is a challenge to be sympathetic. Warped minds are hard to straighten out. If you believe you know something, it takes a very forceful body of evidence that manifests personally in a way that can't be explained by what you know to get you to realize your belief is not correct. Hit over the head, as it were, with new information. Critical thinking skills aren't universally innate. Far from it. When the possibility of a population getting training in those skills is blocked by regional culture, that population is headed for decline. It can only be saved by some outside intervention. How can these areas be saved without allowing them to drag the rest of us own with them? Maybe they simply can't. Maybe offering one way moving vouchers is the only way to help those who can imagine a generous civic society. The rest will just live out their short miserable lives, and the towns will fade away, or get repopulated by a completely different demographic.
9
@trebor Clinton HS is ranked 40th out of the 266 high schools in Arkansas. Another small town just about 30 minutes from there is ranked 8th. This community is heavily invested in their children and their education.
3
I have to say that I no longer care what happens to these people. They continually make decisions that are against their better interests. Stop the federal assistance that keeps such areas afloat and spend those funds where it will do some good and result in benefits for the entire country.
24
@Terry Thurman these people voted to build this library. Some of them opposed a wage increase for the librarian that was proposed immediately following an announcement by the library board that they would not be able to make their payments after the current fiscal year. This op piece is only giving part of the story. I’m not sure I follow you on how the decision not to increase the librarian’s wages in this circumstance was against their interest.
6
I am somewhat taken aback by all of the comments in regards to “these people” who “clearly have no concern for others” and “no sense of community.” The author has given you her opinion of the people of Van Buren County. She seems to have based that opinion on the fact that some people in that community opposed a wage increase for the librarian. First of all, if there is a debate going on in Van Buren County, that means that there are people on both sides of the issue. I live in Houston TX, one of the largest cities in this country, and can tell you that this city has recently been engaged in a similar debate in regards to the pay our firefighters deserve. Shall we turn that debate into an opinion piece about Trump supporters in Houston? I know the people of
Van Buren County and there are always two sides to every story. I have seen that community band together to care for one another in ways that you would not believe. When someone dies, everyone shows up. When someone’s house catches on fire, neighbors show up before the firefighters can get there and then everyone pitches in to provide what the victims need and replace what was lost. And guess what else? My daughter was getting a better education in Van Buren County than she gets in the Houston suburbs. Another funny thing? We visited the old library in Van Buren County a ton, but I don’t know a single person here in Houston that frequents one.
13
“We visited the old library in Van Buren County a ton, but I don’t know a single person here in Houston that frequents one.”
@TG “Houston Public Library holds 3 million items, and in the past year served 8.2 million in-person and online visitors, answered over 2.1 million information questions, circulated more than 5.7 million books, magazines, and audio-visual materials and attracted over 400,000 participants to our programs. Notably, all services and privileges that accompany the Houston Public Library MY Link card are free to all residents in the state of Texas.”
https://houstonlibrary.org/about-hpl
Perhaps you should drive to one one of your 31 neighborhood libraries and meet some of the enormous numbers of your fellow Houstonians that use your library system.
3
The library was always busy. The library has a new building. The town was able to hire a degreed librarian for $19 per hour. Why am I seeing cause for optimism here?
9
Rural areas in the south and mid west have lost dozens of community hospitals because they voted for Repubs who refused medicaid expansion.
An irony in this "work hard sell-sufficiency"is that the public sector produces jobs and supports local businesses.Public buildings use supplies.staff shop at local business etc
Public spending is a stimulus to the economy.
25
This is an excellent recitation of the socio-political conundrum the nation finds itself in during the Trump era. Hopefully at some point disaffected, conservative rural America will come to terms with their own complicity in their problems and the bill of goods they've been sold. Many latched on to right wing politics in protest against the "welfare state," "lazy minorities," and other fiction while they supported politicians who rubber-stamped legislation that over decades enabled corporations in outsourcing the American economy by gutting industries that for years sustained both rural and urban America - farming, textiles, manufacturing, etc. Now, as Ms. Potts so eloquently conveys, many of these primarily white, anti-intellectual rural Americans are self-defeated and angry. I suggest they look in the mirror.
30
"A considerable part of rural America is shrinking...." but their voting clout isn't. And they control reapportionment.
16
Like most deeply red states, Arkansas takes in much more in federal funding than it pays in taxes -- in 2013 it paid $26.4 billion in federal taxes but received about $29 billion back from federal sources. In effect, the entire state is, collectively, on welfare. When Arkansas starts refusing that $2.5 billion annual gift from the rest of us, I might be more inclined to listen to these folks' self-righteous, ill-informed, unfounded complaints.
53
They have been out of the habit of reading for a long time, so the library has difficult competing with the few other activities. And how can I make this broad stroke?
When someone thinks the library’s dewy decimal system is it, they haven’t been to the library in ages.
28
This is a great article; one every democratic candidate should read to help understand the rural vote for Trump. I live in rural Eastern Oregon and the mindset is very much the same. What I don’t understand is people who deliberately vote against their own best interests and don’t want government/taxes, and yet are perfectly happy to take government money/goods in the form of farm subsidies, grazing rights, etc. when it benefits them. We raised our children in the “safety” of a small, rural town, and then they, and their friends, left for education and opportunities. 😢
26
Would have been interesting to know how much of the budget in question is dependent on state and federal grants. And let's add in social security and medicare payments.
All these red state self sufficiency types could not survive without government payments. The hypocrisy is both stunning and unquestioned.
This is a perfect reflection on what just happened in the Australian elections that resulted in Trump's good buddy Morrison.
The Labor Party here had lots of great plans and ideas. The folks in mining communities only cared about their handful of jobs, which still would have been protected.
Trump's buddy won based on manufactured lies like "labour wants to take away your weekend" and "No more barbeques and hamburgers".
The lesson for Democrats is that you are NOT going to reach these rural types no matter what you do. Concentrate on the suburbs and the educated where people might actually look at the issues.
23
This division existed before Trump. But he’s played it to the hilt.
Electoral College must go. Every vote should count the same regardless of where it’s cast.
37
The Senate must go with the Electoral College. How? Via a constitutional convention. Google it.
1
A great article. I think it maps to much of rural Virginia and perhaps all of rural Appalachia. I hope state and federal candidates running for election read, re-read, and think about the article. These are all failed communities. Not letting failed communities fail encourages them to limp along and people get dystopian views of the world as reported in the article. Let the communities fail and encourage the populace to move on to new opportunities - which is what their kids are doing. This means you don't focus on propping up or improving conditions in failed communities, forget the Appalachian Project, instead you focus on relocating people. People are supposed to seek out and match up with opportunities - that's not happening and we are winding up with chronically failed people with dystopian attitudes.
18
If we leave the interior of America free of Americans we then better give it back to the Indians. Otherwise corporate America we will turn it into its sterile zone of resource exploitation, like in Australia and Canada, to some extent. The ribbon of people along our coasts will become, as our founders feared, disconnected from the country's geography and from any physical or soulful relationship with it.
6
If the Van Buren county budget is a mere $11 million for 16,000 residents ($688 per capita), and the average private sector wage is $10 to $13 per hour, then the "prevailing sense of scarcity," the belief that "there just isn't enough money go go around" reflects not an irrational prejudice but a solid grounding in the reality of the county's finances.
17
@Robert M you hit the nail on the head. People in this community live on roads that are not paved and inaccessible during bad weather. Due to aging infrastructure, they have went from pure, clean drinking water to water that stains there sinks and runs grey from the tap at times. The city is voting on a water and rate hike that will nearly double monthly bills for most residents. When faced with these issues, it is no wonder that there is backlash in regards to a wage increase at the library which cannot support itself with current funding.
10
You are right, but negative feedback loop makes that unsustainable. If there are not enough people to vote for less regressive taxes, not enough folks to reinvest in community resources when times are good, well, you get what you pay for.
2
At campaign time, politicians toss red meat wedge issues out and promises galore during campaign season and afterwards it's plain to see their allegiance is to powerful special interests, big business and the 1%.
We need to quit falling for these empty promises. A house divided against itself, cannot stand.
5
@Jay Trainor The 1% are really just pawns in the game too. It's the .001% which runs the country and tells the Republicans in all three branches of government when to jump and how high.
1
I think the attitude towards libraries is true in a lot of places. I was assigned to a job in the northwest suburbs of Detroit for two years. I found the local library closed at 8 PM every night, had essentially no new books, and mostly had novels from the 1960s (this was in 1991), and there was no sidewalk to the library. I wrote letters asking for longer hours, more new books, and a sidewalk. I thought the library staff would appreciate my efforts, no, they glared at me whenever I checked out. I spent the last year of the two year assignment driving 30 miles to Ann Arbor to use their library.
10
People must invest in their communities, if they hope to turn them around socially and economically. A thriving community requires a civic life, at the heart of which are those institutions like libraries, which improve the quality of life and create value for everyone.
Conservative's hyperactive punitive instinct is problematic. If they need to punish themselves for perceived previous profligate behavior, well, so be it, but don't then complain about it, and don't demand everyone else wear the hair shirt, too. Here's an idea: don't punish yourselves by decimating your own community institutions - do what really hurts and support them with your tax dollars.
13
I've never understood the libertarian mentality which is what seems to be prevalent in this community. It's all about me and mine. If it doesn't impact me and mine, then I have no responsibility. I think about the very prosperous times most (white) Americans enjoyed in the 50s, when government expanded to support the improvement of infrastructure, public education, public works, technology development, etc. People paid taxes (and at much more fair levels) and were okay with it because they recognized the importance of a well developed, educated and cohesive society to avoid what most had experienced a decade earlier--a tyrant who nearly destroyed Europe and the rest of the world.
Paying taxes is part of being a responsible adult in the society to which we all belong--contributing to a greater whole to which we are all part helps each of us in the long term. But these folks, rural America, Fox News watchers, Trump supporters, liberterians/conservatives are selfish, plain and simple. At outlook focused on "me and mine", what society specifically does for "me and mine", and "me and mine" are not responsible for anything for which "me and mine" don't get some sort of tangible benefit is very, well, Trumpian, one-percenter, society-destroying and well, not the kind of philosophy espoused by the guy whose teachings are supposed to be the focus of those Wednesday and Sunday church gatherings.
36
This article should be required reading for every democrat especially our politicians. This portion of our electorate doesn’t care about anything other than getting government off their back and out of their pockets. Give them facts and figures about Trump’s tax break for the rich and what has happened to our deficit in the last 3 years. They don’t hear that from Fox.
We ignore their issues at our own peril.
27
@Priscilla FYI a good portion of the residents of Van Buren County don’t have access to Fox News due to prohibitive pricing on cable and internet access.
