Last Call For In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions, Con't

The great Kroog asks:

 

Can Anything Be Done to Assuage Rural Rage?

 

Short answer: No.

Rural resentment has become a central fact of American politics — in particular, a pillar of support for the rise of right-wing extremism. As the Republican Party has moved ever further into MAGAland, it has lost votes among educated suburban voters; but this has been offset by a drastic rightward shift in rural areas, which in some places has gone so far that the Democrats who remain face intimidation and are afraid to reveal their party affiliation.

But is this shift permanent? Can anything be done to assuage rural rage? 

Long answer: After 30, 40 years of making white rural voters hate everything that isn't a white rural voter? 

 

Hell no. Stop trying and move on already, we're deep into triage mode now. Save who you can.

 

Really Long Answer: Yes, but it's going to take a generation to undo the damage since the Newt Gingrich era, and we have to ask ourselves if we have the time and energy to do that before the fascists gain permanent one-party control of several states, and the hard data shows it's largely too late in places like Ohio, Florida, and Alabama. 

 

The process of reforming these states will take decades and while we have to get started on saving people, the greater good of the rest of the country's federal government has to take priority. 

 

Take it from a person in Kentucky, just one gubernatorial election this year away from one-party Republican rule for the next 20 years.

This has been In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions.