Why ‘White Rural Rage’ Is a Threat to American Democracy

Rural white people, as a group, now pose four interconnected threats to the fate of the United States’ pluralist, constitutional democracy.

Rural white voters have long enjoyed outsize power in American politics. They have inflated voting power in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House and the Electoral College.

Although there is no uniform definition of “rural,” and even federal agencies cannot agree on a single standard, roughly 20% of Americans live in rural communities, according to the Census Bureau’s definition. And three-quarters of them – or approximately 15% of the U.S. population – are white.

Since the rise of Jacksonian democracy and the expansion of the vote to all white men in the late 1820s, however, the support of rural white people has been vital to the governing power of almost every major party coalition. Which is why my co-author Paul Waldman and I describe rural white people as America’s “essential minority” in our book “White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy.”

As a political scientist, I’ve written or co-written five books addressing issues of racial politics at some level of government or part of the country. My latest, “White Rural Rage,” seeks to understand the complex intersections of race, place and opinion and the implications they hold for our political system.

The unfortunate fact is that polls suggest many rural white people’s commitment to the American political system is eroding. Even when they are not members of militant organizations, rural white people, as a group, now pose four interconnected threats to the fate of the United States’ pluralist, constitutional democracy.

Although these do not apply to all rural white people, nor exclusively to them in general, when compared with other Americans, rural white people:

– Express the most racist, least inclusive, most xenophobic, most anti-LGBTQ+ and most anti-immigrant sentiments.

– Subscribe at the highest rates to conspiracy theories about QAnon, the 2020 presidential election, Barack Obama’s citizenship and COVID-19 vaccines.

– Support a variety of antidemocratic and unconstitutional positions and exhibit strong attachments to white nationalist and white Christian nationalist movements inimical to secular, constitutional governance.

– Are most likely to justify, if not call for, force or violence as acceptable alternatives to deliberative, peaceful democracy.

XENOPHOBIA fewer rural residents hold inclusive views on social issues - Bucks County Beacon - Why 'White Rural Rage' Is a Threat to American Democracy In a Pew Research Center poll conducted in 2018, 46% of white rural Americans said it is important to live in a diverse community. That’s a lower proportion than urban and suburban dwellers and even nonwhite rural residents.

And in rural areas, fewer than half the people said white people have advantages Black people do not, approve of the legalization of same-sex marriage, and say immigrants make American society stronger.

In addition, Cornell researchers found that rural whites reported feeling less comfortable with gay and lesbian people than urban whites do. And 49% of rural LGBTQ+ people between the ages of 10 and 24 called their own towns “unaccepting” of LGBTQ+ people – nearly twice the rate of suburban and urban LGBTQ+ young people who said the same about their communities.

CONSPIRACISM rural dwellers are more likely to believe conspiracy theories - Bucks County Beacon - Why 'White Rural Rage' Is a Threat to American Democracy Polls in 2020 and 2021 indicated that QAnon supporters are 1.5 times more likely to live in rural areas than urban ones, and 49% of rural residents – 10 points higher than the national average – believe a “deep state” undermines Trump.

Rural residents are also more likely than urban and suburban residents to believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, according to 2021 polling by the Public Religion Research Institute.

And people who live in rural areas are also less confident as a whole than those who live in urban areas that votes will be counted accurately and fairly in their state or across the country, according to a 2022 poll from the Bipartisan Policy Center.

In addition, by our analysis, of the 139 U.S. House members who voted to reject the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election just hours after a violent mob of Trump supporters rampaged through the Capitol, 103 – 74% – represented either “purely rural” or “rural/suburban” districts, as categorized by Bloomberg’s CityLab project.

ANTIDEMOCRATIC BELIEFS more rural residents hold antidemocratic views - Bucks County Beacon - Why 'White Rural Rage' Is a Threat to American Democracy A scholarly analysis of multiyear data from the American National Election Studies project finds that rural citizens are “much more likely (than urban residents) to favor restrictions on the press” and to say it would be “helpful if the president could unilaterally work” without regard to Congress or the courts.

In addition, more than half of rural residents surveyed by the Public Religion Research Institute said being a Christian is important to “being truly American” – 10 percentage points more than in surburban or urban areas.