1
As the husband of a masters-toting retired reference librarian in a blue state it breaks my heart to see the systemic fracking of humanity exemplified in this article echoed in these comments.
After 28 years of helping people figure out how to file their income tax, fill out a job application at McDonalds, regain custody of their kids, find a legal service or support organization I am still dumbstruck by how Librarians are marginalized.
Discouraging macro thinking is the easiest trick in the book, and the book I'm talking about is pretty popular.
Analogous to the shooting of retreating soldiers by their own kind, willful ignorance can't be bothered with prisoners, defectors or detractors. What a political orgy it must be sponsoring.
32
I immediately started thinking about Colin Turnbull's description of the Ik tribe. Under economic duress, they disintegrated into a hopeless, loveless, cruel, dishonest culture where it was every man for themselves. Not all cultures respond like this. But it appears to be all too common in the back waters of American life. The writer Arlie Hochschild in her book Strangers in Their Own Land found it again and again in the communities she came to know.
21
The real Americans are the one with electoral power no matter who they are. Right now we live in a demographic imbalance that is as stark as the economic one. Through accidents of history and geography we have many vast and relatively empty states that lack the water and resources to sustain large functioning urban areas. They have long been rejected and deserted by the young in their own populations leaving them without the ability to reproduce the quality of life they once had. They are going downhill and they know it but they cannot accept the true reasons for this fate. Like all people in such situations they have become defensive and xenophobic and they lash out at anyone who tries to help or even understand them. In a normal system such self destructive attitudes would take care of themselves and such communities would fade away. But the design of our electoral system has given each voter in these empty lands a voting weight 30 to 50 times bigger than a citizen in a typical large coastal state. This extreme distortion of the public vote has produced a system where this tiny alienated minority now decides our national electoral contests. This trend is getting more extreme every year and is producing a government of the alienated that seeks to destroy the majority. How long will the majority put up with demographic disenfranchisement? How much pain will the real majority Americans bear before they react?
64
Andrew Yang speaks to this mindset of scarcity. That when you are in a scarcity mindset you tend to pull inward and away from helping others. This among many other reasons is why I believe he is the right candidate to win over these types of people. I wish the media would give him a fair shake.
14
Thank you for this article. As someone who lives in NY state, I am increasingly outraged at the electoral imbalance that exists in our country; if we are to maintain our democracy, we need to end the electoral college and the disproportionate power that rural minorities (now Trumpists) wield.
As for the area described here: I pity them. But I don't want to be ruled by them.
60
"People are leaving rural areas for cities because that’s where the jobs are."
Perhaps this is true for some people in their 30s or older. But if personal experience teaches, it isn't true for people who leave when younger.
At that age, one of the biggest reasons to leave is desire for more open-minded, inquisitive, exploratory, education-respecting, diverse, culturally vibrant offerings of more populated areas. In short, young bright minds find rural areas to be stifling.
In turn, those who remain in rural areas often develop a kind of self-protective rejection reaction. If they don't have masters' degrees, they tell themselves that masters degrees are a "waste of time." If the reason is art, they develop a dislike for trends in modern art. If the reasons are inquisitiveness and diversity, they double down on stories about how experimentation destroys families and cultures.
Never underestimate the persuasive influence of distorting, but self-protective narratives, when told by jilted lovers, families, and communities.
35
@M Peirce
Such human insecurities present themselves in rural and urban settings, alike. Even if they're more plentiful among those left behind in remote areas, there are many socially and culturally positive trade-offs with country living that should be considered.
6
@ M.Pierce
Excellent observations.
Thank you, Ms. Potts, for this insightful essay. I better understand how selfishness, fear and resentment are driving Trump's America.
It saddens me to see a race to the bottom - selfish people who apparently don't want anyone else to succeed, and with no apparent civic connective vision. Victimhood disdain for elites, and basic survival. I can understand why Trump's message might resonate - but do these folks realize that he and his party has no interest in them besides grabbing them by their vote? How does it make their lives better, now that immigrants have to come to the US fully insured for their health? Or if no immigrants arrive at all?
Scarcity seems to be robbing the community of any vision or leadership.
Van Buren County sounds like a wonderful place to leave.
28
"It is as if there will be a nationwide scramble to cover the shortfall just as there was here with the library."
But there will be a national scramble to cover the enormous national debt resulting from the Trump tax cuts and the endless wars. We saw this in the 1970s in the form of double digit inflation, 19% interest rates, and economic stagnation. While it would be easy to pay off the debt through a higher taxes on the wealthy, this approach ended with the Reagan administration. Whether it will be taken after Trump depends on whether the nation elects a progressive Democrat like a Sanders or a Warren; a Republic-light Democrat in the mold of a Clinton or a Biden; or a Republican like the current occupant.
12
My father was born in Wisconsin. He was one of five children left fatherless by the 1919 flu pandemic. Because of the Progressive Movement’s Wisconsin Idea he got a good free education, including four years of college at the U of W-Madison. The GI Bill paid his masters at Columba. The first time he ever paid college tuition was when my sister started college in the mid-60s.
It was a combination of hard work and a good dose of socialism that made it possible for him to put four of us kids through college, two with masters degrees, one Ph.D. We all paid a lot more in taxes than if he’d been stuck on that farm. Investing in people through education will always yield greater returns than cutting budgets so we can have ignorance.
60
I am sure they are wonderful people but why should THEY have more of a say on how WE live? We, in the coastal and educated states, are constantly told that we should understand them. When is anyone going to ask them to understand us?
62
@Mark Esposito
Absolutely correct. It is one thing to subsidize them, which we do. It another to be ruled by them due to the Electoral College.
26
It’s impossible.
I see them on their rare trips to New York City on the subway. Sticking out like a bunch of blasé grandmas accidentally trapped in the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Don’t they ask themselves why these Fox anchor’s don’t live where they live? But in the hated LA and NY?
2
It's horribly obvious from reading Ms. Potts's article and especially the accompanying comments that rural America needs to stand front and center in any presidential candidate's concerns.
We cannot all continue to cram ourselves into large cities or huge metropolitan centers where the jobs are predominantly located.
Innovative incentives on the part of the federal government working with local government might include solar and wind technology manufacturing, recycling centers, agricultural production (where feasible), and other environmental/non-polluting manufactures as job incentives which keep young residents in their home towns. The possibilities are only limited by imagination.
Any candidates for Congressional seats or president should be speaking regularly with small-town Chambers of Commerce, economic development corporations, and local public officials to find out what their particular areas are in need of to remain viable and growing and then tout it on the campaign trail.
We need rural America to feel it is the important part of the nation that it still is.
10
@Cate
They already have too much power over the rest of the nation.
How much more important is it necessary to make them feel?
35
Sadly, there is a dynamic of people with talent who get up and leave for greener pastures, with more and more hollowing out of towns like this. It's been going on for quite some time, and there's little one can do or say to change minds.
9
I don’t think we need to bother with trying to cater to the desires of rural Arkansas. It’s counter productive. If a progressive democrat wins, it’ll be because democrats and independents went out and voted. Progressive policies will help these people whether they want them or not. Maybe after they start experiencing the rewards of a government that really works for the people, that cares about people more than corporations, maybe, like the grinch, their tiny hearts will grow and grow and grow.
36
Grim stuff...but I must first thank Monica Potts and the paper for offering this material to us, dark though it must be.
The first thing I'm tempted to do, as I've been doing all too often, is to feel better about being 85 in a few weeks, which suggests limited time remaining in my personal life.
Where everyone else might be concerned...well, one glaring problem is that so many millions seem not to care at all, living their lives selfishly, ignorantly, dangerously. Who needs any libraries, when I know everything important already! And it is all too clear that half the nation won't vote next time, either.
I do place my hopes on those who do wish to be educated, and to contribute their efforts not to be rich and powerful, but to support other human beings.
38
Very well said. And may I say that we're glad to have you here, and hopefully for much longer.
9
Well, here is a toast to your birthday in a few weeks. 85 is a grand and it is great to read you here with wise and profound statements. Sadly, my parents, younger than you, have not mastered the digital age.
6
What percentage of the county's population receives medicaid? medicare? SNAP? What will residents think when these benefits are reduced if Trump is reelected.
17
@disheartened
Too many people get SNAP. That program is about 60% of the farm bill, and the program is abused in a big way.
I hate most of the farm bill, and I'm a farmer.
That program is ruining farming in America, because it eliminates risk and the need for responsible financial
planning. If there's no risk, the land never changes hands, except when people sell to big land companies when they retire, or parents die and the kids sell the land, out of laziness.
Make no mistake, farming is work and city people have almost no conception of how much work is involved, but it's not without rewards.
Family farms make up a very small fraction of our total acreages these days.
We need to get back to farming responsibly, without a safety net. Farmers, today, pay very little in taxes, because they know they can spend every cent they make on improvements (as deductions) and know they'll be OK next year.
With the safety net of the farm program, they don't need to put any cash away (on which, they would have to pay taxes) for a rainy day. It's totally irresponsible.
Farmers must enroll in crop insurance to be in the farm program, but taxpayers foot the bill for about 60% of the premiums.
Th farm bill is a bipartisan effort, so don't blame either party, or the president, for its existence.
7
This article is exceptional. So much so that I’ve come to the conclusion that Democrats need to stop supporting these communities and instead should support policies to speed their decline. Trying to change them is hopeless and their is almost nothing to lose from their inevitable death. The economic engine has moved past rural Arkansas.
43
This is a serious conclusion? A tiny group of rural voters will determine health care policy for the rest of us? And this is OK?
So, to play this out, we really don’t even need an opposition party anymore. We should all just collectively surrender to the status quo because any hint of progressivism will drive these rural voters even deeper into the arms of Donald Trump. Got it.
Honestly, can anyone explain to me why we must always meet these people where they are? Can we not even try to convince them that their own interests might be better served by acknowledging that government is us—all of us?
41
We have lost the spirit of community to a culture of selfishness, which will doom us all. New York has the same problems. Recently, a most stunning library proposal for a Long Island Community was turned down. I was heartbroken, it would have been a wonderful community resource in a beautiful setting, for a few bucks more in taxes. Does any one complain about their taxes spent on endless war, or Mar a Lago? Low tax states doom themselves, I see that in TN, where I have been visiting lately. Low taxes equate to a low quality of life, environmental destruction, and a Dollar General selling junk on every corner. Bah.
37
This is EXACTLY why the National Popular Vote initiative is so important. If sufficient states commit their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner, to comprise a total of 270 electoral votes, then the Electoral College will exist only as a technicality. In effect, we will have every subsequent election determined by the popular vote.
Communities like Clinton can't keep themselves going by dragging all of us into a race to the bottom. The Affordable Care Act actually had begun to bend the cost curve down before Trump began monkeywrenching it. It's much cheaper to give people quality preventive care thant to treat the fallout of drug abuse, diabetes, heart disease and other preventable conditions. But it is states like Arkansas and voters like Clinton's that fought so hard to prevent Medicaid expansion. Crazy.
