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The Problems Of Rural Christian White Americans

Mid-West a Victim of Rural Brain Drain

I think it's fairly understated how big of an impact de-industrialization and this are having on your politics.

Based on everything I've seen the U.S. is becoming more not less polarized on a lot of issues, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is a key factor in the process.

And so the problem isn't he said/she said, it's economic, and probably also to a significant extent cultural given dumb policies exacerbate the problem.
 
Did you even read the Cracked article?

Why? Does it explain why you characterize that response as a dismissal? The inbred hicks or whatever they are being called at the moment are being held accountable. It's ugly because it's out of control. They were previously protected in part by political correctness. No one is dismissing the very people who are repeating history for us all right now. The entire globe has eyes on the US right wing mentality. Doesn't matter if it's name calling or thoughtful analysis, no one is dismissing right wing authoritarian followers.
 
What I find particularly interesting about you is that you seem to think this only applies to the right wing and not to the regressive left.

Echoes of "Waht about Hillary? Uranium1! Pizzagate!"

Seriously JP - the so-called "regressive left" isn't controlling all three branches of the US government. We can worry about them when they do. Meanwhile, we have a five-alarm meltdown happening in DC, and the 'pug congress - the only body authorized to do anything about it - is sitting on their thumbs.
 
Seriously JP - the so-called "regressive left" isn't controlling all three branches of the US government. We can worry about them when they do. Meanwhile, we have a five-alarm meltdown happening in DC, and the 'pug congress - the only body authorized to do anything about it - is sitting on their thumbs.

These kinds of polarized blinders are not good. That the regressive left is not controlling all three branches of the US government does not make the regressive left not a problem, and does not make it not a case of what Floof was referring to as only applying to the right wing. Nor does pointing at the right and declaring they are the only ones who can think in this dangerous way encourage bipartisan cooperation and clear unpolarized thinking. Many things put Trump in power, and one of them was people being sick of "political correctness" which they equate (often wrongly) to the regressive left.
 
Now, hopefully, then will listen to the people next time
. Listen to which people about what? The people who wanted a middle finger and didn’t care who they killed to get it? And listen to them about what- implementing their insane ideas about mega guns for everyone and dead poor people in the streets at the feet of billionaires?

I laugh every time someone chooses Trump because the Dems are “too corporate”. Smh.
 
People with blinders tend to not realize they have blinders.

Getting back to the OP, regardless of the degree of "deplorableness" in rural America, the OP issue is that a large chunk of rural America either does not understand the causes of their decline or is unable/unwilling to accept the causes. So, the issue for any honorable politician is to convince them of the reality.

Joan Robinson once said something like "Cranks come out and are accepted when orthodoxy fails". That is what is happening now. We, the people, have failed a large proportion of the population, and that failure is fueling the acceptance of the cranks and the charlatans.
 
An insider explains how rural Christian white America has a dark and terrifying underbelly

"As the election of Donald Trump is being sorted out, a common theme keeps cropping up from all sides: “Democrats failed to understand white, working-class, fly-over America.”

Trump supporters are saying this. Progressive pundits are saying this. Talking heads across all forms of the media are saying this. Even some Democratic leaders are saying this. It doesn’t matter how many people say it, it is complete BS. It is an intellectual/linguistic sleight of hand meant to draw attention away from the real problem. The real problem isn’t East Coast elites who don’t understand or care about rural America. The real problem is that rural Americans don’t understand the causes of their own situations and fears and they have shown no interest in finding out. They don’t want to know why they feel the way they do or why they are struggling because they don’t want to admit it is in large part because of the choices they’ve made and the horrible things they’ve allowed themselves to believe."

I completely agree.. but I would add that not all of dumb-America has been given the opportunity to change any of that. I don't think they made "bad choices" in most cases... I think they were denied a choice by an educational system that has no enforceable standards... even though we can observe the harm caused by a lack of education in the ways mentioned here, teaching religion as fact is still not considered child abuse, denying objective reality and presenting an alternative reality is still not illegal.

Our insufficiently regulated freedom in that area gives us, not only the freedom, but the drive to be free to pound oneself, and one's children, into the ground.
 
That the regressive left is not controlling all three branches of the US government does not make the regressive left not a problem

The regressive left (I still don't know who that is) might be a YUUUGE problem - I don't know. But it is not a clear and present, urgent danger to American Democracy. The alt-right IS.
What you are saying reminds me a time that a stove chimney caught a roof truss on fire in my house. I picked up the phone (back in the days of land lines) to call for help, and it was a friend, who needed my help with something.
"I gotta go - my house is on fire!" I heard him reply as I was hanging up -
"When do you think it will be out?" (True story!)

Some things are more urgent than others, JP.
 
No. The millions of people who voted Trump to the point that he won the election are not all just evil racists out to flaunt status over black people. It is almost amusing that you think that.

They do prioritize some things over what we see as "their interests", but it isn't all about race. It is issues such as abortion, gun control, religion, etc.

