Marble Falls        In puzzling out the big city, New Yorker Donald Trump and his appeal, there’s some interest in the media and in the mainstream about what’s up with rural America.  Is this the “real” America, as some conservatives claim, or is this just the hotbed of the left-behinds and white Christian nationalists, as some on the left believe.  Likely, the real answer is somewhere between “some of the above” and “none of the above.”   What is beyond dispute is that there are real issues in small towns and rural areas, just as there are in big cities, like housing, healthcare, public services, jobs, and just plain cost of living.  These are urban issues, just different in nature and degree in the rest of America, and often in the rest of the world as well.  Neither area benefits from the myths, marketing, or politics when it comes to real life.

I may have been born and partially raised in small towns and rural areas like Laramie, Wyoming, Wilson Creek and Rangely, Colorado, and Irving, Kentucky, but my high school diploma then and voter registration, says New Orleans for many years now, so I can’t claim to be an expert.  More of our organizing also takes place in cities of all sizes as well, so that’s where work takes me, but I do spend time, whenever I can, along the Pearl River and Gulf Coast bayou country in a majority of Black community and in the low-slung mountains of the Ozarks, a majority of white set of communities.  All of which makes me a constant observer bridging both divides, humble in assessing either, though bolder when it comes to assisting rural communities obtain low power noncommercial radio licenses and bring justice, equity, and democracy to rural electric cooperatives, where I am a member of two of them.

Rural areas and small towns are in trouble, that’s just the facts.  Furthermore, for the life of me, despite Trump’s profession of love for them and many for love of him, I can’t find any of his policies that will make a difference in protecting these kinds of communities.  The Biden administration has made huge investments in these areas from increasing internet access to fundamental infrastructure, whether roads or sewer systems.  These communities need that and more.  The Wall Street Journal is clear that many of these communities are literally in danger of dying as young people continue to leave for just about anywhere else and the existing population is aging rapidly, can’t fill the jobs on offer, and don’t have the money to pay all of the bills.  The right-wing Silicon Valley libertarians may like stringing them along, Vance-style, but crypto, server farms, and artificial intelligence won’t solve rural and small-town issues.

At the same time, the left needs to shy away from the stereotypes as well, as a noteworthy recent issue of Jacobin pointed out emphasizing the issues and interest of rural areas.  These areas shouldn’t be written off.  Economic issues of jobs, wages, utility rates, affordable housing, and more, move them just as quickly as we find in any urban neighborhood.  Just this morning, I read an email from a woman being forced out of her small-town community in rural South Carolina because the housing complex where she had lived for years due to a series of sales has ended up owned by private equity which is increasing the rent 50%.  She is worried about being homeless.  Sound familiar?  Indeed!

We need these communities to survive and thrive.  There have to be places where you can get breakfast for your evening meal, where you can hear song birds in the morning, be close to nature, fresh air, young deer drinking in the creeks, wild turkeys on the ridge, and alligators and ducks living side by side in the reeds.  There may be Christian music playing where you buy your espresso, but it’s one country where some of the same issues and aspirations exist, even with a different accent and turn of phrase, until challenged on self-interest and commonality.

The surveys show that despite the high level of discontent in some of these areas about the bureaucracy, the economy, and the general situation of America, when it comes to where people want to live, and whether they would rather be anywhere else, they all think America is number one in their book.  No matter the efforts to divide, on that issue, we are all in agreement, no matter our home address, so we need to work more on what unites us, rather than letting anybody demonize us.