>So what’s the matter with the heartland? The most likely
story is that the 21st-century economy is driven by knowledge-intensive industries that flourish in metropolitan areas with highly educated work forces. This has led to a self-reinforcing process in which jobs migrate to places with lots of college graduates, and college graduates migrate to the same places, leaving less-educated places like West Virginia stranded.
>What is true, and may partially explain political rage in left-behind regions, is that many of the jobs federal aid creates tend to be female-coded, certainly more so than coal mining — which may in turn explain why the problem of adults without jobs appears to be worse, at least in terms of its political weight, for men than for women.
>That said, the Biden-Harris administration has been making a serious effort to promote manufacturing as part of its industrial policies — an effort that seems to be disproportionately helping heartland states.
>The odd thing is that the politicians angry heartland voters support — Trump received more than twice as many votes in West Virginia as Joe Biden in 2020 — oppose the very programs that aid these depressed areas. Trump tried, in effect, to kill the Affordable Care Act. Not a single Republican voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, which is helping to create manufacturing jobs in the heartland.
Considering how biased our political systems are towards the rural areas, I’ve gotta wonder what they want exactly. They get SO much political attention and have been for decades now. Do they want cultural relevance as well?
RuSnowLeopard on
Didn’t we do enough of these articles in 2017?
Acentooate on
So we′re still pretending this is economic anxiety instead of facing uncomfortable truths about large swaths of our country and its actual, real, veritable anxiety about the loss of undeserved social hierarchy based on immutable characteristics? Mmk.
Maybe one day there will be a conversation about the completely different attitudes towards people ″left behind″ in ″the heartland″ and people ″left behind″ in ghettos and broken exurbs and why they magically end up in opposite political camps despite being able to make similar claims of generational destitution.
Brawl97 on
When I read an economic anxiety article, there are 2 wolves inside of me (Black)
Wolf 1 says: The economic conditions of post war America, once European countries were rebuilt and China rose from backwater to powerhouse, moved in such a fashion that these people were always gonna suffer, as black urban cores suffered, when business moved.
The coal and agribusiness that their communities were built around became cultural totems of survival and prosperity, and asking them to give that up enraged and disillusioned people who were Democrats since birth, when FDR came and legitimized the unions their grandparents got shot by Pinkertons over.
Democrats can’t bring coal country back, and the mechanisms to revitalize their dying towns involves immigration and redevelopment, and that kinda rapid change is scary.
Democrats almost certainly can’t convince this generation of rurals, but they should still have health care. Andy Beshear shows us that we can speak to them. It just has to be a white guy who doesn’t have City folk energy. One day, with enough effort, we can get through to them.
Besides, it’s useful to not lose every rural county by 69 points.
——
Wolf 2 says: The rurals are racist shitheads who only ever vote for people to make their lives worse. From school privatization killing the 1 school they have within 60 minutes drive in the whole county, to preventing Medicare expansion because they’re scared a black single mom with 6 kids might get it.
These people, in their quest to turn back time, want to strip me of my rights, deport and violently dispossess millions, and literally scorch the world because 1 too many movies had a gay person in it.
I fucking hate these people, I think they’re stupid and ugly and petty and evil. If I voiced even 1/100th of the violent contempt I had for these people I’d be permabanned.
I should really not go there, and let someone who is less hateful do the outreach. I will keep my mouth shut and stick to urban/suburban activism.
4 Comments
>So what’s the matter with the heartland? The most likely
story is that the 21st-century economy is driven by knowledge-intensive industries that flourish in metropolitan areas with highly educated work forces. This has led to a self-reinforcing process in which jobs migrate to places with lots of college graduates, and college graduates migrate to the same places, leaving less-educated places like West Virginia stranded.
>What is true, and may partially explain political rage in left-behind regions, is that many of the jobs federal aid creates tend to be female-coded, certainly more so than coal mining — which may in turn explain why the problem of adults without jobs appears to be worse, at least in terms of its political weight, for men than for women.
>That said, the Biden-Harris administration has been making a serious effort to promote manufacturing as part of its industrial policies — an effort that seems to be disproportionately helping heartland states.
>The odd thing is that the politicians angry heartland voters support — Trump received more than twice as many votes in West Virginia as Joe Biden in 2020 — oppose the very programs that aid these depressed areas. Trump tried, in effect, to kill the Affordable Care Act. Not a single Republican voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, which is helping to create manufacturing jobs in the heartland.
Considering how biased our political systems are towards the rural areas, I’ve gotta wonder what they want exactly. They get SO much political attention and have been for decades now. Do they want cultural relevance as well?
Didn’t we do enough of these articles in 2017?
So we′re still pretending this is economic anxiety instead of facing uncomfortable truths about large swaths of our country and its actual, real, veritable anxiety about the loss of undeserved social hierarchy based on immutable characteristics? Mmk.
Maybe one day there will be a conversation about the completely different attitudes towards people ″left behind″ in ″the heartland″ and people ″left behind″ in ghettos and broken exurbs and why they magically end up in opposite political camps despite being able to make similar claims of generational destitution.
When I read an economic anxiety article, there are 2 wolves inside of me (Black)
Wolf 1 says: The economic conditions of post war America, once European countries were rebuilt and China rose from backwater to powerhouse, moved in such a fashion that these people were always gonna suffer, as black urban cores suffered, when business moved.
The coal and agribusiness that their communities were built around became cultural totems of survival and prosperity, and asking them to give that up enraged and disillusioned people who were Democrats since birth, when FDR came and legitimized the unions their grandparents got shot by Pinkertons over.
Democrats can’t bring coal country back, and the mechanisms to revitalize their dying towns involves immigration and redevelopment, and that kinda rapid change is scary.
Democrats almost certainly can’t convince this generation of rurals, but they should still have health care. Andy Beshear shows us that we can speak to them. It just has to be a white guy who doesn’t have City folk energy. One day, with enough effort, we can get through to them.
Besides, it’s useful to not lose every rural county by 69 points.
——
Wolf 2 says: The rurals are racist shitheads who only ever vote for people to make their lives worse. From school privatization killing the 1 school they have within 60 minutes drive in the whole county, to preventing Medicare expansion because they’re scared a black single mom with 6 kids might get it.
These people, in their quest to turn back time, want to strip me of my rights, deport and violently dispossess millions, and literally scorch the world because 1 too many movies had a gay person in it.
I fucking hate these people, I think they’re stupid and ugly and petty and evil. If I voiced even 1/100th of the violent contempt I had for these people I’d be permabanned.
I should really not go there, and let someone who is less hateful do the outreach. I will keep my mouth shut and stick to urban/suburban activism.