36
@Solar Power
The National Popular Vote initiative is unconstitutional. The Constitution prevents states from entering into compacts with other states without the explicit approval of Congress.
Article I Section 10
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
4
I reality the issue isn’t even remotely as clear as you state. If it passes the Supreme Court will undoubtably be involved in deciding it’s constitutionality.
3
States do not have to enter into a formal compact. All they have to do is pass individual laws saying their electoral votes will go to the winner of the popular vote. No other state needs to be mentioned.
15
My parents were the children of immigrants. My dad was the only one of both families to go to university; he worked his way through. Almost all of my generation of cousins have tertiary degrees; in my immediate family, not going to college was not an option. It wasn’t a matter of money, which nobody had much of; it was a matter of priorities.
I remember vividly the first time I encountered someone who denigrated education — yes, a rural white guy. It was a shock. At first I thought he was joking!
And I still don’t understand the mindset. Is it only immigrant families that work hard and scrimp and save in order to educate their children? If so, then the US clearly needs more immigrants.
42
@Lisa
College is not for everyone. My husband barely made it through high school, and has probably not read a novel since high school english class. (He just turned Medicare aged.) But you know what ? His practical skills are amazing. Construction (from surveying and laying out the foundation to roofing, wiring and finish work), farming, fixing all kinds of machinery including making parts that are unavailable, living off the land if necessary (hunting, fishing, building shelters, etc) and so on. Quite a few 'uneducated rural people' have these skills, but they are often denigrated for 'not going to college'. What's with that, anyway ?
8
@Irene. “What’s with that” is our higher taxes due to higher incomes and the loss of the SALT tax deductions are paying for your husband’s Medicare and other services.
10
@irene
Just the opposite.
People who don't value college denigrate those who do.
1
There are communities where people pay low taxes and volunteer their services for free. There are some who have volunteer fire departments where the citizens take turns operating the fire engines after some training. We have seen co-op food stores keep their prices low by volunteering and those who belong pay a small fee and tend to the store regularly. They save a lot and there is a sense of community. The people in Van Buren county could have their library and save on taxes if they worked together. It just takes a little man power and coming together as a community.
13
How sad that people cannot see beyond their immediate needs in order to improve life for their children. It sounds as though Clinton and the county will continue to shrink as people who have an education or any initiative leave for areas where pay is higher.
I see the same ignorance where I live. However, our area is growing rather than shrinking because northerners are selling their more expensive homes and moving here where it is cheaper and taxes are easily 1/20 to 1/10 of what they paid previously. Our infrastructure is stressed to the breaking point, floods are more common because wetlands are paved and certain land is built higher, thereby causing runoff for their lower neighbors.
Until we consider the common good, I fear we will not see much improvement in attitudes.
13
Is America's Heartland suffering from a serious heart condition?
Self-reliance is a powerful and worthwhile virtue. Helping family, friends and neighbors is generous and virtuous too.
But another thread is the opposing force limiting who falls within that circle of generosity.
How are these forces being balanced?
Government does things that we need to do together. Things other commercial for profit systems wont do. Things where we all need to pull together. Things that we all could need, even if not today, even if not every day, but at some point. Things that make the overall fabric of the country stronger, not weaker and more moth-eaten.
What happens to the concept of "country" / "nation" when "together" shrinks to family and friends? What does it mean to be an "American" (let alone "true American") when the boundary of "together" becomes so small?
When $42,000 is too much, but $160,000,000 is just fine:
Tiny success and huge success is OK, but falling in the middle is bad. $10-$13/hr is a tiny but good success, while $25/hr is insultingly too much. I don't want my taxes to pay for $25/hr -bad government waste. But I don't mind the money I spend at Walmart to pay $10-$13/hr wages while a few others get billions in wealth - good corporate efficiency.
“We the people are not here to pay your excessive salaries through taxation or in any other way.” I.e. We'll proudly fight to remain underpaid and under-served!
What's happened to the heart in our heartland?
26
I find it rather interesting, that in a county so poor, in the picture in front of the Trump headquarters the automobiles are very up to date. I've noticed this before, when I've travelled in rural areas that suffer from poverty. People seem to have money for very nice cars, but not for anything else.
Just an observation
21
@M. G.
I'm guessing the 'up to date' vehicles (and, in rural areas, pickup trucks are actually very useful) are in lieu of any sort of savings account. Why put money aside when you can put it into something of value which will also provide transportation ? Most rural folks probably also have some sort of older rig sitting around, something they can actually work on themselves,
as a back up vehicle. If they keep the insurance current on their 'new' rig, they have a pretty safe source of ready cash if absolutely necessary, and unlike money in the bank, in the meantime it is providing a useful service (transportation).
5
I've noticed that to be true almost anywhere, urban or rural. it's this country's obsession with the automobile. I've never been able to understand it. For me, a car is a way to get from one place to another, nothing more. All I need is for it to be safe, reasonably comfortable, and not a gas guzzler. No matter where I go, I know I'm in the minority.
11
@M. G., driving is vital in rural places. You spend a lot of time on the road because you can’t find everything in town. As well, having a good/new car saves you from being stuck on the road miles from help—and is more cost efficient than constantly repairing old ones. You’re also talking rugged terrain here and rough weather, so cars get a lot of wear and tear.
8
The difference between California and Arkansas is the level of public commitment/investment in public infrastructure, including all the services, from education to consumer protection to labor law enforcement to CalFire and CalTrans. It's why today's hyper partisan GOP is a minority party of little influence in California.
We had suffered through years of cost cutting and tax cuts, or little growth in spending, and literally living in genteel poverty, off the older crumbling infrastructure on the belief that lower taxes will fix everything. It doesn't.
Nothing illustrates this more than CalTrans which builds and maintains many of our roads. For decades they were only able to do 300-400 projects/yr over 50,000 miles of California's highway and freeway lanes, 13,063 state highway bridges, and while inspecting more than 12,200 local bridges, many that have on average 8 times the traffic of roadways in places like Arizona. Another 400,000+ miles of roads are maintained locally. When Schwarzenegger cut vehicle reg. fees, that was the last straw. Inadequate funding and gas taxes were still the same as they had been for years. Federal funding was not enough to keep up. So we raised gas taxes under a Dem legislature and governor. The GOP objected, tried to stop it with an initiative that LOST handily. Now we have over 2.300 projects and we're getting ahead of the game instead of losing ground. You invest in infrastructure to help business and citizens, aka, yourselves. That simple.
32
@Marcus Pun
Interesting.
Adjusted for cost of living, California has a higher poverty rate than Arkansas, 16.5% to 23.8%. In fact California has the highest poverty rate in the US
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_poverty_rate
Arkansas has a lower unemployment rate than California, 3,4% to 4.4%
https://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm
GDP growth rates are virtually the same in the two states, CA = 2.7% and AR = 2.5%.
https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gdp-state
Arkansas ranks higher than California in educational attainment. In fact California ranks 50th of all states in education attainment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_educational_attainment
5
Nice cherry picking of stats there. In terms of educational attainment, Arkansas has a slightly higher percentage of high school graduates than California, which is indeed 50th. But when it comes to bachelor’s degrees or higher, California absolutely leaves Arkansas in the dust. Perhaps someone else can comment here on the questionable use of statistics in the other categories; it’s a little too late at night dig into all of them for me.
2
And so few of them understand the Economics of withdrawl of government spending from the market place. When you do that you cause even more hardship. It assures what it is trying to prevent - even more pain.
I really think the cuts in education since the 1980s are being felt now.
20
@Volley Goodman
What education cuts? Please cite a source.
Interesting article. Arkansas is a lot like Pennsylvania in that there are well off areas in the East and West, but most of the interior is solidly tRump country. My employer is based in Northwest Arkansas, and it is an alien place compared to Van Buren County. Fortunately I work remotely, but it is a very nice area with a strong economy. If I was younger I would have considered moving 1200 miles away to settle there. Sales taxes are considerably higher than PA, which hurts lower income people as the author rightly points out.
4
@George "Pennsylvania is Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and Alabama in the middle."
Both the self-defeating behaviors described in this article and those of Trump apologists in Congress remind me of the scenarios and arguments put forth in Barbara Tuchman's great 1984 book "The March of Folly". The Trojan War, Britain's losing the American colones in the Revolutionary War, America's morass in Vietnam, and more discussed as evidence of the propensity of humans acting concertedly against their own interests. Seeing "woodenheadness" on a large scale surprises us - especially as the stakes grow higher and higher for our collective futures - but it is not a new historical development, even in America.
15
Industrialization made living in rural areas obsolete. It's not anyone's fault, but people want to find someone to blame.
83% of Americans worked on a farm in the year 1800. Now that number is 2%. This is because of a massive increase of productivity.
Wheat Production per Acre
1800: 56 worker-hours for 15 yield
1970: 3 worker-hours for 31 yield,
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=11&psid=3837
10
Public education is an adjacent target to the library in towns where the average citizen is barely making the median income. Cuts to programs like the arts, music, world languages, civics, history, vocational courses, technology, health, and AP courses get the nod every time, but not to athletic programs. We left a small town when a coach’s job was retained at the expense of an English teacher. It was time to get out. The ones left have fewer opportunities, less education, poorer health, and less of everything, so they continue to vote with the downward spiral of cutting until they are left with nothing. The so-called pride of pretending all is well in these small towns by waving a flag makes the average citizen feel that they have stood tall in their civic duty. Looking beyond the next tax cycle is beyond the majority - planning for the future when whatever they have done before was ‘good enough.’ They do not go out of town to the city because they cannot adjust to any change.
33
I've seen a lot of this from the coal and farm regions of northeastern PA to the coal and farm regions of southern IL. White folks, like myself, who, unlike myself and many of my friends, chose to stay at home and not advance their education and skills, but instead waited for life to come to them, resenting others who were in some ways not like them. They love their C&W music that tells them they have been betrayed and that their own betrayals makes them desirable; they honor their ministers who tells them they are persecuted but could become rich if they just have enough faith and donate enough money to the church; and do I need to mention guns and football? Of course not everyone fits into this category, but those who do have gained ascendancy. The others went to college, joined the military, sought training and did not let their fears prevent them from hitching up their skirts, as it were, and seeking greener pastures. Or at least opening a book.
37
Wow. I don’t really know what to think. I don’t doubt the veracity of this article, but it’s stunning in its portrayal of life in rural America in 2019. My grandparents were immigrants to this country, and my ethnic community places a high premium on education. It’s just such a different mentality to me to be resentful of your own children (or your communities children) having access to high quality educational services. I’ve just never heard of a generation who didn’t care at all if their own children lived a better life then they live. I thought everyone wanted better for their own kids. It’s hard for me to digest.