They prioritze things that help to fuel a racist, sexist, xenophobic ideology.
Racism is core part of what fuels right-wing religion and pro-gun nuttery. The racist-motivations and general bigotry at the very core of Abrahamic religion and that defines conservative Christianity should require not further explanation. Anti gun-control extremism is not only highly correlated with white supremacist views, but the NRA itself has pushed a clearly racist ideology as part of its tactic to increase gun sales by fueling fear of the violent darkies. Here is just one gem from the NRA CEO attacking both blacks and women as unfit for the presidency: During the 2015 NRA meeting, after several minutes of attacking Obama and in reference to Hillary's campaign he said, "Eight years of one demographically symbolic President is enough."

Why is he still the NRA CEO? Because his sexist white supremacy was met with cheers and praise by the NRA membership and virtually zero criticism.

It is also very much about raising a middle finger to the establishment,

And one of the things Trumpians hate most about the establishment is that it is progressively granting more and more equal rights to people they don't think deserve them. Since the civil war, most anti-federalism and "states' rights" has been about desire to prevent the Fed from applying the Bill of rights equally to all.


demonization of the left (which is helped immensely by the over the top SJWs seen on TV and in news articles they read),

And the thing they most demonize about the left is the left's attempt to protect the human and civil rights of people that Trumpian's don't think deserve it. Are there some "high profile" instances of over-reach by the left? Yes, but much of that high profile is created by the armies of alt-right bloggers, social media hounds, and racist uncles who go ballistic over mostly minor meaningless stories.

The real and severe instances of attacks on the lives and rights of minorities and and the LGBT community outnumber those leftist over-reaches by a million to 1. It is psychologically implausible that any adult without clinical mental disability would not know this to be fact. So, their harping on the SJWs can only be rooted in bigoted bias and trying to fallaciously equate real injustice with these cases, so that all such injustices can be treated as frivolous and unimportant.

Many of them actually BELIEVE that Obamacare made things worse for them and not better and hate Obama for it.

And given the mountain of evidence clearly refuting that belief, they could only believe it because of an emotional anti-Obama bias that makes them want to believe it. And racism is a major source of that bias.

This is a hell of a lot more complicated than wanting to feel superior to black people.

Correct, it isn't just about wanting to "feel" superior to blacks, but to actually be treated as superior under the law, and about wanting to attack equal rights for women, gays, non-Christians, and transgenders. All the things you mention are in large part (but not entirely) smoke-screens and red-herrings designed to cover for and fuel these bigotries.

Again, remember how many who voted for Trump this time voted for Obama last time.
We don't know that a single person who voted for Trump voted for Obama, it is highly implausible there are more than a few.
Trump won areas that Obama won, but that is almost entirely due to different people voting, rather than anyone going from Obama to Trump.
Remember that in many areas less than half of people voted at all, and the polls show that it was mostly left leaning people who did not vote while right wingers came out in even higher numbers than in 2008.

In 2008, the economy, foreign relations, and global security has just been blown to shit by the GOP president. McCain was a blah "moderate" conservative (by Trump standards) getting solidly beat in the polls for 6 months (except for one week when that racist Auntie was announced as VP). Not only did the right wing bigots think McCain had no chance, but he didn't motivate them because he didn't "tell it like it is" (aka say hateful racist, sexist, and xenophobic things like they do when alone with their bros).
Trump got the bigots mobilized, and Hillary got the Bern-victims demobilized. In rural areas that was enough to flip the net result to favor Trump, which won him a few key states.
 
I disagree that the majority of trump's base are rural folk. I think the bulk of Trump's base are disaffected suburbanites.

That has not been my observation. My observation has been that there are two types of supporters... the 1% that benefits anytime any billionaire benefits... they support multi-million dollar tax cuts and removal of regulations that cause expense.. like air filters and such. They have no care and no need for government entitlements.. they hire a private doctor and pay cash.... they buy an island and hire their own private army... etc...

The 25% or so remaining Americans that support trump have a completely separate body of information than everyone else.
If up were down, it would not be stupid to stand on your head all day... sure, you can call falling for false information targeting your information bubble, or even HAVING an information bubble, as stupid. and it is... but don't call them stupid... it makes them more stupid. It makes them proud of their stupid. Call them what they are... victims of well organized and targeted lies.
 
Mid-West a Victim of Rural Brain Drain

I think it's fairly understated how big of an impact de-industrialization and this are having on your politics.

Based on everything I've seen the U.S. is becoming more not less polarized on a lot of issues, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is a key factor in the process.

And so the problem isn't he said/she said, it's economic, and probably also to a significant extent cultural given dumb policies exacerbate the problem.

Brain Drain. Mrs. Scombrid is from small town western PA. She got a DVM and got out. I left small town southern Virginia. We make 4-5X more than if we'd tried to make a go back home. She probably makes more as an associate down here than she could as a practice owner back in rural PA, that is if she could even keep the practice solvent up there. You go home to visit and it is depressing. All the smart kids left. The people remaining aren't hitting on much.