This is one of several signals that rural residents are disproportionately likely to support white Christian nationalism, an ideology that reaches beyond Christian ideas of faith and morality and into government. Its followers want the United States to base its laws on Christian values rather than maintain the centuries-old separation of church and state the founders saw as fundamental to a secular democracy.

JUSTIFICATION OF VIOLENCE rural americans more likely to support political violence - Bucks County Beacon - Why 'White Rural Rage' Is a Threat to American Democracy Rural residents are more likely than urban or suburban residents to say the political situation in the country is heading to a point where violence may be necessary to preserve the nation, according to polls from the Public Religion Research Institute in 2021 and the University of Chicago Institute of Politics in 2022.

Of the estimated 21 million Americans who in late 2021 said Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential win was “illegitimate,” according to the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, 30% lived in rural areas. And 27% of Americans who say Trump should be returned to office even if “by force” are rural residents. Those are minority views, but both proportions are significantly higher than the rural proportion of the overall population.

With the 2024 election fast approaching, the views of rural white people are once again of vital importance because they and the members of Congress who represent them disproportionately believe the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump by Joe Biden. A Pew Research Center study found 71% of rural white voters voted for Trump in 2020, so their preference in November will be key to who returns to the White House for a second term.

Thomas F. Schaller is Professor of Political Science at University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Thomas Schaller is a flaming shincter Maxist. He believes i the indictrination of students rather than theior education.
uthis bogus book , which is a lie.An attempt t9o 9md9ctrinate utrbam city democrats into hating those yeyhoos who live out in rural America.

MAGA IS COMING ANYWAY Schaller, and you and your Marxist demographic warmongers will not win.

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White Rural Rage: The Threat to America’s Democracy
Hardcover edition
Author Thomas Schaller and Paul Waldman
Country United States
Language English
Subject Political science
Publisher Penguin Random House
Publication date
February 27, 2024
Pages 320

White Rural Rage: The Threat to America’s Democracy is a 2024 book by the political science professor Thomas Schaller and the op-ed columnist Paul Waldman. The book examines the supposed threat posed to the United States by rural white right-wing extremism.
Overview

Schaller and Waldman claim that despite their “outsize political power,” white rural voters see themselves as neglected by the U.S. political system, with challenges such as inadequate healthcare, crumbling infrastructure, and economic decline. The book argues that this disillusionment, fueled by Republican politicians and right-wing media, creates a sense of betrayal among rural whites, leading them to reject democratic norms and embrace extremist ideologies. Schaller and Waldman claim that white rural voters are a unique threat to U.S. democracy and propose a reimagined political landscape that addresses the grievances of rural America while protecting the country’s democratic principles.[1][2]
Reception

Paul Krugman, in The New York Times, said that White Rural Rage discusses the process of technological change and its effects on rural areas “in devastating, terrifying and baffling detail.” Agreeing with the authors’ thesis, he wrote that “while white rural rage is arguably the single greatest threat facing American democracy, I have no good ideas about how to fight it.”[3]

Washington Post editor Mary Jo Murphy wrote that White Rural Rage “goes for the jugular” when discussing its subjects, saying that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 “basket of deplorables” comment “sounds almost quaint” in comparison. Despite this, Murphy added that the authors back up their analysis by “stuff[ing] the chapters with empirical data, citing dozens of polls and studies”.[2]

Salon writer Amanda Marcotte said that the book “refreshingly holds rural white voters to account for their choices, and for willfully gobbling down right-wing propaganda.”[4]

Lloyd Green, in The Guardian, wrote that Schaller and Waldman “seek to cover a lot of ground but often come up short.” Green argued that the book “neglects key factors” that hurt the Democratic Party in rural areas, such as the party’s messaging on crime.[5]
Critical responses from academics

Multiple academics whose research was cited in White Rural Rage said that Schaller and Waldman had misinterpreted their and others’ work.[6][7][8][9] Political scientist Nicholas Jacobs criticized the book for using the word “rage” instead of “resentment,” which he saw as a more accurate characterization of white rural voters’ attitudes. Jacobs further claimed that the authors committed logical fallacies when interpreting data and relied on polls with questionable methodology, noting that they had not conducted their own research for the book.[6] Jacobs made similar claims in an article for Reason with political science professor B. Kal Munis, writing that “Schaller and Waldman repeatedly commit academic malpractice” by “misrepresent[ing] the findings of multiple scholars who have built careers conducting research on rural politics and identity.”[7]