69
Just wait. Within a few years the "sorting" will continue and become more stark. The supremes will probably revert reproductive rights completely to the states, and you know what that will mean, and which states. Supremes this year will be deciding whether or not it is legal to fire a person for being gay. I have a hunch which way they will go. Marriage rights are likely to be clawed back. And remember, these people have all the guns. I'm not optimistic about anything, just hoping I can get through the next 3 decades or so, not be struck down by illness, and have a retirement with a modest amount of comfort before I pass on. I'm not optimistic.
31
Bill C.,
People will have to choose where they want to live and how many restrictions and discrimination they are willing to put up with to stay home.
Liberals and conservatives have all hired expert communications professionals that will ensure the social/culture war continues indefinitely.
The South and Plains states are LOST CAUSES.
They are fully committed to their world view as outlined in the opinion piece about a rural Arkansas
What New York, Massachusetts, California and like minded states should focus on is improving their own social and economic policies and collaborate with those likeminded states.
If you are overly concerned about the people “left behind” in conservative America, you would be better off starting a fund to cover their moving costs to more liberal locales.
1
Wonder what they thought of the big tax cuts that went to corporations and wealthy donors?
39
@Laura Reich, places like this are conditioned to think the rich plantation owner/boss man deserves to have it all. It’s essentially feudal thinking, which explains the rabid Trump worship.
1
"...about the county government, what it should pay for, and how and whether people should be taxed at all."
I suggest the County experiments with cancelling all local taxes and all the services that are supported by those taxes. Of course no services that are paid for by other taxpayers should be provided either. They should just get what is due to them for what they pay in state and federal taxes. No more, no less.
25
Rural Americans like those in Clinton are forcing their own children to escape driven by the necessity of the young and educated to live, work at a higher level than the generation before them. My parents came to America with little education, so education was their primary goal for their 6 children. My father went to school on GI Bill, service in armed forces being pathway to citizenship. My mother after a long days work, would always read to us in our beds, as we got older she'd sit with us while we did our homework, learning along with us. She eventually went back to school herself. Libraries were a font of information for school reports, to exploring a work beyond our own. Both came from Rural Ireland, but never moved to Rural America - apparently for good reason. I have empathy for all who do everything they can to work hard, to improve their lives. I can't have pity for those who give in and retreat in to fear, ignorance and hatred, that's too destructive for our country. It's unAmerican, and unChristian of them.
45
So why is it that while rural America is experiencing the painful shrinkage that is going on? Well, how about the lack of serious and competent entrepreneurial spirit being nurtured in the those towns (e.g. Clinton) to keep the young and attract new industry that would keep them there and building upon their young- instead of focusing on the past to the detriment of their future. My wife and I considered buying a second family home in a rural area of Virginia (many of her family live in Virginia) that had many of the same environmental beauty as Clinton. But there two, there was a lack of people (young) who would be the building blocks of any interesting and vital community. In the end, we decided we were not ready to experience the slow social, political, and environmental "death" that was going on there. When you look at the health conditions of the population in the rural South (see the US community survey and related health data), who wants to live among a population that is squarely within the group of the most unhealthy Americans in the country? . . and all that means for building better communities. And, equally distressing, is who would want to live in an environment in which the local elites argue against those community economic steps that would disturb their relative economic well-being (e.g. new taxes, special economic and development zones, etc.) that did not directly benefit them?
24
How many of the people in this city and county are on Medicare? How many are farmers who receive checks for farm payments from the US government?
38
All they have for "education" is Fox News, which tells them that twisted right-wing ideology equals tradition and decency, and that anything resembling mutual aid and community is Communist and immoral. They have no unions to provide political education, specifically to explain the extreme and rapid rightward shift of the GOP since the 70s.
Their perspectives should come as no surprise. What other voices do they have to listen to?
34
@A, I lived in a small town near the boarder of Texas in Southeastern New Mexico. There was one TV station that operated from 6am until 11pm. As a source of news it was rather limited. That was about 40 years ago. From what I hear from relatives living there things have only gotten worse.
Now there is TV cable there if you can afford it, and a 2nd TV station. The Oil industry has brought in high speed internet to some of the towns in the area. Yet the people there still cling to Fox News.
Fox News has brain washed many of the the people in the area. I now live New Mexico's only large city. Fox News still has a large following, but there are other sources of news, mostly from the Internet.
I agree Fox News, does tells them that twisted right-wing ideology equals tradition and decency, and that anything resembling mutual aid and community is Communist and immoral.
I think lot of the programs started by the FDR administration, from the 1930's, need to come back, especially the rules from the the old FCC forcing broadcast media to report different opinions and accurate news.
28
@A as cable access is limited in availability throughout the county, satellite signals unreliable in many areas, and internet access cost prohibitive, there are MANY people in Van Buren County that do do not have access to Fox News
1
@DogRancher, Reagan knew exactly what he was doing when he and his minions torpedoed the Fairness Doctrine.
1
As a 40 plus year resident of Van Buren County, I wish the author had included more interviews with the people who actually use the library and are happy to pay tiny bits of taxes for it.
I would also like to see more attention paid to the many volunteers who have worked hard to keep our community viable in spite of the many employment and climactic challenges (two devastating tornadoes and an ice storm) we have faced in the past couple of decades. We are a mixed bag and painting us with a single brush stroke is not helpful.
37
OzarkSue your perspective is appreciated & a good reminder that not all in red states are of the same cloth. However, the article was intended to help those of us who are completely stumped understand the incomprehensible mindset of those who continue to support Trump & the GOP congress. And in a small way the article achieved its aim, but we need to figure out how to get these people to be their better selves.
33
@Jean H
"We need to figure out how to get 'these people' to be their better selves". Who is this 'we' and why are 'we' so nobly condescending ? I'm pretty sure all of us have 'better selves' awaiting us !
3
Why not publish 2 posts about the difference with life in rural Europe in similar economic level nations ?
Americans think that they are the only reference in the world ?
Why do you not want to hear that in similar or less fortunate situations other cultures behave differently ? And an analysis of the reasons why. Health insurance, free education, local community culture, etc...
26
It's time to think the unthinkable. An annual basic civics test for all voters. If you fail, you're vote counts 1/2 an informed vote.
19
This would be awesome! Can we also tie it to how much tax you contribute to how much you actually take? I’m getting tired of hearing about all the “takers” from those who take more than they contribute. Upstate NY regularly complains about liberal NYC, but they never turn down the money we “give” them.
1
@Michael C
I've often considered that myself.
Problem is, it cuts both ways. There's a very large chunk of voters on the left who are grossly ignorant, just as there is of voters on the right. What we'd be left with is a society where decisions were made by the elite: mostly well-educated, mostly white and mostly well-off financially.
And this wouldn't happen just as a direct result of most people's voting power being cut in half, but also because many of them would be choosing not to vote at all due to the diminished influence of their vote.
So if what you want is to take us even further down the plutocratic-oligarchy road, this is definitely the way to go.
Speaking as a 40 plus year resident of Van Buren County, I wish the author had included more interviews with people who actually use the library and are happy to pay tiny bits of taxes for it! We’ve had enough of those yahoos like Widener taking up valuable platform time. I know ignoring them won’t actually make them go away, but at least we wouldn’t be exposed to their drivel.
I want to hear more from the many people who have worked so hard to keep this community viable through their volunteer efforts in spite of the many challenges, both economic and climactic, that we have faced in the past couple of decades.
20
@ OzarkSue
Correct. The outside importance placed on these rural naysayers and ignoramuses in media is nauseating. They are not important. Arkansas will not save the nation or save us from global warming.
1
The crux of the issue here is the comment about why would a librarian need a master’s degree, when the Dewey decimal system is taught in elementary school. I grew up as a university kid in an otherwise small town, with a huge “town gown” divide and I heard this kind of thing my whole life. It belies lack of curiously about the world and an assumption that there is nothing in the world to learn that is not already known. With that faulty belief system, of course these people think that people with more education are just grifters on a system designed to cheat them. It’s an anti-intellectualism that is hard to counter, and frankly I’m not sure the rest of use should even bother trying. If people want to be closed to the rest of the world and life, then let them.
45
@Beth
What educational credential was required to run the Van Buren County library 100 years ago?
I suspect not a master's degree. Likely not even a baccalaureate. Why is a master's needed now? With instantaneous access to all sorts of knowledge available to the head librarian, why is something other than intelligence, an openness to learning, and evidence of some training in critical thinking skills, aka a bachelors degree, required? Plus of course reasonable experience.
I think it's completely reasonable for the head of the library to make $25 an hour. I don't see why a master's degree requirement is needed to justify that. If I was in a place struggling to pay the $25 I'd be turned off by that argument. I'd see it as an argument advanced by a ruling class to extract resources for themselves. Which is unfortunate in this case as a $25 per hour worker is not part of the ruling class anywhere in the U.S.
9
@Brian
Regarding professional education for librarians, and anyone else - A century ago or so, being a doctor didn’t require medical school. My grandfather was a field medic for the Russian Army-his training was as a butcher - he was strong enough to amputate limbs with a saw.
Times, resources and sophistication have changed in all fields. Education in library science prepare professionals to bring greater service to their communities, like education for doctors- soldiers- mechanics etc.
So if you’re going to rag on education, I guess you’d be pretty happy finding someone like my grandpa next time your leg hurts. To each their own.
31
@Isaac
A librarian is not a doctor. Are you suggesting the advancements in what is required to be a competent county librarian, relative to the resources available to that librarian, are similar to what's happened in medicine?
I am not arguing against education. It's great the librarian got a master's; good for her. I am arguing against credentialism. Credentialism is a way for people with access to resources to exclude people, and people are smart enough to sense that and push back. One negative form that pushback takes is disdain for education in general, i.e. that it's partly a scam.
7
Many working people don't just vote FOR Donald Trump, they're voting AGAINST the Democrats.
Something that Democrats, liberals, and progressives just can't seem to get through their heads is the fact that a lot of working people, not just Republicans, vote for conservative candidates because:
1) They resent the fact that so many people have their hand out to the government, and it obliges them by giving them an easier financial existence than WORKING people...enough with the handouts, get to work!
2) They don't want to turn our country into another Latin American country. None of them function anywhere near as well as we do. There’s a reason for that.
3) They want our government to control our borders, helping us to control our population. Overpopulation is at the core of so many of our problems, including poverty and climate change.
4) We need fair trade deals, even if it means paying a short-term cost. Is it fair to have a 65% tax on American wheat going to China, when they can import to the U.S. without any tax? How about a 28% import tax on American vehicles going to Germany, but only 1.4% on German vehicles coming to the U.S.? We have been subsidizing the world economy since WWII...time for that to end.