Go to any small down like Perry, Florida. The people with the brains and ambition to do so get the hell out. The people left behind are just that, left behind. If the one mill shuts down everybody there is fucked. I understand why those people feel the Democrats have left them behind or overlooked them. I don't understand why they think Trump and the rest of the GOP are somehow on their side except for some key wedge issues and successful scapegoating.
 
Now, hopefully, then will listen to the people next time instead of merely flapping their gums and running to corporate interests and insider politics. And Trump hasn't been the disaster many expected of him.

Trump handed the EPA and Interior Department to the oil barons and has told the CFPB to back off Equifax and the credit card cartels. He is so far up Goldmine Sachs' ass that it isn't even funny.

Yeah, that is a real finger to the eye of the politicians that run to corporate interests and insider politics.
 
Oh, they know their value system.

So do the Islamists and every other fundamentalist religion that has ever taken its society down the shitter while the rest of the world passes them by. They cling to their values and blame the rest of the world for their problems.

The Corporatists know how to push their buttons too and their religious leaders Billy Graham and company have totally sold their asses out to the multinational oligarchs.

What is a "corporatist"?

Scott Walker handing FoxConn $billions$ in subsidies comes to mind.

Someone that feels that Rick Perry and Scott Pruitt are better than scientists for running DOE and EPA might fit the bill.
 
I understand why those people feel the Democrats have left them behind or overlooked them.
could you expand on this please? because i don't understand it and i never have.

democrats are the ones supporting social safety nets, unemployment benefits, job training, general welfare, education (in general) and education assistance, affordable health care, health and business regulations... all the things that, short of just giving them a bag full of money to move to a city, are things that small town americans need to survive being small town americans.

so why do they feel democrats have abandoned them, aside from just stupidly buying into propaganda?
 
so why do they feel democrats have abandoned them, aside from just stupidly buying into propaganda?

Between the RNC and the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the media they receive is overwhelmingly dominated by right-wing propaganda. You can't completely blame them for swallowing it, since it's almost all they have access to.
 
I never claimed to vote for Trump, nor did I vote for Trump. But I do understand, from first hand experience described in a post you didn't bother to read, the arrogance of the progressive mindset. That's why I understand the Trump supporters better than any progressive ever would.

You grew up poor and Hispanic and you side with Trump supporters?


Wow.

Yeah, it is amazing that I understand them instead of merely dismissing them all as inbred racists.

I understand many of them to be inbred racists. That's not a dismissal, it's just an observation that successfully allows their behaviour to be predicted.
 
so why do they feel democrats have abandoned them, aside from just stupidly buying into propaganda?

Between the RNC and the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the media they receive is overwhelmingly dominated by right-wing propaganda. You can't completely blame them for swallowing it, since it's almost all they have access to.
going to have to respectfully disagree.
if you turn on the TV and it says "OMG IT'S SNOWING OUTSIDE" and then you put on 8 layers of wool and go out into 103 degree summer heat because it's august you can't say it was the TV's fault you got heat stroke 3 hours later because you never took your winter clothes off because the TV said it was snowing.
i'm willing to give some benefit of the doubt when it comes to being manipulated, but there comes a point where observable reality does not align with the bullshit you're swallowing, and at that point you can either adjust your perceptions and behaviors to match the data presented to you, or you can ignore reality and live in a self-induced delusion.
now obviously being religious means that these people opt for the latter at every opportunity, which makes them stupid and dangerous, and is why we disdainfully mock them for being dangerously stupid.
(also, it's not all they have access to - it's all they choose to have access to. between cable and the internet there are a bazillion news sources available to anyone who bothers to look for it.)

but anyways, back to the original question: why do these people think democrats have abandoned them, notably in the face of democrats consistently pushing for policies which empower them, and notably in the face of the republicans having shat directly in their mouths for the last 35 years?
 
I understand why those people feel the Democrats have left them behind or overlooked them.
could you expand on this please? because i don't understand it and i never have.

democrats are the ones supporting social safety nets, unemployment benefits, job training, general welfare, education (in general) and education assistance, affordable health care, health and business regulations... all the things that, short of just giving them a bag full of money to move to a city, are things that small town americans need to survive being small town americans.

so why do they feel democrats have abandoned them, aside from just stupidly buying into propaganda?

no aside. It's just stupidly buying into the propaganda... or, more accurately, HUMANLY buying into the propaganda... as it is human nature to assign agency and demonize a perceived threat. That is exploited by those that profit from it.

You are right that the poor and uneducated should be Democrats, as that party represent the things that benefit those people the most.
However, they are taught the opposite. Anyone recall that random woman in the street that was saying how Trump lowered her healthcare costs and saved her son's life after Obama tried to take it all away from her... and then she was told that the AHA and Obamacare were the same thing, and it was Obama that saved her son and lowered her rates. Do you think she is going around today correcting other people? Prolly not.
 
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