In a Newsweek article, political science professor Kristin Lunz Trujillo wrote that the book “makes a lot of negative assertions” about its subjects “without the methodological rigor or correct characterization of existing literature to back it up.” Lunz Trujillo noted that her research found that rural American identity is based more on positive emotions toward one’s community, rather than rage and other negative emotions toward outsiders. She argued that White Rural Rage was “a prime example of how intellectuals sow distrust by villainizing a group of people who are already disproportionately shut out from science, higher education, and similar opportunities.”[8]

The Atlantic contributing writer and environmental studies professor Tyler Austin Harper said that after speaking with over 20 scholars of rural studies, he was “convinced that the book is poorly researched and intellectually dishonest.” Harper highlighted several issues with the book, including Schaller and Waldman’s loose definitions of what constitutes a “rural” community. He accused the authors of “warp[ing] the evidence to deflect blame away from metro areas, onto rural ones”. For example, an article the authors cited to support their claim that “the threat of political violence is particularly acute in rural America” actually contradicted that claim, finding that political violence in the U.S. has been greatest in the suburbs.[9]

Responding to these critiques in an essay for The New Republic, Schaller and Waldman said that they had been “surprised by the ferocity of the criticism we have received from scholars of rural politics.” They wrote that there was a “clear discomfort with the implications” of recent research “showing some disturbing patterns of opinion among rural voters, especially rural whites”. While acknowledging that their critics had identified “a few errors” in the book, Schaller and Waldman added that “their legitimate criticisms are buried in a pile of personal insults, factual inaccuracies, and apologetics for rural whites... In rising to the defense of their subjects, the scholars discount or ignore the disturbing beliefs many (though not all) rural whites hold and work hard to justify and validate their resentments.”[10]
References

“White Rural Rage by Tom Schaller, Paul Waldman: 9780593729144 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books”. Penguin Random House. Archived from the original on April 11, 2024. Retrieved April 11, 2024.
Murphy, Mary Jo (March 8, 2024). “This book about Trump voters goes for the jugular”. The Washington Post. Archived from the original on March 14, 2024. Retrieved April 5, 2024.
Krugman, Paul (February 26, 2024). “The Mystery of White Rural Rage”. The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 7, 2024. Retrieved April 12, 2024.
Marcotte, Amanda (March 5, 2024). “”They frankly laugh behind the backs of their own voters”: How Republicans bamboozle rural whites”. Salon. Archived from the original on April 12, 2024. Retrieved April 12, 2024.
Green, Lloyd (April 7, 2024). “White Rural Rage review: Clinton’s ‘deplorables’ jibe at book length”. The Guardian. Archived from the original on April 10, 2024. Retrieved April 12, 2024.
Jacobs, Nicholas F. (April 5, 2024). “What Liberals Get Wrong About ‘White Rural Rage’ – Almost Everything”. Politico. Archived from the original on April 11, 2024. Retrieved April 5, 2024.
Jacobs, Nicholas F.; Munis, B. Kal (March 7, 2024). “The Truth About ‘Rural Rage’”. Reason. Archived from the original on April 10, 2024. Retrieved April 12, 2024.
Lunz Trujillo, Kristin (March 11, 2024). “’White Rural Rage’ Cites My Research. It Gets Everything About Rural America Wrong | Opinion”. Newsweek. Archived from the original on April 10, 2024. Retrieved April 12, 2024.
Harper, Tyler Austin (April 4, 2024). “An Utterly Misleading Book About Rural America”. The Atlantic. Archived from the original on April 11, 2024. Retrieved April 12, 2024.
Waldman, Paul; Schaller, Tom (April 11, 2024). “An Honest Assessment of Rural White Resentment Is Long Overdue”. The New Republic. Archived from the original on April 12, 2024. Retrieved April 12, 2024.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rural_Rage

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