5) LGBTQN citizens already have the same rights as everyone else. Just be quiet and live your lives, like everyone else. It is possible to have logical reasons for opposing homosexuality, etc.
The Democrats address none of these issues.
15
@Raz
Your comment about their fear of overpopulation is ironic, since many of these same people are fanatical in their opposition to abortion and birth control, and contemptuous of people (especially women) who choose not to have children. It's almost as if it's not actual overpopulation they fear, just overpopulation of certain types of people...
81
@Raz
Arkansas is the 5th poorest state and 46th in education. It’s also anti-immigrant despite being 82% white and relies heavily on the federal government.
Actually, the places who rely the most on federal “handouts” are red states, by far the poorest and least educated states in the country (Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, etc). They complain about the government yet they happily take those dollars coming mostly from richer, blue state taxpayers.
The counties that voted for Hillary generate 65% of our GDP. They are the economic engines of the country, not the rural wastelands.
Pro-trump farmers sure aren’t turning down that $28 billion handout from the big, bad government either.
81
@roz The US is one of the biggest offender in climate change as we drive cars using fossil fuel and eat extraordinary amounts of meat. Those in rural areas aren’t exempt from this process. Perhaps they don’t want to hear these arguments for equity because they think they are exempt.
5
In Canada a simple 50 1 majority is all that is required for a province to leave the country. (We’ve almost seen Quebec leave a few times now)
Is it so hard for a state like California to leave a republic that so thoroughly rules against California’s own best interests?
Alternatively I suppose the real Americans in Arkansas would never leave, they’ve got absolutely nothing without the republic.
14
@Mike
If CA were a separate country, they would bel obligated to keep all the immigrants that crossed their borders, according to the first country rule.
I'm for that.
Thanks for this article Monica. It definitely paints a sad and sorry picture of rural america. They appear to share no common sense of community and their antipathy toward education (or even learning) is breathtaking, particularly when one considers how much smaller and interconnecte the planet is actually getting. But I guess they'll just keep receding into the hollows of Arkansas or Missouri or wherever. I hate to stay this -- because more and more we're all part of one big interconnected community -- but some people, wherever they might live, are so intellectually narrow minded, emotionally stunted and fearful that they can't see past the end or their own driveway. They're going to be left behind in every sense of that phrase, and frankly it's their own fault.
20
I’m always stunned at how widespread poverty is outside of cities. Seattle is one of the most affluent cities nationwide but on a short drive toward Mount Rainier the rural area becomes a string of people living in run down trailers, manufactured homes in disrepair, and houses crying out for paint and new roofs. Across the country this scene repeats itself, people living on the edge, just getting by. It’s no wonder that they can’t muster generosity of spirit when they have no financial security themselves. Sometimes the only hope for security they can envision is winning the lottery and they absolutely fear taxes will destroy what little they are scraping by on. Clinging to the American Dream is the only thing that makes it bearable, even though there’s no evidence that will happen to them. Asking for more money from these folks for any reason is a threat to their survival in their minds.
22
@Wonder, I am sincerely humbled by your insight. I can believe it is all too true.
But it's incomprehensible to me how these very same people felt that long-known corrupt, privileged, mercenary Donald Trump was the answer to the problem. And also repeatedly vote for the @GOP when all evidence shows they continually want to further undercut the very programs that aim to help those in need, while giving a $1.5 trillion tax cut that disproportionately benefited the wealthy and corporate interests who used their cash-flush coffers to buyback their stock and artificially inflate the value.
13
@ Wonder
People in the conditions you describe probably pay zero taxes local or federal. But still benefit. They are simply beyond reach of sane arguments.
This article is spot on about the regressive mindset of the left behind of rural America. There is no real way to reach them since shame is the catalyst for all their reasoning. And they like to see people get their comeuppances for doing well. The electoral college is a thing of the past and we can no longer be held hostage to people who need not only government assistance but to be dependent on people who can help them find a way out of the hole they are in: teacher; librarians; progressive people of faith; public health workers. Maybe the UN will send aid to these areas?
17
I found it ironic that Mr. Widener who is employed by the state funded--hence tax supported--University of Central Arkansas finds a librarian's wage of $25 per hour is "typical government waste".
39
"Waste" is in the eye of the beholder. I'm sure he considers his state-supported job to be more important and essential.
5
@Edward "A living wage for ME, but not for THEE."
2
@Edward Mr Widener certainly doesn’t let food go to waste.
1
I've worked in adult education all my life, in rural areas and in two of the largest cities of our country, and one thing I clearly noticed when working in rural communities is that
--- Intelligence migrates to the cities ---
This happens within families-- brothers and sisters go to jobs and prosperous lives, not very far away in distance, but very, very far away in terms of lifestyle and values. It's always hard to return home for the kids who have left, but the fact is that they're smarter than those that stayed behind. That's what this story is all about.
31
@george-I thought the same. As someone who is from a place like Van Buren County, this article details what happens to a community when all of the smart kids move away.
3
I am proudly from a small town in West Tennessee. I also wrote a book about why New York is my favorite city and why I almost moved there. That doesn’t mean I’m ashamed of my hometown, or that I think Donald Trump is the reason it celebrates simplicity, modesty, fiscal conservatism and taking care of its own. That has always been the case. The saddest part of this article, though, is the writer’s comment about those “who still choose to live in rural areas” (paraphrased), as if they haven’t seen the light of leaving their beloved towns, abandoning middle America, and moving to urban life, where they can be richer, everyone is smarter, and everything is better. For millions of Americans - that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I can only hope that if I had moved to NYC nearly 20 years ago...my view of my amazing home base, friends & family - would never have become this elitist, distorted, or even worse - so incredibly disrespectful. By the way - I now live in the heart of Memphis. A fairly large city, yet one that will always know & respect its roots.
13
@Janna H. I grew up in Memphis- it may be a large city but by and large it’s just a big small town. Lots of backward thinking, poverty, racism, and tribalism around religion. It’s slowly evolving and the “roots” you speak of included racism and Jim Crow.
@Janna H.
Well said.
Given Trump's Tax Cut for the wealthy & corporations, and the greatly increased increased deficit - the bill will come due not-too-distantly. These folks will have brought it on themselves.
18
The most ironic thing here is that the vast majority of those who live in this rural county are among the 47% of the U.S. population who are too poor to pay federal income taxes.
28
Folks in non-urban areas *are* largely "overlooked and disrespected", in politics and (more important) in economics.
We do need to pause and think carefully about the economic angle. We need to better understand the concentration of wealth and growth into a few areas. Would more distributed growth be healthier for the country as a whole?
Our present political misadventures may reflect a deeper problem with our economic model (or a lack in those models).
If economic development were better distributed, that would take pressure off housing prices, which would be good for many.
8
"It’s an attitude that is against taxes, immigrants and government, but also against helping your neighbor."
I have to vehemently disagree with the last. It is not against voluntarily helping your neighbor; people in these communities are the most willing to pitch in when someone needs help. It is against the forced help of taxing people, including those in need of help, keeping some or most to pay for the program infrastructure, then sending what's left back to those a government bureaucrat deems worthy of help.
Most people in rural communities, no matter what state, feel that they are quite capable of handling most things on their own (and they are usually right) and are equally capable and willing to see when their neighbor needs help and step in to give that help.
8
I can sadly see the thinking and conclusion some of these folks arrive at:
- Loss of benefits previously subsidized by industries that are vanishing.
- Community revenue streams drying up while individual income stagnates or falls.
- Shifting the cost of municipal services to the local ever increasing tax burden.
All the while seeing larger communities and cities, while not necessarily living in opulence, still able to leverage their much wider and deeper tax base to fund services for all.
Unfortunately, following what seems like the right conclusion of eliminating some of the benefits that help themselves to save money, the push towards the market economy for community services accelerates the death-spiral of the remote community.
4
This article is detailed and grim - - accurate, especially on the politics looking towards 2020.
Monica, you cannot know how eerily your findings track the realities out here in "Mountain" Maryland, the two most Western counties, Allegany and Garrett.
Here, "government" is the enemy, despite the fact that the region is heavily dependent, even for business start up capital, on the Appalachian Regional Comm. on state and federal prisons, colleges and medical programs.
Citizens have the departure of major international manufacturing companies in the 1970's and 1980's permanently stamped on their memories, the demarcation between decent economic times and the realities you describe.
I've lived in Frostburg, MD for five years, and I am in the process of writing a poor man's version of de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America," but translated through the darker vision of the Late Sheldon Wolin's "Democracy, Inc. I might call it "Democracy's Despair."
There is great promise in the Green New Deal, including for rural America, but the missing debates and sources of alternative economics, like MMT, mean that Limbauh and Hannity's economics are the only ones that citizens hear.
How to pay for it is crucial, and the fact that in 1945 the defense budget was 35-40% of the GDP ought to tell us that Sanders' GND proposal at 8-10% per year is doable, if we want it.
Without debate and dissent though, it is not possible to win converts. The infrastructure of democracy is MIA.
7
There is only one problem – income inequality – and until it's addressed the 'us and them' is going to widen.
The people of Van Buren, like nearly all of us, have steadily had their disposable incomes decline in the last 30 years, they can't (and shouldn't) pay more tax.
7
The Republicans they always voted for hastened that income inequality; it is, in fact, at the heart of their platform. Those same lying Republicans then tell them the government is the enemy and not paying taxes is the most important thing in the world. Stop voting GOP and your problems go away. Any takers out there in Trumpville?
2
Retreating from communal action... “they remain opposed (to taxes) even when they themselves stand to benefit.”
This seems like a nationwide problem to me. There are not many places where it is easy to pass a school bond, for example, and affluent parents in the cities I know have mostly abandoned the public school system. I saw a library funding initiative in the St Louis suburbs fail, based on the same reasoning as the people of Clinton offered. Now the well-off can buy the books they want, and they seem oblivious to their less-privileged neighbors who live in separate neighborhoods, segregated by local zoning laws and historic red-lining.
8
The state didn’t invest in modernizing. The ambitious and educated moved away leaving the remaining state population vulnerable to fickle extraction industries. The capital was removed from the land and redeployed elsewhere, and now the state is broke, a victim of the free market. The only defense against this exploitation is good governance. So who do the victims distrust? - seems like the whole state has Stockholm syndrome.
13
These rural trump voters don't understand, or want to understand that federal taxes and transfer payments are already supporting their communities. With 25% of the population over 65, a huge chunk of income is from Social Security and Medicare, add in food stamps, Medicaid, SSI and SSDI and it becomes clear how dependent much of rural America is on the Federal government. Medicare for all will bring good paying jobs, improved health outcomes as well as local tax revenue to support libraries, parks and schools to rural America. The funny thing is that Bay Area residents don't resent paying taxes that support struggling rural counties like Van Buren, we resent the attacks calling us anti-American traitors. If we all crawl into our own cave, we have found a shortcut back to the stone age.
