In the popular imagination of many Americans, particularly those on the left side of the political spectrum, the typical MAGA supporter is a rural resident who hates Black and Brown people, loathes liberals, loves gods and guns, believes in myriad conspiracy theories, has little faith in democracy, and is willing to use violence to achieve their goals, as thousands did on Jan. 6.
According to a new book, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy, these aren’t hurtful, elitist stereotypes by Acela Corridor denizens and bubble-dwelling liberals… they’re facts.
The authors, Tom Schaller, a professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Paul Waldman, a former columnist at The Washington Post, persuasively argue that most of the negative stereotypes liberals hold about rural Americans are actually true.
Get fucked. These people are products of poverty and the system that is designed to fail them.
This is just Democrat/Liberal PMC propaganda to help them feel better about their abandonment of the working class people of America for the benefit of their donor class.
Then they have a shocked Pikachu face when the people they left to stagnate and rot, turn out to be the shitty products of their environment aka the neoliberal hellscape of modern day America.
And now that they are shitty people, we can just forget all about how we got here, and put all the blame on them.
I fully agree with you here that we’re not having a conversation about what produces these people. I have parents that are quite terrible people, but I can see what made them that way. They’ve watched their savings and pensions evaporate and their job opportunities dwindle. They feel strongly that the government doesn’t support their interests and share the feeling that most Americans have that the system isn’t working. They don’t feel represented.
Supporting Trump and other ridiculous conservative positions is their way of lashing out. It’s not a productive response, but I feel that this disenfranchisement is a major driver that creates these people. They are Americans too, and we should be asking what we can do to build unity and improve America for everyone.
Yes, they are still responsible for their actions. However, I think that it’s equally bad to ignore the factors that are producing these people in mass. I prefer to view these people as misinformed children who rather hurt others than fix problems.
Worshipping the personification of the system that fucked them over is the stupidest reaction possible.
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