29
I hope readers don't take the message to be that we shouldn't make promises about free college and Medicare for All and a Green New Deal.
The message is that we have to fight for these things.
14
According to Wikipedia, Arkansas has the lowest percentage of Bachelor’s degrees in the nation. It is also has one of the lowest levels of education among all 50 states. When the Electoral College system is thrown into that mix we can conclude that Democracy is a dysfunctional system and will accelerate our country’s decline.
12
Wouldn’t it be great if the uber-wealthy invested their largesse in poor rural countries rather than building yet another vanity building at Yale or buy themselves a trusteeship at an art museum already swimming in prestige wings funded by Wall Street? Andrew Carnegie, a miserable and lonely old steel magnate, built libraries all across the country. Wouldn’t it be great if each billionaire family adopted a poor rural county like Van Buren and set up trust fund to build a community college and pay for its operations for a few years? Note to Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, the Walton heirs, Koch family, and all the other 0.1% billionaires what is holding you back?
Like a new interstate off ramp, community colleges are magnates for investment and newcomers. Instead of leaving town for good, the smart kids will return home (after college and maybe a military stint) to start new businesses and families. I am pretty sure the grumpy old timers would come out of their bunkers to drink a few beers and munch on nachos at the new brew pub - if only to see something new. And maybe they might even approve a pay raise for the county librarian.
13
@Betsy C
All those families you mention can invest in the re-building the nations infrastructure and future and really make a difference, and STILL live pretty good lives with their fortunes.
Here's a radical thought, there should be no billionaires. Too much responsibility and waste.
5
Education and the library would provide opportunities for their children. Do parents in Clinton not want this or believe (like I think many poorer parents do) that education is unhelpful in life? I'm sure that Mr. Widener would have some argument for decreasing taxes while working at a university which probably gets tax money. But I agree that the Democratic Party has abandoned places like Clinton and the people in them.
4
Can we accept that this entire state is a lost cause and move on?
After all, this is Arkansas, a state that joined the Confederacy. Even before the modern era, their elites (plantation owners) told them a tale of independence that had not responsibility for others - a great story for a landowner with slaves, or later on sharecroppers, but of little value for the rest of us.
I am curious just how many of these folks depend on Medicaid of Food Stamps, or are on Social Security disability or VA benefits. I bet more than in prosperous NJ.
25
@Terry McKenna
Arkansas gave us a great novelist (Charles Portis of “True Grit”), and the wonderful actresses Tess Harper and Mary Steenburgen. And it did give us a good president in the 90s. Otherwise. . .
6
@RS
That "good" president not so good upon close examination from a policy perspective. Not for the middle and lower classes in any case.
He and President Obama both looking for the approval of an absent father and finding it in the proponents of center right ideology.
2
@Terry McKenna
How many people in NJ accept food stamps (SNAP) from the government? (9%)
My dual income, college educated, white collar household pays plenty of taxes and we always vote the blue lever- but after reading these stories over and over, I have to ask, “Why do I vote to support programs that go to people who hate me”. Maybe we should abolish the federal government and let each state fend for themselves. Think of all the nice things we could have if we didn’t have to carry the poor rurals and pay $750b for the military.
40
Deirdre, on a visceral level your tongue-in-cheek perspective speaks to me. But we can't give in to the temptation to think this way. The vast majority of us are all victimized in some way by the capitalism-at-any-cost climate and the big money that has such influence on the politicians we elect to purportedly serve our best interests. Agreed it does get tiresome to be attacked as liberal "coastal elites" when I believe most of us are happy for "our" tax revenues to be reapportioned to those in more need, for the greater good of our country. Why anyone thought for a moment that the long-evidenced corrupt, privileged, racist, misogynistic, narcissistic, generally hateful, Donald Trump, would be their saviour I'll never understand.
Back When America Was Great, the top income tax bracket was 90%. Economic growth averaged over 3% annually. I suspect that Van Buren County had good schools and a good library.
The Beast Has Been Starved, which was the point; the social contract has been obliterated, which I suppose was unfortunate collateral damage. (Adding a trillion dollars to the deficit to finance stock buybacks, though, in a bill that was not the subject of a single Congressional hearing, oh well--corporations could not even legally buy their own stock before 1980!)
Have taxes always been so radioactive? Well, no:
An 1848 report to the state government of Ohio: "Rightful taxation is the price of social order."
The State School Supervisor of Georgia, in 1916: “Taxation is the price of civilization.”
Supreme Court opinion by Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1927: "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society."
God help the people of Van Buren County; I would be happy to via federal programs, but I know when I'm not wanted.
25
@dcs Great post DCS. Spot on. I never resent paying taxes, but these people make it seem as though money spent on them would be truly wasted.
This is a really beautifully written article. Using issues around funding a public library to document the damage associated with economic hard times, isolation and structural change in rural communities puts things on a personal scale and makes it real and compelling. You can almost hear the rending of the social fabric in Ms. Potts descriptions of the county and its inhabitants. The title of the piece is well chosen because it explores how communities can reflexively shoot themselves in the foot, as retreating from communal action to self-reliance leads to self-immolation. Clearly, human individuals and collectives do not always act in their own best interest.
14
I've never forgotten a poster I passed one day years ago in my local library: Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries.
39
@Mary Bristow
The Fabulous Fury Freak brothers had a similar philosophy regarding hooch. Loved that comic book,
Studies demonstrate that residents of rural counties receive far more in federal benefits then they pay in taxes.
I wonder how these citizens would react if urban tax payers assumed a position that this imbalance is one they no longer wish to support.
We are all in this together and declining help offered in favor of withdrawal, mistrust, and cruelty only makes the world a little colder
27
Have the library offer services people want, like DVDs, even video games. Show good old movies for free that Amazon charges for. Or thinking way out of the box, wedding receptions. If you’re a library member, you get a big discount.
About the only government service rural people value is medical care. Arkansas expanded Medicaid coverage under the ACA. It shouldn’t be too hard to find people in Van Buren County who use it. Ask them if they would vote for Trump if he promised to end the program. If Democrats what to win rural residents, they should talk about making dental care available.
13
@GiGi It's a library, not a Walmart.
Wouldn’t it be great if the uber-wealthy each adopted a rural county like Van Buren with a dwindling, largely poor and aging population? Instead of funding yet another vanity building at Yale or a wing at a fancy hospital in NYC or San Francisco, why not set up a trust fund to build a community college in one of these counties, and fund its operations for at least a few years. Andrew Carnegie was a miserly and lonely old steel magnate, but his name is emblazoned on libraries - big and small - all around the country. Note to Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Schwartz, the Walton heirs and all the other 0.1% billionaires- what is holding you back?
Community colleges are akin to an interstate hwy. They bring in new people wanting to invest and grow the community in exchange for a rural lifestyle. All of a sudden, the smart kids want to stay in town (after completing their college education) and start new businesses and raise young families. I guarantee you that the locals would come out of their bunkers to drink a few beers at the new brew pub. They may even decide it’s ok to give the librarian a raise.
13
The needs of Clinton's citizens are addressed by many active bills in the House of Representatives. The same concerns, like wages, are prominent issues for every Democratic Party presidential candidate. The Trump factor and their adherence to his backwards policies derive from the outmoded, useless Senate whose organizational principles reflect demographics of the late 18th century. The result is disproportional representation that permits a tyranny of the minority. From highly partisan court & executive confirmations to reactionary legislation, the Senate obstructs the implementation of a truly representative democracy. Were that order resuscitated through a process of constitutional reforms, the voters in Van Buren County and elsewhere throughout flyover country could participate in meaningful and effective civic dialogue.
5
These good people would be happier cheering at a live wrestling match or Trump rally- same thing. They want bread and circuses - not change.
Remember the miners who vilified Hillary after she told them she would support them into training and new jobs? They don’t want change. They want to go back to 1950 when the world was in tatters and the US had factory orders combing from everywhere.
19
@Deirdre They have no idea about the 1950s. Its much simpler than that anyway. Rural folks are one minority cultivated by another minority (1%) to tyrannize the majority and paralyze society. Walmart is based in Arkansas. At least five Walton family members appear in the Forbes list of 400 billionaires. I wonder how much state tax they pay? Many other comments here show that despite her earnest style, Ms. Potts is less than thorough in her reporting.
1
It isn't just about poor people in the flyover states. Even in Democratic states and among educated people, there's all too often an attitude of "As long as my family is OK, and I have a job, and money in my 401(k), I don't care about anything else." The myth of "rugged individualism" will destroy this country.
29
@Jill C.
It is the heart and soul of republican orthodoxy.
1
Trump voters should be aware that Trump has increased the federal budget deficit to one trillion dollars in his latest budget. Candidate Trump’s budget proposals were second only to Bernie Sanders’ in how much they would balloon the federal budget deficit and bloat the federal debt. Trump voters, and their kids, will be paying for that for generations. Trump said everything would be fine because the economy would grow faster than ever. Has that happened? No. Only more debt piled on to the $20 trillion and growing federal debt burden.
Wake up Trump voters. Just because Trump speaks against limousine liberals doesn’t mean he’s doing you any favors.
19
Never have I appreciated my small rural Oregon town so much. I left at age 18 because, duh, then somewhat reluctantly moved back two decades later. Sure, everyone is way too much up in each others' business, and there are plenty of Trump voters, but everyone understands we're living in the same community. School, library, fire, etc., bonds, unless they are ridiculous, almost always pass at election time. AND everyone understands that the immigrants working out in the fields are doing jobs that they don't want to do themselves.
17
@Zarvora Cymbeline
So you accept an economic structure based on exploitation of an underclass.
The framing of this article feels a bit unfair to me.
The basic framing is the worker, who works in public service in a knowledge industry likely to be respected by readers of the NY Times, is denied a reasonable pay raise by the rural citizenry.
Then two voices of opposition are allowed to speak. One a woman who commutes every week to a job 700 miles away, representing the link to the external economy and the limits of what that kind of link will support. And then the public employee making more than the librarian who claims that public employees should be paid about half what commenters report he makes, representing, I guess, pure selfishness.
So selfishness and the limits of what the external economy will provide working in concert to prevent improving the public good.
It's all fine, except this community, with $11 million in annual revenue, just recently spent millions building a new library. Now they have to make tough budget choices and a small budget line for the library is scratched from the list. That doesn't seem particularly unusual, and I expect similar decisions are made all the time all over the country, New York City included. People have to balance priorities and things that have recently gotten attention tend to get less for a while.
I'm not sure this relatively minor event is strong enough to support the intellectual edifice being built on it.
14
@Brian Stansberry
Not unusual at all, and in addition to the over $2 million still owed on the building, there would be significant operating and maintenance costs which are not mentioned. These add up too, but hardly ever seem to be factored into the equation when the money is coming in and there are designers and contractors at the ready to build some big new building which will then become the responsibility of the locals . . .
4
I love libraries. As an American that has moved, at the national average of about every 6 to 7 years, and lived in six states in this great country, local libraries are the community good that I most appreciate. A good local library can help one acclimate to the local culture, while keeping you connected to the broader American culture. And I've always been proud to vote for taxes that go to support our local libraries.
Sadly, my most recent residence was an almost three year affair in a small town in the MO Ozarks. The library there was desperately in need of capital improvements and daily operational changes, and appeared to have little community support. I was very excited to leave that community earlier than we had planned. My new state and community have beautiful local libraries with excellent local and state support.
12
@LL First thing my son did when he graduated from college and moved away to start his life, was get a library card. He said it makes him feel grounded and part of the community. I do the same when I move. Good libraries are wonderful - serene, stimulating, interesting and community based. Nothing better.
7
As did some of the other commentators write, I also grew-up in a working class neighborhood. We did not know that we were poor. The nearest public library was a 15 minute bus ride away, but, we had a regular weekly bookmobile stop up the street. There were always lines waiting to return and then borrow more books. Our education was prized and actively supported by by both parents and grandparents. The first to graduate college in my family as a first generation American, my parents were proud of me but some of my relatives were envious. My cohort friends, most first generation as I, also went on to college and success. It must be the culture of in-bred thought that causes the stultifying reality described in Clinton, Arkansas and other places like it around the country and around the world.
11
Your piece could have been written about the small borough in north central PA where I was raised.
The issue differed — replacing a deteriorating high school facility — but the response was the same: I don’t have kids so I won’t pay for it. And I’ll toss out the school board while I’m at it. (They did.)
At the same time, its 4500 not-wealthy residents deny the community’s longstanding problems with drugs, corruption, water pollution, and more.
Sigh.
21
As I look at my Facebook pages of friends who continue to live in the small town environment we grew up in, I see nothing but preponderance of Trump propaganda the author so accurately portrays.
I have come to realized many of these people are or will be on the government dole they so faithfully despise. It is a testament to rural America thinking where for many a major trip is to the state capital for a Republican political rally.
Unfortunately, our political system gives these people an outsized vote in the Electoral College system --- and if Trump and Fox News play their cards right he will get four more years --- and, maybe that is what it is going to take to change the political system.
17
@KD Lawrence, if there is a system left. Trump and the GOP will most certainly use that term to lock down the government for themselves.
1
It makes me laugh when people who contribute so little to the federal government and to society worry about how their tax dollar is spent. They claim to be concerned about wasting tax payer money while Trump gives gigantic tax relief to the wealthy and to corporations. Meanwhile in Van Buren County, Ark., 11.3 percent of working-age adults get federal disability benefits, putting it in the top 5 percent nationally. Trump's 2020 budget has $72 billion in cuts to disability programs including reductions in Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). It is always mystifying to see people vote against their own self-interest, but ignorance has a way of doing that.
39
@Seeking Truth
This is a population filled with shame. They cannot compete for good paying tech jobs. They feel trapped and ignored and have little hope. The one way they feel some power is to poke a finger in the eye of elites is by voting for a candidate like Trump. Trump rails against the educated elites, and high tech companies and the “corrupt” liberal press.
A very sad. but also very frightening account of life in rural America, or at least one town in rural America. It appears that folks who live in these areas have given up on their country, their community, their way of life, and worst of all themselves.
I'm old enough to remember (and be involved in) federal government efforts to overcome some of these problems, such as the Great Society, Aid to Appalachia, etc. None of it seems to have had significant or lasting positive impact on the targeted areas and populations, despite the efforts of those involved in designing and delivering the assistance.
The message of this tragic portrayal of rural life seems to be escape or be drawn into the black hole. The only positive aspect of this description of bleak existence is that the number of people living it, and living in it, is shrinking.
16
Somehow democrats need to find the antidote for the sense of moral superiority that is cultivated and weaponized against the less sophisticated elements of the American electorate. Republicans/Conservatives have identified this aspect of human nature and have seized upon it with remarkable effect. It is clear that if you can focus on religious belief, racial bigotry or cultural pride, people can be persuaded that their obvious self-interest is inconsequential relative to the illusion of moral superiority.
16
Dear Ms. Potts,
Thank you for this informative article. We need more information and perspective to help us understand other people.
7
I commented on this yesterday, but have been haunted by this article. I see the same attitudes where I live in one of the richest parts of the country. Perhaps it's a relativity issue: being far enough from Boston so there is a cultural divide.
On one hand I sincerely understand it. No one really wants to pay more taxes. On the other hand I've also noticed people are extremely selective about what they are willing to support: Schools are fine unless the belief is teachers are being paid too much. Road infrastructure, though everyone benefits, always seems to be something no one wants to pay for.
In most cases people seem to not understand that they taxes they pay don't even cover the services they already use. Massachusetts schools are among the best in the country and somehow people believe their real estate taxes cover the actual costs.
Recently I've begun to wonder whether we've created a society that we simple can't afford, or are willing to finance.
12
@David D
If we truly had a income tax based upon our ability to pay, would we still be unable to afford it?
6
Every human population follows the bell curve. There will always be people who feel threatened by difference and change. The problem here is that they are concentrating in rural areas. When our election system was created this separation was much less apparent. Now this system results in inordinate political power going to this rural segment of the population. Rule by the lowest common denominator minority. Now the question is what will happen first, the frustrated majority changing the system or the rural population dying off to insignificance.
And don’t talk about convincing this minority of anything, it’s just their nature.
13
Democrats need only to get registered voters out to vote in order to win in 2020.
Then after winning, they must attend to the problems created by our economic system: wage disparities, the transfer of wealth upwards due to low wages, the change in jobs due to automation and energy sources.
Schools, libraries, health care, and other social services can't be neglected unless we want a nation (or county) full of ill-informed, sick citizens.
Willie Sutton, when asked why he robbed banks, replied, "Because that is where the money is." Who will pay for the changes needed now? Those that are making the money; that is where the money is.
7
Thanks for the view of a part of our country that slowly is committing suicide. Anyone with any sense of wanting more out of life than being poor will leave such communities. Medical services will be harder to obtain as no one is willing to pay for the facilities. Children will not be prepared to function in a world that requires education, but no one is willing to pay to educate. Populations will wilt away. Churches will struggle to remain open as the old die off and the young flee. Walmarts will close from a lack of customers remaining in the area as those who can will leave. When the internet crashes, it will be hard to find people to maintain it is no one can read and write well enough to follow the instructions in a manual.
Communities require community spirit and involvement in communal activities. When no one has responsibility for anything outside the walls of their own hovel, communities die.
Rural communities flourished for millennia, but they won't continue to do so if they rely solely on self interest. Perhaps it will be too late for these communities when they wake up to the fact that their cherished Jesus recommended that we each treat the other as we would be treated, yet no one is willing to pay a penny to help others in need. No one wants to be tossed aside and thus to be alone, yet that is what happens when no one is willing to help the community as a whole.
We pitch in to support one another or we die off one by one as isolated individuals.
19
Unnecessary services? I see several stop signs in Audra Melton's photo. Stop signs are an unnecessary luxury. People should be able to work out their own issues at intersections, and not all people use them. The county should take them down and auction them off, and reduce taxes. The same with signs for street names -- another unnecessary luxury. What with Google Maps and all, who really needs them? Pull them down and do without.
For that matter, the asphalt blacktop pavement itself is another unnecessary luxury. People did just fine for hundreds of years with dirt and gravel roads. The county could fetch a pretty penny, were it to auction off the blacktop for salvage. Time was, citizens turned out spring and fall for two weeks of county road duty, at little cost to the county. Reinstitute this practice and do away with paved roads entirely -- an enormous savings to the county.
And the street lights on every utility pole-- who is paying for those to burn all night? More waste, more unnecessary luxury. So many little things, but those pennies quickly add up to hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. Or more.
For all their whining and complaining, it does seem, on casual observation, that the good citizens of Van Buren County are every bit as flagrantly wastrel as their big city neighbors.
25
My sense is much of rural America has fallen into conditions similar to what was seen in the core of America's cities a generation ago and is still there in many. Not enough economic opportunity for a thriving culture, but enough government transfer payments to let a population survive.
This article brings to mind the conservative arguments from my youth about the evils of welfare dependency. Government handouts allowing people to stew in their own juices, not having to fully deal with reality.
Those arguments always made quite a bit of sense to me. I strongly believe in a strong society where people help each other, and I strongly believe democratic government must play a big role, as the naturally tendency otherwise is for wealth and power to concentrate in the hands of a few. But I don't think the left has ever come up with a good answer to the problem of people sinking into dependency.
Or maybe we have, and the answer is just that it happens and there's not much to be done about it, beyond ensuring there are some pathways out for those who have a strong drive to escape.
4
It's ironic that people like the ones livving in Van Buren County, Ark don't want to pay for things they're not likely to use (like libraries and reliable, high-speed Internet connectivity), but then complain to pollsters that the economy is leaving them behind (which was mentioned in the NPR story the author linked to).
It seems that the things they don't want to pay for are the kinds of things that would attract employers to their areas, but all they choose to focus on is the immediate pain of a tax increase over the promise of long-term benefit.
Since many of these people are likely to be older, and near retirement age (or already retired), they focus on the threat of taxes eating into their retirement savings like many mugging victims fixate on the gun being pointed at them, to the exclusion of just about everything else.
12
The trajectory of a nation is almost completely determined by how much that nation invests in the future. Investing in the future workforce, investing in education, investing in research. In the 1980s, we elected Reagan and Republicans to the House and Senate and turned our backs on the idea of a government that invests in the nation. During the Clinton administration, we continued on that trajectory. Now we are reaping the rewards of that decision. The only way to turn this country around is to ramp investment in our country back up, and even then it will take another 35 years to undo the damage that started with Reagan.
14
Things worked out differently here in rural southwest Oregon. The place ran on timber, ag and some tourism, but mostly timber, like most of western Oregon. But we got tired of having economic pnuemonia every time the housing market caught a cold. People made a determined effort to diversify away from timber. We still cut lots of two by fours, but the college is now a university, the tourists are welcomed with everything from Crater Lake bike rides to an excellent Shakespeare theatre. We stopped the big mills before they cut all the old growth. At the county level we have republican rule but we fight back, often with help from a democratic governor and legislature. Rural life can be a good, progressive life.
15
@Rich Fairbanks
Let us hope it continues. Oregon is a good example but it is also where the Cliven Bundy
story unfolded. Education investment in trade schools is a good idea with political legs in Oregon. I hope it flourishes.
6
The rural communities that you mention her are not really typical of the small towns of the past. I am over 80 and grew up in one. I never heard the spite that is spewed by small town and rural residents now. They have lost their goodwill and neighborliness, most likely because they have lost their comfortable livelihoods and ultimately, their self respect. Rural people seem to have turned dark and fearful, resenting those who have a better education and better life in the cities. Many of the young have gone, leaving a plurality of cheerless elderly unhappy with their life and complaining about their favorite bugaboo 'big government.' They vote for Trump to spite the alien culture they resent. Unfortunately, there is a remorseless demography hurtling away from rural areas. It will not stop. The only answer may come when the last person to leave town turns out the lights.
25
These people are in a generational downward spiral. Their closed world view means they are not exposed to opportunity for growth and increasing their wealth and wellbeing. Meanwhile, their lack of wealth means that trying something new is very risky, especially if they know their neighbors will treat them harshly. So they hold on in quasi desperation while things get slowly worse, and their communities dwindle and disappear.
An individual person doing this would be characterized as clinically depressed, and possibly qualify as disabled. Their friends would start to worry about them committing suicide. Such depressed people will usually feel persecuted and ignored, maybe feel guilty, maybe withdraw from the larger world, and they are often not able to seek or trust help. But help is what they desperately need.
When I read stories about communities like the one in this article, I see them in mental health terms. I see them as communally depressed and disabled, on the road to self destruction.
Problem is that there is no model for treating a whole community the way you would treat a severely depressed person. They will assert their collective rights to independence. They will sincerely believe that they like the way things are. Instead of opening to compassionate conversation about possible problems and solutions, it just becomes another kind of identity politics where self determination and belonging are paramount, regardless of the the obvious internal conflicts.
20
@Chris Grieving a significant loss, or a perceived loss, or a potential loss all prompt the reactions of depression. The reaction of depression rarely lifts unless there is hope for moving on toward a new normal, and hopefully secure and fulfilling existence.
Seeking to turn back the clock, or even maintain a painful present is likely to perpetuate the grieving/depression.
Unfortunately, grieving/depression warps judgement to not see things clearly. In this article's community, the blind are leading the blind.
4
I think the people of Van Buren County are right to be skeptical about the $25/hour rate for a librarian. In business, the concept of the value proposition determines price. Value is situational and subjective. Despite what our universities want us to believe, a master's degree or any degree has no absolute value. The market determines its value, not the holder. What hasn't made clear in this case is the value proposition. What specific, concrete benefits will the people in this place at this time get for $25/hour? And do these people value those benefits?
4
@Eugene A. Melino They get somebody running a business that provides essential services to anyone in the community who wants to use them: presumably books, dvds, computer access, classes on a variety of topics, story hours and other special programs for children, possibly special programs for seniors, possibly ESL, meeting space, and on and on, plus advice on how to use these services and the ability to keep current on the best ways to deliver these services. I think it's a bargain at $25 an hour.
21
The mental and physical circumstances of the citizens described in this article are awful ... but I doubt they describe the circumstances of the 90,000 voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania who awarded Trump the Electoral College in 2016.
Many, if not most, of those marginal cases voted for Obama in 2012. A Democratic candidate concerned with giving these voters reasonable healthcare options and stable retirement prospects has a good chance to sway them back.
A candidate more concerned with cultural appropriation and gender-neutral pronouns will chase them, and many others, even deeper into Trump's embrace.
6
Very good article. It makes me think that just racism isn’t what animates this phenomenon. Something much deeper and profoundly disturbing is going on.
I encounter many people like this as well in my work and I love them but cannot understand or agree with them. My only hope is to work extra hard to convince them I care about them and let them know kindly, I disagree with them but will not work to harm them.
Putting myself in their shoes, the best I can, I know I would resent me telling them I have a better way. And that is a mistake I learned through much trial and error.
But I vote. And spend my money on businesses and political and social causes they disdain. My hope is that they will see for themselves what my words will not accomplish. Til then I must sadly respect their desire to live as they see fit and I won’t waste my time appealing to them in political terms.
17
A good 20 years ago an upstate county in New York actually changed the facade of its new county building so that it "didn't look so expensive" as its current architectural design seemed to indicate. Only a few, along with myself, seemed to think there was anything amiss in this reasoning. When it was pointed out that it cost more in the end for a less attractive result the answer was a sort of 'so what' even though there was general agreement on both points.
13
Why talk about what such people think about Democratic candidates and policies? Such people would never vote for a Democrat anyway. Haven't since the Southern Strategy, generations now. Chasing after "Trump voters" is a fool's game for Democrats. What Democrats need to do to win in 2020 is protect and marshall the votes they have, by fighting voter supression and election hacking, and activate the excite the Obama voters who didn't come out in 2026 and 2018.
30
Let people have the level of government services they want by having states and communities provide those services, and then giving a full tax credit (not just a deduction) on federal income taxes for state and local taxes paid.
6
A special way of life in America...the 160-640 acre family farm..was lost during the 1950s and '60s -- literally a lifetime ago...getting closer to a century now. Not to mention the almost complete loss of the man-power dependent underground coal mining industry during the same period...and factories for things "Made in America." No matter who they vote for or what TV news their citizens watch, small rural towns that depended on these economic drivers can't hope to survive much longer.
8
@Cowboy Marine
This is the downside to market economics where economies of scale and over/under capitalization issues prevail. Some things can be done to mitigate this but only regulation of agribusiness conglomerates is effective, and only in the short run . Sadly, financials of farming and small scale industry in rural areas is in a death spiral.
1
So much of this is sad in so many ways - even more so since it's ultimately self-inflicted. I grew up in a place much like Clinton, but larger. Even though it was larger and slightly more developed, the willful ignorance as a means of self-insulation and propping up a hollow hubris was nonetheless pervasive and stifling. One of the many ironies is, of course, these folks' notions of "self-sufficiency" and "independence." Their "burdensome" taxes pay for very little of the government subsidies that allow them to perpetuate their self-indulged island. Another irony is that the blue states provide so much of the government financial support that allows them to live in nostalgia and thereby to undermine democratic values and true efforts at self-sufficiency by voting for the red forces that have destroyed their nostalgized dreams. Change is the only constant. To pretend otherwise, and to live off the support of others, is naive at best, and more likely a trait of arrested adolescence - this lack of responsibility is the illness that's truly subverting America. Millions of self-indulgent "teenagers" want their own homes, trucks, etc., but disdain work unless it's a certain kind and expect their "parents" to support their lifestyle, all the while complaining about "those other kids" who actually do make sacrifices, but "look funny." To say this is a form of mental illness might seem cruel, but it's not far off the mark. To treat it as otherwise is merely to perpetuate it.
18
It is ironic that the same people who detest taxes and will celebrate unfettered "free enterprise" are those same ones who would rather see their community sink into oblivion by the truculent embrace of destructive policies.
It means a studied opposition to the very things that can help such as medical care (rural hospitals are closing at record rates) education and the drug epidemic.
The free market will solve their problem in the long term as the population dwindles and services decline to the lowest possible level the community becomes unsustainable. They will also lose their voice in the matter as they will no longer have local officials to grouse to and possibly even lose their Congressional representative as the population declines.
It seems they are willing to cut off their heads to spite whomever and whatever they can in their inchoate anger.
16
This is an excellent essay. It hits home. Growing up in California I frequently visited my relatives in the Central San Joaquin Valley. My uncle moved to the foothills. Now California overall is very liberal. But the Central Valley and the foothills are extremely conservative. While there are plenty of factors for their conservative bent, a big factor is access to real journalism. My uncle would work in his shop and the only radio stations he could get other than religious stations were broadcast s by people like Rush Limbaugh. I’m convinced my uncle, a smart guy, would have changed his views had he had access to things like NPR and more mainstream professional journalists. I’m also sure this is what’s partly to blame for attitudes in other parts of America.
21
Unmentioned in this piece is that the Trump administration has cranked up spending and run up the national debt—hardly a model of fiscal conservatism.
15
@Josh — I’ll bet they don’t know about trump’s contribution to the debt and deficit.
1
Thanks for such a well written, thoughtful op-ed. I have never seen the Republican inspired philosophy of cutting taxes on the wealthy and letting the benefits of those tax cuts trickle down to the people so thoroughly discredited.
I suspect you have skipped over telling us about how the people of Clinton work together and how they decide which projects should be worked on. Understanding that piece would help Democrats shape their message to reach the people of Clinton and Van Buren County.
The message is, yes we can. We can work together to accomplish things we cannot accomplish alone. That we includes the we of Clinton and Van Buren County.
5
"The library fight was, itself, a fight over the future of rural America, what it meant to choose to live in a county like mine, what my neighbors were willing to do for one another, what they were willing to sacrifice to foster a sense of community here.
The answer was, for the most part, not very much."
Please be careful with sweeping generalities.
Not too far from where I live, Woodstock, NY, there is a terrible struggle over the library's fate. To tear a building down and rebuild, or not. The famous town, with a local rural population, is "progressive city," with probably a minority only of Trump voters. The joke is that Woodstock is a country onto itself, like California.
Yet, the good progressive folks of Woodstock still find time to fight over the library. And this has been ongoing for several years. And it can be vicious.
So, using your standard for your new book, it seems that the local Woodstock folk don't wish to help each other "very much."
Or perhaps one struggle over a library does not exemplify an entire population.
And why should a librarian make more than a shale field worker? I like that comment about the "dewey decimal system" not being harder than a job working with your hands.
Seems fair to me, not a symbol of decay.
But that may be too socialist for you.
5
Why should a cop or fireman make more money than a teacher or librarian? Is it because of gender discrimination?
1
"Katherine J. Cramer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, summed up the attitudes she observed after years of studying rural Americans: 'The way these folks described the world to me, their basic concern was that people like them, in places like theirs, were overlooked and disrespected.'" Dr. Cramer has dine enlightening work, but it is condescending to talk about "these folks" and to sum up their views with a simple sentence. I think there are huge differences between Wisconsin and Arkansas that are not captured when one just looks at economics. And then there is a big similarity that is not mwntioned here. Illiteracy in the sense of people who do not or cannot read literature or poetry is growing as people focus their learning after high school on what they view online, supposed nonfiction, short pieces all mixed up with exploitation. That this writer glosses over the illiteracy and technology aspect of a fight over the library is a big hole in this piece. I am not sure people like Cramer or this writer can drop in and observe other people to get a sense of their motivations. What we say and what feel are hard to capture even in our families and social groups. Much less by people with other experiences. The whole thing here seems condescending from the headline to the piece. I am not sure this helps bring common purpose to the table.
5
@Mrs. T The writer was born and raised in this town.
2